Raghupati Sahay (28 August 1896 - 3 March 1982), better known under his pen name
Firaq Gorakhpuri (
Urdu:
فراق گورکھپوری,
Hindi: फ़िराक़ गोरखपुरी), was a
writer,
critic, and one of the most notedIn his autobiography
Yaadon ki baraat, the poet
Josh Malihabadi wrote that after
Mir and
Ghalib, Firaq is the greatest Urdu poet of India. contemporary
Urdu poets from
India. He established himself as one of the greats in an era which boasted stalwarts like
Iqbal,
Yagana Changezi,
Jigar and
Josh.<!-- Arranged in chronological order of birth -->
Biography
Raghupati Sahay was born in 1896, in
Gorakhpur, into a
Hindu Kayastha family. He was selected for the Provincial Civil Service (P.C.S.) and the Indian Civil Service (I.C.S.), but he resigned to follow
Mahatma Gandhi's
Non-cooperation movement, for which he went to jail. Later, he joined
Allahabad University as a lecturer in
English literature. It was there that he wrote most of his Urdu poetry, including his
magnum opus Gul-e-Naghma which earned him the highest literary award of India, the
Jnanpith Award, and also the 1960
Sahitya Akademi Award in Urdu. During his life, he was given the positions of Research Professor at the
University Grants Commission and Producer Emeritus by
All India Radio. After a long illness, he died on March 3, 1982, in
New Delhi.
As a distinguished poet, Firaq Gorakhpuri was well-versed in all traditional metrical forms such as
ghazal,......
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