Tariq Akbar's video: meera ji: nagri nagri phira musafir: ghulam ali : :

Muhammad Sanaullah Dar محمد ثنا اللہ ڈار was born on 25 May 1912 in Mohalla Balochan, Mozang, Lahore, Punjab, British India. “Dar” ڈار among Muslims (which is “Dhar” دھر among Hindus) is a Kashmiri surname. His ancestors had moved to northwestern Punjab from Kashmir, and had ultimately settled in village Attawa in Gujranwala, Punjab. His father Munshi Mehtabuddin was employed by the British as Assitant Engineer (Bridges) in the Railways. At Sanaullah's birth at Lahore, Munshi sahib was posted at Godhra in the historical Panchmahal district in Kathiawar-Gujarat. After Godhra, munshi sahib was posted to Halol, near Champaner. It was at Halol that Sanaullah started his primary education. Then Sanaullah moved with his family to stations like Bagh (Baluchistan), Sukkur, Jacobabad, and Dabheji (near Karachi). At Dabheji, Sanaullah was in his early teens and did not like the place and asked his father to allow him to go to Lahore. At Lahore he got enrolled in a school and started living almost independently. He was interested in reading and writing and had posted a sign on his room, calling it ساحر خانہ Sahir Khana (meaning “the House of Magician”). He would write hand-written articles in his beautiful hand-writing, and used takhallus Sahiri ساحری as a poet. When he was in 9th grade, an incident changed his life forever. He used to visit F.C. (Forman Christian) College in Lahore to see a friend of his. There he fell in love with a Bengali young woman, میرا سین Meera Sen. She was called “Meera Ji” by her friends. One day, he approached Meera Sen, and asked a question, just to start a conversation. She did not want to speak with Sanaullah and walked away without even speaking with him. Sanaullah never approached her again, but ultimately changed his name to “Meera Ji”. He slowly became addicted to alcohol. His education could not continue properly and he could not even pass the Matriculation (Grade 10) Examination, but he had a tremendous literary talent. He was well read in English literature and ultimately became a well respected critic of Western literature. On 29 April 1936, بزمِ داستان گویاں Bazm-e Dastaan Goyan (Gathering of Story-Tellers) was established in Lahore. It was later renamed as حلقہِ اربابِ ذوق Halqa-e Arbaab-e Zauq (the circle of men of literary taste). Meera Ji attended its session on 25 August 1940 for the first time, and immediately made his mark on this literary organization. Around that time Maulana Salahuddin Ahmad's ادبی دُنیا “Adabi Dunya” (Literary World) became established in Lahore. Meera Ji was the Assistant Editor of Adabi Dunya from 1938 to 1941. His literary work at Adabi Dunya was an important contribution to the development of modern Urdu literature. Meera Ji's lifestyle always made him controversial. His style of living and refusal to follow the recognized “social” norms of the time were in some ways similar to that of Diogenes of Sinope (c412 BCE to 323 BCE). After his younger brother sold all his literary work as junk, he became disheartened. He left Adabi Dunya in 1941 and then moved to دہلی Dehli. He started working at All India Radio Dehli, where he worked as a Staff Artist and wrote scripts for radio programs. He also introduced new programs and interviewed literary figures and singers for his program خرابات “Kharaabat”. He also wrote a regular column باتیں “Baatein”, for the montly ساقی “Saqi”, published from Delhi. He also changed his lifestyle at the insistence of his friends, so that he could make a new start in his life. There he was rejected twice, by two women. This started the second crisis of his life from which he never fully recovered, until his death 7 years later in Bombay, at age 37. He went back to alcoholism, and the accompanying social ills. He last visited Lahore in early 1946. He left Delhi for Bombay on 5 June 1947. He was not successful in starting a career in Bollywood. Meera Ji passed away on 3 November 1949 at the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Bombay. He was 37 years old. There were 5 people in his جنازہ Janazah (the Muslim funeral), 3 Hindus and 2 Muslims: Madhu Sudhan, Mohinder Nath, Aanand Bhushan, Akhtar-ul Iman, and Najam Naqvi. Despite all the efforts by Akhtar-ul Iman, the Bombay newspapers and magazines refused to publish the news of his death. (Tariq Akbar, 24 November 2016)