Renowned Urdu poet Bashir Badr dies at 91

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Acclaimed Urdu poet and Padma Shri awardee Bashir Badr died in Bhopal on Thursday, PTI quoted his family as saying. He was 91.

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Badr was born in Uttar Pradesh’s Ayodhya in 1935 and was believed to have started writing poetry at age seven.

At least seven collections of Badr’s poems have been published in Urdu and one in Hindi, according to PTI. Among his ghazal collections are Ikai, Image, Aamad, Aahat and Kulliyat-e-Bashir Badr.

A collection of his Urdu ghazals in the Devanagari script, titled Ujjale Apni Yadon ke, has also been published.

Badr was awarded the Padma Shri, India’s fourth-highest civilian honour, in 1999. He was also awarded four times by the Uttar Pradesh Urdu Academy and once by the Bihar Urdu Academy, according to PTI.

His home in Meerut had been burned down during communal violence in 1987, during which many of his unpublished works were said to have been destroyed. He had subsequently shifted to Bhopal.

Commenting on the news of his death, lyricist Javed Akhtar remarked on social media: “Today, our language Urdu has become a little poorer…The poet and his poetry will live on in our memories forever.”

Congress MP and poet Imran Pratapgarhi said that Badr’s death was an “irreparable loss”, PTI reported.