Amjad Islam Amjadਅਮਜਦ ਇਸਲਾਮ ਅਮਜਦ

Amjad Islam Amjad (1944-2023) was a Pakistani Urdu poet, playwright, screenwriter and lyricist from Lahore whose television drama Waris (1979) became one of the most loved serials in Pakistan's history. Across a writing life of almost sixty years he published more than seventy books of poetry, drama, essays, columns and translations, and his words were sung by some of the greatest voices of South Asia, from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Abida Parveen to Noor Jehan and Jagjit Singh.

Early life and education in Lahore

Amjad Islam Amjad was born on 4 August 1944 in Lahore, in what was then British India. His family originally belonged to Sialkot, where his people had been traders, and he grew up and was schooled in Lahore. At Government Islamia College Civil Lines he played cricket for the college team and was known as a cheerful, quick-witted presence on the field. His classmate, the fast bowler Asif Masood, went on to play Test cricket for Pakistan, while Amjad's own talent turned toward words. He edited his school magazine, Nishan-e-Manzil, and later the university magazine, Mehvar, and he took a master's degree in Urdu literature from Punjab University in 1967.

His first poem was published in January 1966 in Fanoos, the literary magazine edited by Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, one of the towering figures of Urdu letters. Amjad, which he used as his pen name, soon became the name readers knew him by. Poetry had begun for him in his teens, and by his twenties his other writing was already being noticed. He wrote first of all as a poet of the nazm, the free-verse Urdu poem, and that remained his first love for the rest of his life, even as television made him famous.

Teacher, television director and writer

Amjad began his working life as a lecturer in Urdu at Government M.A.O. College, Lahore, in 1968. He wrote his first play for Pakistan Television, Pehla Khel, in 1973, on the recommendation of the writer and broadcaster Athar Shah Khan Jaidi. In 1975 he moved to Pakistan Television as a director, a post he held until 1979, and then he returned to teaching. In 1989 he was appointed Director General of the Urdu Science Board, and he also served as project director of the Children Library Complex in Lahore.

His first collection of poetry, Barzakh, appeared in 1974, the same year his comedy serial Ya Naseeb Clinic was broadcast. The following year his play Khwab Jagte Hain won a Graduate Award. He was a prolific worker in every form Urdu offers: poetry, drama, essays, columns, travel writing, criticism and translation. Yet for all the range, his writing kept a plain, direct quality. He wrote about ordinary people, their hopes and their disappointments, in language that listeners could follow without effort, and that is part of why his work travelled so far beyond literary circles.

What made Waris so loved?

Waris, broadcast in 1979, was the serial that made Amjad Islam Amjad a household name. Set among the feudal families of rural Punjab, it told a story of land, power and the struggle against the class system, with dialogue that audiences quoted for years afterwards. The character of Chaudhary Hashmat, played by Mehboob Alam, who had until then played only small roles, became one of the most memorable figures in Pakistani television. The serial won a Special President Award in 1980, and it was translated into Chinese and telecast more than once on Chinese television, a rare honour for a Pakistani drama.

Waris was not a one-off. It was followed by Dehleez (1981), Samandar (1983), Waqt (1986), Raat, Din (1992), Fishaar, Apnay Log, Inkaar and Eendhen, among many others. His characters, the issues he chose and the dialogue he wrote for them showed a close understanding of Pakistan's social problems, from the power of landlords to the pressures on city life. He won PTV's best playwright award five times, in 1980, 1984, 1998, 1999 and 2001, and his long plays and short plays for television number in the dozens.

Poetry: the nazm came first

Amjad always said his priority was the nazm, and his poetry collections came steadily through the decades: Barzakh (1974), Saatwan Dar (1978), Fishar (1982), Baarish ki Aawaz (1997), Yahin Kahin (2006) and many more. Fishar won the Presidential Iqbal Award for the best book of poetry in 1982. His poems are plain-spoken and musical, written about love, loss, hope and the passing of time, and they are still read aloud at mushairas and literary gatherings in Pakistan and in the diaspora.

His reach as a lyricist was just as wide. More than 150 of his songs for film, television and radio were recorded, and his ghazals were sung by Noor Jehan, Farida Khanum, Iqbal Bano, Ghulam Ali, Hamid Ali Khan, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Abida Parveen and Jagjit Singh. Across the border in India, the poets Gulzar and Javed Akhtar were his personal friends, and his work was loved there as warmly as at home. He also translated poetry from other languages into Urdu, including a collection of African poetry, Kale Logon ki Roshan Nazmein, and his own poems have been translated into English, Turkish, Italian and Arabic.

Films, songs and columns

Amjad also wrote for the cinema. The success of the 1981 film Qurbani, starring Nadeem and Shabnam, is largely credited to the courtroom scenes he wrote, and he won two Nigar Awards for his film writing, for Qurbani in 1981 and for Choron ki Baraat in 1987. His last film script was Jo Darr Gya Woh Marr Gya (1995). He kept writing for television until 2006, when Sher Dil was his last serial, but he never stopped writing books: travelogues, poetry, songs for children and columns filled the years after he left the screen.

One of his best-known songs came late in his career. He wrote the lyrics of Mann Ki Lagan for the 2003 film Paap, the song that launched the Bollywood career of Rahat Fateh Ali Khan. In June 2008 he joined the Urdu newspaper Daily Express and began his column Chashm-e-Tamasha. He wrote a weekly newspaper column for the last fifteen years of his life, keeping up a direct conversation with readers long after his television days were over.

Honours and later life

Pakistan honoured him with its highest civil awards: the Pride of Performance in 1987, the Sitara-e-Imtiaz in 1998 and the Tamgh-e-Imtiaz in 1998, and in his last years he also received the Hilal-i-Imtiaz. In December 2019 he received the Necip Fazil International Culture and Art Award in Istanbul, Turkey. The Pakistan Academy of Letters set up a Hall of Fame in his honour, and he was the subject of ten books about his life and work.

Amjad Islam Amjad died in Lahore on 10 February 2023, aged 78, after a sudden cardiac arrest. He had returned only days earlier from a visit to the holy sites of Makkah and Madinah. His death was mourned across Pakistan: the prime minister, the president and the governor of Punjab paid tribute, and writers and readers remembered a man who had given the country some of its most loved dramas and poems. He was buried in Lahore, the city where he was born, studied, taught and wrote.

Legacy: why Amjad Islam Amjad still matters

Amjad Islam Amjad matters because he did two things at once that few writers manage. He wrote serious Urdu poetry that literary readers still study, and he wrote popular television that whole families watched together. Waris is still talked about and re-telecast, and younger viewers who never saw it first time round still meet its characters and its dialogue. His poems and ghazals are still sung, his books are still in print, and his columns are still quoted.

For Punjabi readers, his life is also a reminder of how much of Pakistan's Urdu literature grew out of Punjab's cities. Born in Lahore to a family from Sialkot, educated at Islamia College and Punjab University, a teacher at MAO College and a writer at PTV Lahore, he belonged to the city and to its literary gatherings. The plain language he chose, the social questions he raised and the melodies his words found in the voices of great singers are why, more than two years after his death, his name is still spoken with affection wherever Urdu is read and heard.