Meeraji

Meeraji میراجی
Born	Mohammad Sanaullah Dar 25 May, 1912 Punjab, Pakistan
Died	3 November, 1949 (aged 37) Bombay, India
Pen name	Meeraji
Occupation	Urdu poet
Nationality	Indian
Genre	Ghazal, Nazm, Free verse
Literary movement	Progressive Writers Association

Meeraji (Urdu: میراجی ) (May 25, 1912 – November 3, 1949) born Sanaullah Sani Dar Meeraji was an eminent Urdu poet. He lived the life of a bohemian, working only intermittently.

Born into a Kashmiri family of Gujranwala and named Mohammed Sanaullah Dar, he passed his childhood days in Kucha Sardar Shah, Mozang, Lahore. His father, Munshi Mohammad Mahtabuddin, was a railway engineer, so his family had to often move from one place to another. He lived in Kathiawar, Bostan (Baluchistan), Sanghar and Jacobabad.

Meeraji began composing poetry, under the pseudonym of Sasri, when he was at school. It was from his later encounter with a Bengali girl, Meera Sen, who was a daughter of an accounts officer serving in Lahore, that he fell deeply in love. This left a permanent trace in his life that he adopted his pen name on her name. Though brought up in affluent surroundings, Meeraji left his home and family and chose to lead the life of a homeless wanderer, mostly staying with his friends and making a living by selling his songs.

Meeraji was associated with Adabi Duniya (Lahore), and later worked for All India Radio, Delhi. He wrote literary columns for the monthly Saqi (Delhi) and for a short period helped editing Khayal (Bombay). After partition, he settled permanently in Bombay.

From his teenage days, Meeraji felt attracted towards Hindu mythology. Hindi vocabulary often came across in his poetry, prose and letters. He acknowledged his debt to the Sanskrit poet Amaru and the French poet Baudelaire. He also translated certain works of the Sanskrit poet, Damodar Gupta and of the Persian poet, Omar Khayyam.

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