The Tragic Story of Saghar Siddiqui

Siddiqui chose to stay in cheap hotels, rather than settle into a house given by the government to refugees. He would pay the rent with meager amounts earnt by selling his poems to magazines.Sometimes he would have to sell his poetry to other poets for a few rupees. He would use the waste paper spread around to light fires to stay warm during winter nights. Some of these poems were re-sold by these people as their own work

Saghar Siddiqui (Urdu: ساغر صدیقی) is a pen name of Muhammad Akhtar (1928 – 19 July 1974), an Urdu poet from Pakistan. In spite of his ruined and homeless alone life, he remained famous and successful till and after his death. Saghar is also known as a saint and when he died, he left nothing but a pet, his dog, who also died on the same footpath where Saghar died a year earlier

Within a decade of coming to Pakistan, he became disillusioned as he saw corruption and nepotism being rewarded at the expense of genuine talent. In despair, he turned to morphine, buying it from janitors of hospitals in Lahore. As friends and strangers continued to exploit him, Siddiqui fell further into despair and was soon turned out of hotels and had to live on the streets. He was often seen along Circular Road of Lahore, and in Anarkali Bazar, Akhbaar Market, Aibak Road, Shah Alami, and around the Data Darbar area. He would often hold mushairas on the footpaths, in candlelight. He continued to write poems, though most of them are lost and unpublished

In July 1974, Siddiqui was found dead on a street corner of Lahore at age 46. He was buried at the Miani Sahib graveyard. His dog also died a year later, reportedly at the same spot His mausoleum at Miani Sahib graveyard in Lahore is marked with a commemorative shrine which was built later

Julien Columeau, a French writer in Pakistan, wrote a semi-fictional Urdu novel Saghar based on Saghar Siddiqui's life.