Ejaz Siddiqi: Blood, Ink, and the Man Who Wouldn’t Let Poetry Die

Ejaz Siddiqi was a man who single-handedly saved Urdu poetry from extinction, armed with nothing but a pen and an unyielding will. In the chaotic heart of 1950s Mumbai, when his printing press failed, he didn’t surrender to fate. Instead, he grabbed his pen and began handwriting an entire literary magazine, ‘Shaair,’ refusing to let a whole language tradition suffocate. This is not the tale of a comfortable literary giant, but of a man who turned personal catastrophe into collective salvation, making poetry bleed with a fierce determination to keep it alive.

The Weight of Ghosts

Agra, 1913. Enter Ejaz Siddiqi, not into privilege, but into the suffocating embrace of literary legacy. His father, Seemab Akbarabadi, wasn’t just a poet; he was the poet, the kind whose name whispered in literary circles could make or break careers. Imagine growing up where dinner table conversations included discussions about metaphors that could topple governments, where bedtime stories were ghazals about heartbreak that made grown men weep. But here’s the twist nobody talks about: living in the shadow of genius doesn’t make you genius, it makes you desperate.

Young Ejaz carried more than notebook scraps to those legendary mushairas. He had the crushing weight of expectation, the unspoken question hanging in perfumed air thick with tobacco and ambition: “Will Seemab’s son ever measure up?” Every evening spent among trembling poets who greeted failure with forced smiles became a masterclass in vulnerability. This wasn’t inspiration, this was survival training.

In those smoke-filled rooms, the boy learned something profound: poetry isn’t written with ink. It’s written with the accumulated debris of human experience, the tears that fall when nobody’s watching, the hopes that survive against all logic.

The Inheritance Nobody Wanted

Then came the blow that would define everything. Seemab Akbarabadi died, leaving behind more than grief, he left behind ‘Shaair’, a literary journal that had become the beating heart of Urdu poetry. Suddenly, Ejaz wasn’t just mourning a father; he was inheriting a responsibility that could crush him.

“Aaj ik aur baras biit gayā us ke baġhair”, another year passed without him. These weren’t just words Ejaz wrote; they were his daily reality. Picture the absurdity: a grieving son forced to become the custodian of an entire literary tradition while his own world crumbled around him.

Financial ruin didn’t knock politely; it kicked down the door. Friends vanished like morning mist. The world outside grew increasingly indifferent to Urdu poetry’s fate. Most people would have folded, sold the magazine, and found a “real job.” But Ejaz Siddiqi wasn’t like most people. He was a man who understood that sometimes the most radical act is simply refusing to quit.

Revolution Disguised as Routine

What happened next reads like literary mythology, but it was brutally honest. When printing presses failed, Ejaz handwrote all the issues of ‘Shaair’. When money ran out, he gave away prized manuscripts to struggling poets, believing words belonged to everyone, not just to those who could afford them.

But here’s where the story becomes revolutionary: Ejaz didn’t just preserve Urdu poetry; he transformed it. His ghazal collections, particularly ‘Daroon-e-Sukhan’, didn’t politely follow traditional romantic themes. They grabbed readers by the throat and forced them to confront changing realities, loneliness, and personal struggle. He made Urdu ghazal dangerous again, intimate, introspective, and socially aware.

Think about the audacity: while India was obsessing over rapid progress and modernisation, Ejaz Siddiqi quietly proved that ancient forms could carry contemporary pain, that traditional meters could hold modern heartbreak.

The Alchemy of Agony

“Duniya sabab-e-shorish-e-gham puchh rahi hai”, the world asks about the cause of my turmoil. When Ejaz wrote these lines, he wasn’t just crafting poetry but documenting the human condition’s most universal experience: the search for meaning amid chaos.

His collections ‘Daroon-e-Sukhan’ and ‘Karb-e-Khud Kalaami’ weren’t books but archaeological sites where readers could excavate their buried emotions. Each ghazal was a small rebellion against the idea that suffering was meaningless, that individual pain couldn’t inspire collective hope.

Ejaz wandered Mumbai’s streets not as a tourist of his city, but as an anthropologist of human connection. He sought stories from strangers who found comfort in his words, understanding that poetry’s real power lay not in academic appreciation, but in its ability to make isolated people feel less alone.

The Editor as Revolutionary

Through ‘Shaair’, Ejaz Siddiqi became something unprecedented: a literary revolutionary disguised as a magazine editor. He didn’t just publish poetry; he curated a cultural insurrection. Special issues celebrating overlooked voices, experimental forms that made traditionalists nervous, and a fearless commitment to literary innovation transformed ‘Shaair’ from a journal into a movement.

This wasn’t preservation, this was evolution. Ejaz understood that keeping Urdu poetry alive meant allowing it to grow, change, and adapt. He became the bridge between classical elegance and modern urgency, proving that tradition’s greatest strength lies not in rigid adherence to rules, but in its capacity for reinvention.

The Contagion of Courage

Nobody expected Ejaz’s intimate, reflective, sometimes melancholic approach to become infectious. Poets across India began adopting his model, writing with raw honesty about personal, political, and philosophical subjects without apologising to tradition. He had accidentally started a revolution by simply being authentic.

The ripple effects continue today. Every time a poet chooses vulnerability over virtuosity, every time someone writes about depression instead of roses, every time literary traditions bend to accommodate contemporary pain, that’s Ejaz Siddiqi’s DNA expressing itself in new forms.

The Man Who Saved Tomorrow

Ejaz Siddiqi died knowing he had accomplished something remarkable: he had kept Urdu poetry’s heart beating through India’s most tumultuous decades. But his real achievement was subtler and more profound. He proved that literature’s power lies not in its ability to preserve the past unchanged, but in its capacity to help each generation find new ways to say what has always needed saying.

In a world obsessed with rapid progress, Ejaz Siddiqi’s life whispers a radical truth: sometimes the most revolutionary act is simply refusing to let beautiful things die. Sometimes the most significant rebellion is believing that individual pain, transformed through art, can become collective healing.

His legacy lives not in archives, but in every writer who dares to believe their broken heart might contain the seeds of someone else’s salvation. In every pen that refuses to surrender, in every voice that insists on being heard,   there’s Ejaz Siddiqi, still writing, still fighting, proving that words can outlive the worlds that try to silence them.

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