HYDERABAD: India lost one of its finest literary gems noted Urdu poet Rahat Indori on August 11. He was diagnosed Covid-19 positive and died of cardiac arrest in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. He was 70 years old. He was admitted to Aurobindo Hospital in Indore. After the news spread, condolence messages began pouring in on social media. Many among posting the messages are senior politicians, filmmakers, actors, poets, authors among others.
His wife Seema Rahat shared that he was fond of cooking especially non-vegetarian dishes. She added, “It’s an honour to be the significant other of a poet.” Other than being a poet he was also a good painter and painted many posters for Bollywoodmovies. He came from a humble background and started his career as a signboard painter and later rose as a noted lyricist.
He wrote songs for movies like Khuddar, Sir, Munnabhai MBBS, Murder, Begum Jaan, Mission Kashmir, Ishq among others. He was also a professor of Urdu Literature. He taught at Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya for 16 years. His son and poet Satlaj Rahat shared a few of his last couplets one of which reads as:
waba ne kaash humen bhi bula liya hota toh hum par maut ka ehsan bhi nahi hota (How I wish the pandemic summons me That way I’d not have any obligation of death)
Other than penning romantic and poignant songs and ghazals, Rahat Indori also wrote revolutionary lines. During the protests against NRC and CAA, he was quite vocal about it and expressed that Hindustan doesn’t belong to one person, party or religion. In this regard the following lines written by him three decades ago had become the slogan of the protestors: “Lagegi aag toh ayenge kai ghar zadd mein yehan pey sirf hamara makaan thodi hai, sabhi ka khoon shamil hai yehaan ki mitti mein kisi ke baap ka Hindustan thodi hai.”
While speaking to The Indian Express in 2019, he had said: “I wrote this ghazal some 30-35 years ago, though I don’t remember the exact year or the context in which it was written. I have recited this ghazal at many mushaiaras and had even forgotten about it, but I don’t know what’s happened in the last three to four years that like a crop rises again, these words have risen again. Now, wherever I go, people request me to recite this but it’s unfortunate that it’s often taken as a sher by a Muslim. Yeh kisi ek mazhab ka sher nahi hai (these lines are not for any particular religion). They are for everyone.”