Remembering Rahat Indori – A people’s poet by Mohd Raghib-ul- Haque

Raghib pays a heartfelt tribute to Rahat Indori (1950-2020)

Not many poets become famous enough to become a part of our day to day lives and  even fewer are frequently quoted to mark protests or dissent in times of social upheaval. His poetic age spans almost five decades where he participated in hundreds of mushairas and wrote several lyrics for Hindi cinema. Indori is very often quoted on social media platforms. Interestingly, he also trended for a while on Twitter too. His couplets are used as placards in several protests in India while he was also quoted many a time in Indian Parliaments and speeches in the public gatherings. All these led to his public popularity, making Urdu poetry  familiar to a wider range of audience who have less or no acquaintance to Urdu as a language.