Salaam Machhalishahari


Salaam Machhalishahari, or Salam Machhali Sheri, , was an Indian Urdu-language Ghazal and Nazm writer.

Biography

Machhalishahari was born in Machhali Shahar, a city in District Jaunpur of Uttar Pradesh, on 1 July 1921. He was fluent in Urdu, Persian and English languages. He worked in the Urdu Service Department of the All India Radio, New Delhi. He died on 19 November 1972.

Literary career

Many of Machhalishahari’s ghazals have been put to music and sung
by Jagjit Singh. Machhalishahari also wrote sonnets in Urdu. He was actively associated with the Progressive Writers Movement. In his Marathi article "Geet Yatre", Madhav Moholkar asserted that Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Majaz, Jazbi, Salaam Machhalishahari, Sahir Ludhianvi and other poets had started a new era of progressive poetry in Urdu literature.
In 1996, the Urdu Academy published selected poems with the title Intekhab Salam Machhali Shehri.
A critical appraisal of his life and literary contributions is Aziz Indori's Salaam Machhalishahari – Shakhsiyat aur Funn.