Birth anniversary of urdu poet Qateel Shifai was observed on Sunday.

Aurangzeb Khan was born on 24th December 1919 in Mansehra.

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 Hakim Mohammed ‘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 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 Jalalabadi.

In January 1947, Qateel was asked to pen the songs of a film by a Lahore based film producer. The first film he penned the lyrics for was “Teri Yaad”. After that there was no looking back. He won numerous awards as a lyricist. Many of his poem collections were published, one amongst them being “Mutriba” which got him the highest literature award in Pakistan.