Tamasha

Woh Bulayen Toh Kya Tamasha Ho
Hum Na Jayen Toh Kya Tamasha Ho

You can read the rest of this poem here

http://www.urdupoetry.com/siddiqui12.html

Superb Poetry of a Poet who died in Penury at the young age of 46.

He was born in 1928 in Ambala and died in 1974 at Lahore.

He was Muhammad Akhtar more popularly known to us as Sagar Siddiqui or simply Sagar

You can read more about him here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saghar_Siddiqui

Here's another wonderful article on him

Saghar Siddiqui: A man, his demons and his dog

http://www.dawn.com/news/1110922

What touched me about this article is how it ended showing us how this great poet's life ended.

Here it is and I quote:

A fan of his once wrote how (in 1966) while he was driving down Lahore’s Circuit Road, the radio in his car began to play a ghazal written by Saghar.

As the fan was quietly revelling in the power of Saghar’s words, his eyes caught a fleeting glimpse of a thin man with unkempt long hair and in tattered clothes walking aimlessly on the side of the road. It was Saghar.

As the world abandoned this genius, Saghar abandoned the world.

For years he could be seen walking and sleeping on the streets of Lahore, living on the food given to him by those who took him to be a beggar or a fakir.

Amazingly, he continued to write powerful poetry in spite of the fact that he could hardly utter a single coherent sentence anymore.

At times he would write brilliant poems, read them out loudly with a vacant look in his eyes, then tear the papers he’d scribbled these poems on, make a heap and set the heap on fire.

Over the years he befriended a stray dog with whom he shared whatever food that was handed to him by the shopkeepers. The dog would follow him and sleep beside him on any street corner Saghar would choose to sleep on.

After 15 years of morphine addiction, depression and living on the streets, in early 1974 Saghar was found dead in one such street corner of Lahore. Exposed to the cold winter of the city, he passed away in his sleep. He was just 46.

The dog that was with him for more than six years never left the spot where Saghar died. Finally, one year after Saghar’s death, the dog too died — almost exactly at the same spot where Saghar did.

That's my sharing for now.

Love...
Aparna

--
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One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life. -  Khalil Gibran

Spreading

Spreading
Smiles :-)
Wherever
You go

The world
Is yours :-)
Before you
Know

(I cropped this photo from my Kochi's school banner :)







Is It Me?

Is it me
Who
Writes
On those
Sites?

Could be
Me ;-)

'Cause
Even
I don't
Know
The
Person
Who
Writes
On those
Sites ;-)

(seeing my poems on PH and Boloji and trying to know the poetess in me as it seems she's another part of me, hence reading my poems often amazes me ;-)







Realise

As the
Years
Go by
You'll
Realise
That
You
Need
Nobody
Else
Except
Yourself
To realise
Your true
Self

(Theme: Realisation)


Image + Poems © Aparna Chatterjee 2014

You can read more Poems here

It Seems

It seems
You didn't
Like the way
He read the
News for us

That's why
You took him
Away from us

(addressed to God, this poem is dedicated to all the news bulletins given to us by George Alagiah who's now battling Bowel Cancer. He's one of my favourite news readers on BBC. My best wishes are always with him for a full and speedy recovery.)





Seeing

Seeing
The
Bleak
Ending
That
Life has
Who
Would
Want to
Make
Every day
A new
Beginning?

(my thoughts on seeing Shashi Kapoor's wheelchair photo at age 76)

The above poems © Aparna Chatterjee 2014