Bekal Utsahi was a popular poet who made extensive use of Awadhi language in his shayari. He was born Mohd. Shafi Khan in Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh on June 1, 1930. Bekal was given the pseudonym Utsahi by Jawahar Lal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister. This happened during an election campaign of the Congress party in Gonda, in which Bekal Warsi welcomed Pandit Nehru by narrating the poetry “Kisan Bharat Ka”. Nehru was awestruck and said,”Yeh hamara utsahi shayar hai”. Since that day, he came to be known as Bekal Utsahi in the literary circles. His most famous nazm is ‘Ai Meri Jan-e-ghazal….’. Bekal was a member of Rajya Sabha. In 1976, he was awarded the Padmshree in the field of literature. He passed away on 2nd December 2016. Source: Wikipedia.
