Jaan Nisar Akhtar

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Jaan Nisar Akhtar

Poet, Lyricist

Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India

Jan Nisar Akhtar was a well-known and celebrated Urdu writer and member of the Progressive Writers' Movement in India, who attained much popularity as a lyricist for Hindi films. With a long and prolific career, and over a hundred hit songs in his name, Jan Nisar Akhtar has been immortalised as one of the finest talents the country has produced.

Early Life
Born in 1914, in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, he came from a family of renowned and erudite Islamic scholars and writers. He completed his Bachelors and Masters degrees from Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in Aligarh, after which he returned to Gwalior and took up a teaching position as an Urdu professor. He met his wife Safiya Akhtar née Siraj-ul Haq at AMU, and they together joined the Progressive Writers’ Movement, with him eventually being the president.

Career
He started his career in the film industry in 1949, when he moved to Bombay and began to write lyrics for a number of Hindi movies. Alongside this, he was publishing his own works of poetry and ghazals. He had highly successful collaborations with the greatest music composers of the era, such as C Ramchandra, O P Nayyar, and Khayyam. Although it took him a while to rise to the top, he finally got his claim to fame with Yasmeen (1955). After this, he saw success with his lyrics for popular movies like Baap Re Baap (1955), Naya Andaz (1956), CID (1956), Prem Parvat (1974), Noorie (1979), Shankar Hussain (1977), and Razia Sultan (1983). He even took up a stint as a producer with the film Bahu Begum (1967).

Some of his best poetry and letter collections include Khak-e-Dil, Hamara Hindustan, and Harf-e-ashna: Khatut. Khak-e-Dil won him the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1976.

After a long and fruitful career, he died on 19 August 1976, at the age of 62, while still at work on the sets of Razia Sultan (1983). He was also posthumously nominated for the Filmfare Award for Best Lyricist, for his work on Noorie (1980), with the song 'Aaja Re Mere Dilbar'.