Qateel Shifai

Qateel Shifai
Born	Muhammad Aurangzeb December 24, 1919 British India now Pakistan
Died	July 11, 2001 (aged 81) Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Pen name	Qateel Shifai
Occupation	Urdu poet, Lyricist
Nationality	Pakistani
Genre	Ghazal
Notable awards	Pride of Performance, 1994 by the Government of Pakistan

  He adopted Qateel Shifai as his pen name in 1938, under which he was known in the world of Urdu poetry. "Qateel" was his "takhallus" and "Shifai" was in honour of his ustaad(master) Hakeem Mohammed Yahya Khan Shifa, whom he considered his mentor.

Due to his father's early death, Qateel was forced to quit his education. He started his own sporting goods shop. Being unsuccessful in his business, he decided to move from his small town to Rawalpindi, where he started working for a transport company and earned about 60 Rupees a month.

In 1946, he was called to Lahore by Nazir Ahmed to work as the assistant editor of the monthly 'Adab-e-Latif', a literary magazine published since 1936. His first ghazal was published in the Lahore weekly 'Star', edited by Qamar Ajnalvi (Ref.Pen Sketch of Qateel Shifai written by Akmal Aleemi)

In January 1947, Qateel was asked to pen the songs of a film by a Lahore based film producer,Dewan Sardari Lal.The first film he penned the lyrics for was Teri Yaad (1948) in Pakistan.Then after working for some time as assistant lyricist to some of the famous poets/lyricists of the time (1948 to 1955 time period),he eventually became a highly successful film lyricist of Pakistan and won numerous awards over the years for his film song lyrics.