Jigar Moradabadi, probably the greatest Urdu poet of love, in the last century. He was actually a traveling salesman turned poet, and inspired an entire generation of Urdu poets/writers from Majrooh Sultanpuri to Faiz Ahmed Faiz. He had an interesting personal life; he loved Allah, wine and women in turns, and had many love affairs inspite of being short and ugly. His contemporaries, the Urdu Leftists from PWA, avoided him I think, because he preferred writing about love and wine, didn't care about the freedom movement or the Independence that followed.
Moradabadi held himself in great esteem, claiming "prices of essentials go up when I visit a town".
I wish someone did a film on him, Manoj Bajpayee would play him of course.
We need to preserve and cherish our great cultural heritage, that's why I am writing this.
'Aadmi aadmi se milta hai
dil magar kam kisi se milta hai
bhool jaata hoon main sitam uskey
woh kuchh is saadgi se milta hai
aaj kya baat hai ke phoolon ka
rang teri hansi se milta hai
milke bhi jo kabhi nahin milta
Toot kar dil usi se milta hai
Kaar-o-baar-e-jahaan sanwartein hain
hosh jab be khudi se milta hai’.
