Mohan Singh
Professor Mohan Singh, the lyric poet of Saave Patte, who made Punjabi poetry modern and romantic.
Mohan Singh was born in Mardan in the Frontier, studied Persian, and taught in Lahore and later in Amritsar and Ludhiana. His first great collection, Saave Patte, 'Green Leaves', published in 1936, broke on the Punjabi world like a monsoon: it was romantic, personal, sensuous and modern, and it set the tone for the next half century.
He wrote of love and the beloved's beauty, of the Ravi and the Chenab, of village women and of the poor, and in his later work turned to progressive and socialist themes. His long poem on Guru Nanak, Nanakayan, attempted an epic of the Guru's life. He founded and edited the magazine Panj Darya, which published the new Punjabi writing of the 1940s.
After Partition he moved to East Punjab and died in Ludhiana in 1978. A fair named Professor Mohan Singh Mela, held in his memory, became one of the great annual gatherings of Punjabi singers and poets.
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The Sikh Bomber" Mohan Singh, 14th King George's Own Ferozepore Sikhs…National Army Museum, London · photo The wub (Wikimedia Commons) · CC BY-SA ↗