Dareechah-e-Nigaarish



Saghir Siddiqui (1928 - 1974) was born in Anbala and spent his childhood in Saharanpur. 

His childhood was spent in these two towns. As a result of some tragic family debacle, Saghir left the home of his parents. At the age of 12, he was living with his one time home Tutor Habib Hasan in Amritsar.  Saghir never divulged his family origins.

He read his first ghazal at a poetry reading in Amritsar in 1944 (Hall bazaar, Amritsar) when he was just 16 years old. 

He was 19 years old at the time of the creation of Pakistan and migrated to Lahore.

The golden period of Saghir's creativity was the 1950's.  In later years, personal emotional setbacks led to a downward spiral of alcohol addiction and drifting on the roads of Lahore as a homeless beggar! 

I remember that we were living in the Walled City (Lahore) neighborhood near Loharee Gate in 1966 when I was woken up at night by a commotion in our street. It turned out that Saghir Siddiqui was drunk and had wandered into our street. People were shouting at him and he kept repeating "I drank in the name of Imam Husain!" (Mein nay Husain kay Naam kee pee hay!"  It was a sad sight for such a talented Urdu poet.

Saghir died in 1974 in Lahore at the age of 46 and will always be remembered as one of the city's  most loved poets.

The Urdu ghazals of Saghir Siddiqui are steeped in the birth pangs of a newly born, raw and bloody Pakistan. 

The pain of every man's dreams betrayed in the strange dawn of our land, Pakistan, is palpable in Saghir Siddiqui's ghazals.

He was the Woody Guthrie of Pakistani poetry . . .  living on the streets of his beloved Lahore to his dying days.



 Saghir Siddiqui

(1928 -  1974)

Modern Urdu Poet