Wo kab ke aaye bhee aur gaye bhee
Posted on: April 7, 2026
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Today (7 april 2026) is the 136th birth anniversary of legendary Urdu poet Ali Sikandar(7 April 1890-9 september 1960), who is better known by his pen name of Jigar Muradabadi.
Very little information is available on him online. Wikipedia has a page on him, but the information contained there is sketchy, incorrect and often contradictory. Most online sites (copying from each other) mention him as born in Muradabad. But Encyclopaedia of India Literature, part 2, authored by Amaresh Datta, mentions him as born in Benaras. Here are the extracts from that book:-
Jigar Muradabadi(Urdu, b 1893, d 1960). His real name was Ali Sikandar. Born in Benaras, he received oriental education in Arabic, Persian and Urdu in Muradabad, and started his career as a travelling salesman for a local firm dealing in spectacles: later he attracted attention as an Urdu lyricist. He got his earlier poems corrected by the famous Dagh Dehalvi through correspondence. He became a legend in his lifetime for his highlly lyrical ghazals which he recited in a captivating melliflous style. He travelled all over the country attending mushairas. In his later ghazals, heswitched over to the depiction of social and political sensibility of his time. This type of ghazals won him immense popularity after the partition and the riots that followed. Jigar toured Pakistan several times but never agreed to migrate.
His poetic collections include Dagh-e-Jigar, Shola-e-Tur, and Atish-e-Gul. A collection of his letters were published posthumously.
Jigar was one of the five stalwarts responsible for Urdu ghazal’s revival in the twentieth century, others being Hasrat, Fani, Asghar and Firaq Gorakhpuri. Jigar was a poet of tender and mellow feelings of love which for him is no burning passion for possession and conquest but a tender emotion calling for sublimation of self through surrender and suffering. Critics ofter point out his yearning, not so much for communion, but for longing born out of separation from the beloved. He seems to be in love with love itselkf rather than the beloved. His sincere experiences, depiction of various moods and analysis of human relationship, and meticulous arrangement of words in carefully selected rhyme schemes, make his poetry a lilting melody.
At a time when the very relevance of Urdu ghazal as a vehicle of expression for the complex sensibilitity of modern age, was questioned due to ghazal’s heavy stylization, determined vocabulary , deep subjectivism, symbolism and adherence to the theme of love, mortality and mysticism and due to its limitations of one couplet one theme form, Jigar revived it as a vehicle of living experience, giving it the warmth of human relationships.
In later years, Jigar tried to extend the frontiers of ghazal’s symbolism to include in its purview contemporary social and political problem subjects like man’s conquest of space, his search for identity and the quest for peace and self-fulfilment. Numerous references were also made to the political happenings in the sub-continent and the spectacle of human degradation seen during and after the 1947 holocaust. His impact on this contemporaries and the later generation has been immense, especially on his pupils like Majrooh, who gave ghazal the idiom of social and political sensibility. Pooets like Jazbi, Jan Nisaar Akhtar and Majaz were also influenced by the poet. Though greatly influenced by the poet Asghar Condvi, whom he accepted as his patron, Jigar did not confine himself to the mystic themes of Asghar, but bestowed on Urdu richness, warmth, urbanity and vastness of an open and highly sensitive personality.
One of the most useful source of information online on Jigar Muradabadi is this blog itself. Sadanand Kamath jee had given lots of information on him in this post on the occasion of Jigar Muradabadi’s death anniversary.
Jigar Muradabadi did not specifically pen lyrics for Hindi movies, but some of his poetry got used in Hindi movie songs. Here is one such song from “Chowranghee(1942).
“Chowranghee”(1942) was produced by Fazli brothers and directed by S Fazli. The movie had Anis Khatoon, Mehtab, Amzad, Nazeer Kashmiri, Har Prasad etc in it.
“Chowranghee”(1942) had 13 songs in it that were penned by immortal poets, viz Ghalib, Kazi Nazrul Islam (national poet of Bangladesh), Aarzoo Lucknowi, Jigar Muradabai and Partab Lucknowi.
The song under discussion was penned by Jigar Muradabadi and sung by Anis Khatoon. Hanuman Prasad Sharma was the music director. The full nazm is much longer (ten stanzas) but this song only uses a part of it. The effect is nevertheless just as magical.
Only audio of the song is available, but it is clear that the song was picturised on Anis Khatoon herself who was the lead actress in the movie. This rare song, by the way, is uploaded online by Sadanand Kamath jee.
Here is this immortal nazm penned by Jigar Muradabadi, on the occasion of his 136th birth anniversary.
Song-Wo kab ke aaye bhee aur gaye bhee (Chowranghee)(1942) Singer-Anis Khatoon, Lyricist-Jigar Muradabadi, MD-Hanuman Prasad Sharma
Lyrics
wo kab ke aaye bhee aur gaye bhee
wo kab ke aaye bhee aur gaye bhee
nazar mein ab tak samaa rahe hain
wo kab ke aaye bhee aur gaye bhee
nazar mein ab tak samaa rahe hain
ye chal rahe hain wo phir rahe hain
ye aa rahe hain wo ja rahe hain
ye chal rahe hain wo phir rahe hain
ye aa rahe hain wo ja rahe hain
bahaar e rang o shabaab hee kya
sitaara o maahtaab hee kya
tamaam hastee jhukee huyee hai
jidhar vo nazren jhuka rahe hain
tamaam hastee jhukee huyee hai
jidhar vo nazren jhuka rahe hain
ab aage jo kuchh bhee ho muqaddar
rahega lekin ye naqsh e dil par
ab aage jo kuchh bhee ho muqaddar
ab aage jo kuchh bhee ho muqaddar
ham unka daaman pakad rahe hain
wo apna daaman chhuda rahe hain
ham unka daaman pakad rahe hain
wo apna daaman chhuda rahe hain
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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