Balraj Komal

Balraj Komal (1928–2013) was one of the leading modern poets of the Urdu nazm in India. Born on 25 September 1928 at Sialkot, he fled to Delhi in the Partition of 1947, carrying the displacement into a lifetime of poetry. After retiring as an Education Officer with the Delhi Administration, he wrote full-time — poems, short stories and criticism — and served on the Delhi Urdu Akademi and the Sahitya Akademi's advisory board. His collection Parindon Bhara Aasman (Sky Full of Birds) won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1985; he also won the Uttar Pradesh Urdu Academy Award twice (1971, 1982) and received the Padma Shri in 2011. His nazms — above all 'A Girl Alone' (1948), a Partition-orphaned girl begging a stranger to become her family — made him a poet of displacement, tenderness and quiet revolt. He died in Delhi in 2013, aged 85.