Mehr Lal Soni Zia Fatehabadi

Mehr Lal Soni Zia Fatehabadi Biography

Mehr Lal Soni Zia Fatehabadi was an Urdu ghazal and nazm writer. He was born as Mehr Lal Soni. He was a disciple of Seemab Akbarabadi. He initiated his literary career with Tullu first published in 1933. After that he published 11 poetry collections, 1 short story, 2 essays, his biography work and a few more. His books, Noor e Mashriq, Gard e Raah and Meri Tasveer also include Urdu sonnets composed by him. He has also written for many magazines and papers and those shattered works are yet to be published!

Zia Fatehabadi was born on 9 February 1913 at Kapurthala, Punjab (now a part of Pakistan). His father Munshi Ram Soni was a civil engineer. His ancestors belong to Rajasthan who later migrated and settled at Punjab. Though an engineer by profession, his father was a great adorer of Indian Classical vocal and instrumental music and was fond of singing and playing instruments. He used to invite musicians and singers to his residence. Once, when Zia was a school student he insisted on a copy of ghazals written by Iqbal. But he didn’t get it. This incident prompted young Zia to write poems. Thus when he reached college life, he has already become a reputed poet in Urdu. He used to play chess and was good in music as a singer and was an expert of playing instruments.

His first published book Tullu received bad opinion from critics. Though he felt hurt, he continued with his writing. He even decided to give up writing. But his friends encouraged him to write again. A few of his noted Urdu poetry works include - Noor-e-Mashriq, Naram garam hawain, Soch ka Safar, Gard-e-Raah, nayi subah and The Qat'aat o Rubaiyat of Zia Fatehabadi.

Published: N/A

Updated: March 28, 2014