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His real name was Aurangzeb Khan. 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 amongs them being "Mutriba" which got
him the highest literature award in Pakistan.
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