Tilok Chand Mehroom (1885-1996) was a famous Urdu poet of India.

Early life

Mehroom was born in Mianwali District, Punjab, India (now Pakistan) into a Hindu family. After earning his B.A. he joined, in 1908, the Mission High School at Dera Ismail Khan as a teacher of English.By the 1940s he was a widely-recognized master of Urdu poetry and was Professor of Urdu Literature at Gordon College, Rawalpindi.His son Jagannath Azad was also a prominent poet and wrote Pakistan's first National Anthem on the request of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. After the partition of India, Mehroom and his son were forced to move to Delhi.

Poetry

Early in life, after the death of his beloved wife, Mehroom was inspired to write poems reflecting his disenchantment with the ephemerality of life and the instability of relationships. The most famous of these poems is Ashk-e-Hasrat, which is part of his larger collection Toofan-e-Ghum. Tilok Chand Mehroom's first major publication was named Ganj-e-Maani. This publication contained a rich variety of 175 nazms, besides rubaies, qasidas, sehras, and nohas. Art critics like Niaz Fatehpuri, Muhammad Iqbal, Firaq, Kaifi, Josh Malsiani and Ejaz Hussain have admired his poetry.

Famous Works

• Ganj-e-Maani
• Rubaiyat-e-Mehroom
• Karwan-e-Watan
• Nairang-e-Maani
• Shola Nawa
• Aks-e-Jameel

References