Firaq Gorakhpuri Profile

Firaq Gorakhpuri

Raghupati Sahai, better known by his pen name Faraq Gorakhpuri, is an author, critic, and, according to one commentator, one of India's most famous contemporary poets.He established himself among the peers, including Muhammad Iqbal, Yagana Changezi, Jigar Muradabadi and Josh Malehabadi.

Raghupati Sahai was born in a good and educated family on 28th August 1896 in Gorakhpuri. He completed his basic education and then completed a master's degree in Urdu, Persian and English literature.

Faraq showed early signs of excellence in Urdu poetry and was always attracted to literature. His contemporaries included famous Urdu poets such as Allama Iqbal, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Kefi Aazmi and Sahir Ludhianvi. Nevertheless, he managed to make his place in Urdu poetry at an early age.

Gorakhpuri specialized in all traditional matric forms such as ghazal, nazm, rubai and qata. He wrote more than a dozen volumes of Urdu poetry, half a dozen volumes of Urdu poetry, several volumes on literary topics in Hindi, as well as four volumes of English prose on literary and cultural subjects.

His autobiography, Faraq Gorakhpuri: The Pain and Ecstasy of Poetry written by his nephew Ajay Mansingh, was published by Rolly Box in 2015. The book included stories from his life and translations of some of his work.

Firaq Gorakhpuri passed away on March 3, 1982 at the age of 85. Firaq fought the battle of secularism all his life and played a key role in opposing the government's attempt to name Urdu as the language of Muslims.