Majrooh Sultanpuri

Majrooh Sultanpuri (1919–2000), born Asrar ul Hassan Khan in Sultanpur, U.P., was a Progressive Urdu poet and one of Hindi cinema's most celebrated lyricists. A trained Unani physician (Hakim) and disciple of Jigar Moradabadi, he left medicine for poetry, joined films in 1946 with Shahjahan ("Jab dil hi toot gaya"), and served two years in prison in 1949 for his leftist verse. Across six decades he wrote more than two thousand film lyrics — from Andaz and Dosti ("Chahunga main tujhe sanjh savere", Filmfare Best Lyricist 1965) to Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak and Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar ("Pehla nasha") — while his fifty-odd ghazals and two notable nazms carried the Progressive fire; none is more famous than "main akela hi chala tha jaanib-e-manzil magar", which Wikipedia's own article calls one of the best-known verses of Urdu poetry. He became the first lyricist to receive the Dadasaheb Phalke Award (1993), and also received the Ghalib Prize and the Iqbal Samman. He died in Mumbai on 24 May 2000.