The Bombay-based Urdu monthly ‘Shayar’, which was first published from Agra in 1930, continues to this day. Iftikhar Imam Siddiqui (1947-2021), the grandson of Simab Akbarabadi, founded this historical and purely literary monthly, and has been publishing the magazine for decades, despite all the financial woes, from a small Kholi in Bombay; which also happens to be his office and home. The special issues of Shayar are immensely treasured by literary researchers.
Iftikhar Imam had a firm grip on both poetry and prose. He had interviewed 100 literary personalities. A poet of mellifluous tone, he was once very popular in Mushairas. Since his childhood, he was very fond of singing. One of his father's students was a ghazal singer, from whom he even took some Music lessons. Initially, he sang film songs and Ghazals. His grandfather Simab Akbarabadi used to listen him recite ghazals. In the movie ‘Arth’, his Ghazal “Tu nahin to zindagi mein aur kya rah jaega’, became very popular in the voice of Chitra Singh. Many other singers have also sung his ghazals.
Once, while returning from a mushaira, he was met with an accident in Jabalpur and became handicapped. But, under the editorship of his brother Nazir Noman Siddiqui, he kept running ‘Shayar’ for over fifty years. Also, he never got married.

Jigar Moradabadi was one of the most prominent pre-modern poets who enjoyed stunning popularity and fan-following. He is known for his moody nature; spent his life migrating between Moradabad, Agra and then finally moved to Gonda, where he lived with famous poet Asghar Gondvi as a friend and benefactor. He also earned his reputation as an iconic mushaira poet who earned huge applause from the audience, and used to charge ₹500 for one Mehfil. Despite all this, his marital life was very fragmented and his wife was very upset with his frequent drinking and alcohol addiction. It is said that on the advice of Asghar Gondvi, he divorced his wife Naseem and she got married to Asghar Gondvi after that.

‘Aaj Jaane Ki Zidd Naa Karo’ is an immensely popular Ghazal written by Fayyaz Hashmi. It was first sung by Habib Wali Mohammad for the Pakistani film Badal Aur Bijli (1979), but later the queen of ghazal singing, Farida Khanum, gave it her voice and made it immortal. A friend of Fayyaz Hashmi narrates that a few couplets of this ghazal were written by him during his student days in Calcutta, and were a result of his first but unrequited love. Besides poetry, Fayyaz was also into music, due to which, he was made director of the HMV Gramophone Company in Calcutta at an early age. There, he wrote several songs. In 1935, he became associated with the film industry in India, and after the partition, went to Pakistan and there too received great acclaim.
He brought a new flavor to film songs by using a blend of Urdu-Hindi words, which gave his songs everlasting fame. After listening to Fayyaz Hashmi's songs, Mahatma Gandhi had said: “Agar Fayyaz jaise chand shayar aur paida ho jaen to Urdu-Hindi ka jhagDa miT jaega!” Numerous of his songs were sung by all the great singers of his time. Pankaj Mallik’s famous song, ‘Ye Raaten Ye Mausam Ye Hansnaa Hansaana”, is also Fayyaz’s creation.
While composing the tune of a song, if any music director said to him that his lyrics were not in tandem with the tune and need to be changed, Fayyaz would at once sing the tune along the lyrics and point to how the words perfectly fits into the meter. Eventually, the song would be recorded without any changes whatsoever.

Mina Kumari was indeed a great actress, but also a fine poet; her pen-name was Naz. She once said to the songwriter-poet Gulzar, "Ye jo adaa-kaari main karti hun is mein ek kami hai, ye fann, ye art, mujh mein paida nahin hua hai; khayal dusre ka hai, kirdar kisi aur ka, aur hidayar kisi ki. Mere andar se jo paida hua hai wo main likhti hun, Jo main kahna chahti hun, wo likhti hun.” Meena Kumari had entrusted all her poetry to Gulzar. After her death in 1972, Gulzar published a collection of her poems, titled ‘Tanha Chand’.
An album of her poetry in Meena Kumari’s own voice was released by musician Khayyam, titled ‘I write, I recite’. Meena Kumari wanted Khayyam's wife singer Jagjit Kaur to sing her Nazms, but Jagjit Kaur insisted that they would come off better in Mina Kumari’s own voice. And, as it turned out, the album proved to be extremely poignant in her own voice.
In her last years, Meena Kumari had given up caring for herself. He once said to musician Naushad, “Main raat bhar jagti hun is khauf se ki din niklega, aur din is kashmakash mein guzarta hai ki ab andhera hone wala hai.” Naushad picked up a pen and paper and summed up Mina's condition in this verse:
Dekho Suraj Ufuq mein duub gaya
Dhoop ik sar se tere aur dhali
Ek din uljhano.n ka aur gaya
Ik kaDii zindagi ki aur kaTi

Meena Kumari read this Qita over and over again and started crying.