Saifuddin Saif
A poet, film lyricist and pioneering filmmaker of early Pakistani cinema, for whom the ghazal remained the favourite form — graceful, classical and unhurried.
Two Nigar Awards (1957) · collection Kham-e-Kakul
Saifuddin Saif was born in Amritsar in 1922, and his poetry was shaped by politics before cinema: he joined the anti-colonial Khaksar Movement, and his activism cost him the chance to sit his college examinations, so he never took the degree. After Partition he migrated to Lahore and entered the new Pakistani film industry as a dialogue writer and lyricist.
He is woven into the very first chapter of that industry — among his credits is Teri Yaad (1948), widely described as the first feature film produced in Pakistan. In 1954 he founded his own banner, Rahnuma Films, and moved behind the camera as director and producer; he is best remembered for the film Kartar Singh (1959). Through all of it the ghazal stayed his first love, gathered late in life in the collection Kham-e-Kakul.
mere aazmane wale mujhe aazma ke roe …
“The tale of my longing — she told it again and again, and wept; those who set out to test me, tested me, and wept. When I narrated to the gathering the lived story of my night of grief, some wept and then smiled, some smiled and then wept.”
varna duniya mein koi baat nai baat nahin
“Saif, it is the manner of saying that changes the colour of things — otherwise nothing said in this world is truly new.”
shab ko sannata jaga deta hai
“Noise does not let the day sleep — and silence keeps the night awake.”
sang-e-manzil jise diwar nazar aane lage
“There is no measuring the exhaustion of that traveller to whom the milestone of the destination begins to look like a wall.”
log afsana banaenge tumhein
“You have made a madman of me — people will make a legend of you.”
kisi se rabt badhane ka hausla na hua
“After you, God knows what became of this heart — it never found the courage to grow close to anyone again.”
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