Kunwar Mohinder Singh Bedi Sahar

Kunwar Mohinder Singh Bedi 'Sahar' (1909–1992), born at Chak Bedi in Montgomery District, Punjab, was an Urdu poet whose pen name meant "daybreak" — and whose verse lived up to it. Born into a Bedi zamindar family tracing its line to Guru Nanak, he fell in love with Urdu in school and began writing ghazals while studying at Lahore. He joined the Indian Administrative Service, served as City Magistrate of Delhi, and worked alongside Nehru and Patel to restrain violence and resettle refugees after Partition — the same Partition that uprooted his own family to Fazilka. His poetry is traditional in form and humane in temper: love and yearning beside unity, peace between India and Pakistan, and a gentle humour. Khushwant Singh called him "the stoutest bridge between India and Pakistan". His first collection, *Tulu-e-Sahar* (1962), played on his own name — the advent of daybreak — and his autobiographical poems *Yadon Ka Jashn* (1983) remain a document of Punjab before and after Partition. Jagjit Singh sang eight of his ghazals on the album *Forget Me Not*. He died on 18 July 1992.