Poets

Meeraji (Urdu: میراجی ) (May 25, 1912 – November 4, 1949) was an eminent Urdu poet. He lived the life of a bohemian and worked only intermittently. Early Life Born into a Kashmiri family of Gujranwala and named Mohammed Sanaullah Dar, he passed his childhood days in Kucha Sardar Shah, Mozang, Lahore. His father Munshi Mohammad Mahtabuddin was a railway engineer, so his family had to move from one place to another. He lived in Kathiawar, Bostan (Baluchistan), Sanghar and Jacobabad. Meeraji began composing poetry, under the pseudonym of Sasri, when he was at school. It was from his later encounter with a Bengali girl, Meera Sen, who was a daughter of an accounts officer serving in Lahore, that he fell deeply in love. This left a permanent trace in his life that he adopted his pen name on her name. Though brought up in affluent surroundings, Meeraji left his home and family and chose to lead the life of a homeless wanderer mostly staying with his friends and made a living by selling his songs. Literary Life Meeraji was associated with Adabi Duniya (Lahore) and later worked for All India Radio, Delhi. He wrote literary columns for the monthly Saqi (Delhi) and for a short period helped editing Khayal (Bombay). After partition, he settled permanently in Bombay. From his teenage days Meeraji felt attracted towards Hindu mythology. Hindi vocabulary often came across in his poetry, prose and letters. He acknowledged his debt to the Sanskrit poet A..