What gave lyricist Hasrat Jaipuri, ‘Ishq ka sabak’?

Mumbai, Feb 20 (SocialNews.XYZ) The late lyricist Iqbal Husain, who was professionally known as Hasrat Jaipuri, once narrated the story of how he had his brush with first love, and how it contributed to his craft as a lyricist,

An old video of Hasrat Jaipuri surfaced on social media, and it shows him talking about his education and how falling in love served as a catalyst to his career as a lyricist.

He said in Hindi in the video, “My name is Iqbal Hussain. I was born in Jaipur. In front of my house, there was a beautiful girl named Radha. Love has nothing to do with religion or caste. It can be with anyone. I fell in love with her. I studied poetry. I got my education from my late grandfather. Wahan se mujhe Ishq ka sabak mila (Radha taught me the lesson of love). From there, I became a poet. I wrote my first poem for her. She used to come to jharokha often. When you look at jharokha, I ask so much. When you look at jharokha, I ask so much, should I love you or not?”.

Iqbal studied English till medium level in Jaipur and then acquired his taalim (education) in Urdu and Persian from his maternal grandfather, the poet Fida Husain 'Fida'. He began writing verse when he was around twenty years old. Around the same time, he fell in love with Radha. Hasrat talked about a love letter he wrote to this girl, in an interview.

He said, "It is not at all necessary that a Muslim boy must fall in love only with a Muslim girl. My love was silent, but I wrote a poem for her, 'Yeh mera prem patra padh kar, ke tum naaraaz na hona”. It is not known whether the love letter was actually delivered to Radha. But veteran film producer Raj Kapoor liked it enough to include it in his ‘Sangam’. The song was crooned by the legendary singer Mohammed Rafi.

Source: IANS