"Aah" Sitapuri

Indian poet, lyricist, author and film director, he wrote under his pen name "Aah". Dr. Safdar was born on 28 Aug 1905 in Sitapur (Uttar Pradesh), India. He was only 14 years old when his writings began to be published in various newspapers and journals. He became proficient in Arabic, Farsi, Sanskrit, English, Urdu and Hindi languages. He started publishing his own Urdu weekly in 1928. He went to Mumbai in the 1940s and started writing lyrics for songs for mostly Hindi films. Safdar Aah wrote the story, dialogue and songs for the film Pehli Nazar in 1945, his lyrics provided the singer Mukesh with his debut song "Dil Jalta Hai", this became a superhit song and earned fame both for Safdar Aah and Mukesh. Dr. Safdar kept writing for the Bollywood industry up until 1962, after this he started exploring other avenues and published several books of his own. He passed away on 29 July 1980.