Rahat Indori
One of the most celebrated Urdu poets and mushaira performers of modern India, from Indore — renowned for thunderous, defiant recitation and for verse on identity, dissent and resilience.
Bollywood lyricist · a defining mushaira performer of his era
Rahat Indori took an MA and then a PhD in Urdu, taught at a college in his native Indore, and worked as a painter and signboard artist before poetry took the whole of his life. That visual training stayed with him: he turned the mushaira into theatre, pacing the stage and lifting his voice to a near-shout, and in the YouTube era that delivery made him one of the most-watched Urdu poets alive.
He wrote Bollywood lyrics too — for Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. and others — but his signature was defiance. His couplet 'kisi ke baap ka Hindustan thodi hai' became a rallying cry during the 2019–20 protests, the kind of line that leaves the page and becomes a slogan. He died in Indore in August 2020 of COVID-related complications, having announced his own hospitalisation to his followers the day before — public to the very end.
hamare paanv ka kaanta hamin se niklega
“It will come out neither through a fellow-traveller nor any companion — the thorn in our foot will only be drawn out by ourselves.”
zinda rahna hai to tarkiben bahut sari rakho
“Keep water in your eyes and a spark on your lips — if you mean to stay alive, keep many strategies at hand.”
aandhi se koi kah de ki auqat mein rahe
“We are not the kind of leaves that break off from the branches — someone tell the storm to know its limits.”
dushmanon ki bhi rai li jaae
“When you are about to befriend someone, take even your enemies' opinion of them first.”
jahan pe dubega suraj vahin se niklega
“The elders used to say a day would come when the sun would rise again from the very place it had set.”
dhadkanon se bhi ibadat mein khalal padta hai
“Her memory has come — O breaths, move a little gently; even heartbeats can disturb this act of worship.”
mohabbat ki isi mitti ko hindostan kahte hain
“We call even the enemy of our life our beloved — this very soil of love is what we call Hindustan.”
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