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Hayaat-e-Mehroom: Tilok Chand Mehroom – Life and Personality
Name of Author : Jagan Nath Azad
(Hindi transliteration and compilation by Mukta Lall)
By presenting Hayaat-e-Mehroom in Hindi, Mukta Lall makes the life and contribution of Tilok Chand Mehroom accessible to readers who may not read Urdu but remain deeply interested in the literary heritage of the subcontinent. The book serves both as a personal tribute and a serious literary biography, helping restore Mehroom to the Indian literary horizon. The book is more than a conventional literary biography. Its birth is an act of intimate and emotional remembrance by Mukta Lall, the granddaughter of Tilok Chand Mehroom. The narrative weaves together family memories, anecdotes, poetic excerpts, and historical context to create a portrait of a poet whose life spanned colonial India, the freedom struggle, and the trauma of Partition. Priced at ?350, the book runs to 322 pages and includes a valuable preface by Jagan Nath Azad, himself a distinguished poet of the subcontinent.
The book is divided into many engaging chapters titled, Historical and Social Background, The Indus River, ‘Akbar, Abdul Qadir and Allama Iqbal’, The Colourful Period of My Entry into the World of Poetry, On the Banks of the Ravi, The Sorrow Storm, Iqbal and His Poems, My Heart Is Torn Like a Flower Petal in This Environment, A Friend’s Sorrow, Rawalpindi, Partition of India, Punjab University Camp College, Hafeez and Josh, From Old Delhi to New Delhi, The Last Ailment, The Morning of Doomsday, After One Month, Creative Work of Mehroom, and Habits and Conduct. The book also informs us that Tilok Chand Mehroom and Allama Muhammad Iqbal were in correspondence with each other. A significant letter from Iqbal, dated September 23, 1915, praises Mehroom’s poetry and recommends it for a wider readership, even suggesting its inclusion in school textbooks, which evidences mutual literary respect. However, Mehroom did not fully agree with Iqbal’s later philosophical and ideological trajectory. Reflecting on this divergence, Mehroom wrote:
“Iqbal ne jo chhorri rah e watan parasti,
Ga kar naya tarana sara jahaan hamaara,
Hum ne bhi ek misre mein baat khatm kar di,
Sara jahaan tumhara hindustan hamara”
(When Iqbal turned away from the path of patriotism
and sang a new anthem, “The whole world is ours,”
We ended the debate in a single line:
“The whole world may be yours – Hindustan is ours.”)
In 1955, the humanist and patriot within Mehroom was deeply hurt when the celebrated Urdu poet Josh Malihabadi decided to migrate to Pakistan, despite his secular credentials and personal friendship with Jawaharlal Nehru. Mehroom responded with biting irony:
“Josh Sahib bhi huve aaj se Pakistani
Ab vo Lahore Karachi mein gazalkhwaan honge
Mehfil e vaaz milegi evaz e maikhaana
Som o sajdaah o tasbeeh ke saamaan honge”
(Josh Sahib, from today, has become a Pakistani;
Now he will recite ghazals in Lahore and Karachi.
He will find sermon gatherings in place of the Winehouse.
fasts, prostrations, and prayer-beads will fill the scene.)
Tilok Chand Mehroom was born on 1 July 1887 in the village of Mousa Noor Zaman Shah, in the Mianwali district of Punjab Province, British India-an area that later became part of Pakistan. His birthplace, a small riverside village on the banks of the Indus, was prone to flooding, forcing his family to relocate to nearby Isakhel. The Indus River frequently appears in his poetry as a silent witness to history, flowing steadily as empires, rulers, and ideologies rise and fall.
“Aey Sindh teri yaad mein Jamuna ke kinaare
Aankhon se ubal aaye hain ehsaas ke dhaare
Tu aur talaatum vo meray zauk e nihaan ka
Afsos kahaan mein huun ye kissa hai kahaan ka “…( From his Poem on the Indus River)
(O Sindh, in your remembrance, on the banks of the Yamuna,
Streams of feeling have surged and spilt from my eyes.
You are the turbulence of my hidden longing,
Alas, where am I now, and where does this tale belong?)
What lends the book its particular value is its intimate family perspective. Drawing upon oral history, family memories, and literary anecdotes, it captures Mehroom’s relationships with fellow poets, his professional life, and the emotional toll of Partition and displacement. Alongside narrative, the book presents selected poems that reveal Mehroom’s range, from lyrical Ghazals to patriotic verse and restrained elegies shaped by personal loss.
Wattan ki ulfat mein ho zubaan par swadeshi vastu swadeshi vastu
Suna do hindustaan ke ghar ghar swadeshi vastu swadeshi vastu …….( A patriotic Poem During Swadeshi Movement )
(In devotion to the nation, “Swadeshi goods” should be upon the tongue;
Make “Swadeshi goods” heard in every household of Hindustaan.
A recurring theme in Mehroom’s work is faith in human dignity beyond religion or politics. His patriotism is ethical rather than slogan-driven, rooted in justice, education, and mutual respect. After the death of his wife, his poetry acquired a quiet elegiac tone-grief expressed with restraint rather than despair. One poem written in exile captures the irony of refugee life in Delhi:
“Tangiye kashaana kyon hai ba-isse afsurdagi
Ye zameen tere liye ye aasmaan tere liye
Aey dil e nadaan makaam e shukr hai shikvon ko chhorr
Mil nahin sakta jo Delhi mein makaan tere liye.”
(Why this cramped dwelling, this cause for sorrow?
The earth is yours, the sky is yours.
O naïve heart, this is a time for gratitude,abandon complaint:
What if Delhi denied you a home to live in?)
When he was forced to leave his homeland after the Partition, Mehroom wrote with controlled anguish:
“Teri aazadi ke sadke mein hamein hijrat mili
Jazba e zauq e vafa ki hum ko yeh qeemat mili
Tu huva dushman hamaara hum tere dushman na thay
Tu huva kyon hum se badhzan tujh se hum badhzan na thay
Dekhiye kya rang ho aage teri taareekh ka
Khoon e naahak se hai pehla baab tau likha gaya..)
(At the altar of your freedom, we received exile;
This was the price we were paid for our passion for loyalty.
You became our enemy-yet we were never yours.
Why did you grow suspicious of us when we bore you no suspicion?
Let us see now what colours the future pages of your history will take:
Its very first chapter has been written in innocent blood.)
This secret remains wholly hidden from my eyes.)
Beyond his own poetry, Tilok Chand Mehroom’s lasting legacy is closely tied to his role as the father and first mentor of the eminent poet Jagan Nath Azad. He nurtured Azad’s literary sensibility from an early age, instilling linguistic precision, classical taste, and intellectual independence. Many scholars observe that Azad’s clarity of expression and humanistic outlook were deeply influenced by his father’s guidance. Tilok Chand Mehroom passed away on 6 January 1966, at the age of seventy-eight, after a brief illness.
Hayaat-e-Mehroom succeeds not merely as a biography, but as a living tribute; bringing forward the voice, humanity, and moral clarity of a poet whose world was torn apart by history, yet never surrendered its faith in human dignity. It is a book that honours the past while inviting new generations to rediscover Mehroom’s verse.
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