As Firaq Gorakhpuri’s death anniversary approaches (he died on 3 March, 1982), there are few signs that it will attract much attention. The same thing happened when Shabbir Husain Khan Josh Malihabadi's anniversary fell on 2 February. The two died within a month of each other. It is believed that one of the reasons for Firaq's sudden demise was the loss of his great friend. He is said to have remarked, "Yeh dard tau mit jaiga/Lekin jo dard dil mei hai uska kya hoga?" That's when the doctor said he would inject a tranquilliser to relieve his pain. Soon after he collapsed. He had just been discharged from AIIMS after a cataract operation and moved to the house of his friend, a Supreme Court lawyer, R K Garg in New Delhi. His body was later taken to Allahabad for the funeral.

One's personal memories of Raghupati Sahai alias Firaq are based on two meetings: One, when he came to take one's MA Literature viva voce, along with Prof V V John, and asked a question on William Wordsworth but cut the answer short saying, "Had your father been here I would have discussed the poet with him, but you are too young to comprehend the worth of Wordsworth, though you might wax eloquent on the likes of T S Eliot, without understanding what Omar Khayyam meant when he observed: And a muezzin from the tower cries, 'Fools your reward is neither here nor there'." One now thinks that had the IS been around then it would have executed Omar as a heretic. Firaq Sahib went on to add, "Kya likhta hai yaar, kya likhta hai, hosh-o-hawas uda deta hai (What he writes, friend, stuns the senses)."

This was the same man who, while taking an English Literature class in Allahabad University, paused suddenly and went home to complete the last line in a couplet, which had been eluding him, that said, "Ai Hijr ki raat katne walon/Kya karoge gar subhah na hui tau? (Oh, you, passing the Mecca-Medina like Hijri era night of acute anxiety, what would you do if morning did not come?)". The other meeting took place earlier, when he came to St John's College, Agra, for a mushaira, along with Maikash Akbarabadi. Students trooped in to see the great shair, tipsy and stumbling on his way to the rest-room. His pyjama string was dangling loose when a student pointed towards it. Firaq Sahib glared at him and remarked, "Udhar kya dekhta hai/Yeh nazr tau kisi mehboob ki hone chaihya thi. (What are you looking there for, this glance should have been some beloved's)?" Everybody was stunned, though some were aware that Firaq could very well talk like that when drunk. Even the tongawallahs of Allahabad were aware of this and when the horse gave trouble, they would shout, "Firaq ko bulaun? (Should I call Firaq)?" Like Josh he too was quick-tempered but actually a good person at heart.

His nephew, Ajai Mansingh has in a biography, “The Poet of Pain and Ecstasy (Roli books) thrown much light on Firaq Sahib's personal life in which the shair is presented warts and all. Belonging to a family, which had been gifted five villages 400 years ago by the rulers of Awadh, his ancestors came to be known as the "Panchgaon Kayastha". His father, Gorakh Prasad Sahai ("Chacha" to him and siblings), was a well-known lawyer and poet, who wrote under the pseudonym of Ibrat Gorakhpuri. It was from him that Firaq acquired his love for Urdu. Ibrat Sahib died in his 50s, leaving Firaq as the head of the family. But the poet's sour relations with his wife Kishori Devi was a sore point throughout his life of 86.

Firaq found love in young Ramesh Dwivedi who, in course of time, began to exercise complete control over him. He once remarked that the beloved in Urdu and Persian poetry was always a boy and not a girl, and so also the Saqi, or cup-bearer, even of the gods. So what was the taint attached to his relationship? It continued even after Ramesh got married and fathered two children. In his Hindi book on Firaq, "Mian Ramesh" gives an insight into Firaq's daily life; He was never fond of bathing with the result that he suffered from skin ailments. But every day he would wear a fresh set of clothes ~ acchkan, kurta and pyjamas before going to the university. He ate good non-vegetarian food, having kababs even at breakfast, and drank heavily. As a matter of fact, when he was lying ill in Delhi, the Maharani of Patiala and A B Vajpayee came to see him with a bottle each, which however, his nephew whisked away.

Among his close friends were Jawaharlal Nehru, Josh, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, K N Katju, the Kunzroos, Harivanshrai Bachchan, Majaz Lucknavi and A N Jha, who later became Lt-Governor of Delhi. But he had an aversion to his neighbour, the puritanical historian Pandit Ishwari Prasad, telling the vegetable vendor in 8/4 Bank Street, Allahabad, "Sell potatoes cheap to the Pandit or he'll howl that they were 2 paise a seer in Napoleon's time."

Firaq's love for Mir Taqi Mir was so great that when he couldn't sleep at AIIMS he told his caretakers, "Kalam-e-Mir sunaoo/Badi udhas hai raat. (The night is very sad, recite Mir's poetry). He didn't think much of Allama Iqbal, but Josh Malihabadi occupied the place next to Mir in his heart. Naturally, Firaq could not survive him for long.

One was Josh's neighbour for over two months in the winter of 1967-68 at Azad Hind Hotel in the Jama Masjid area. Josh came from Lahore with his wife to Delhi, where his brother from the ancestral town of Malihabad joined him. Every evening local shairs came to recite their verses in front of him as he sat on a chair in the hotel courtyard with the seven wives of the proprietor (also a poet) peeping from the top storey windows and screens to enjoy the shairs of the evening.

Among the poets Gulzar Dehlvi was prominent, a short-statured fair man wearing a sherwani and tight pyjamas, like most Kashmiri Pandits. Josh called it a day at 8 pm, when his khana was sent by the owner of Moti Mahal hotel in Daryaganj, along with three pegs of Scotch whisky. After the drink and Mughlai food, he retired for the night and got up at 4.30 am when, after a cup of tea, he sat down to write poetry amid puffs from the hookah, which he shared with his brother, Khan Sahib, while his wife kept a stern eye on the two from an adjoining room.

Josh was a great friend of Jawaharlal Nehru but when he came to Delhi, Nehru was dead and India Gandhi had become Prime Minister. One remembers that soon after his arrival he went to see her and came back praising "Nehru's daughter" as an affectionate person, just like her father, who regretted that Josh had migrated to Pakistan despite Nehru's advice to the contrary. Josh, it seems, had left India at the insistance of his begum, but both were deeply disappointed with the reception they got there. And Josh frankly admitted that he had committed a blunder because the Punjabi milieu of Lahore hardly suited him, though poets like Faiz Ahmed Faiz were all grace and courtesy. When some mullahs of Pakistan criticised Josh for drinking, he wrote a verse in defiance: "Tor kar tauba nadamat tau hoti hai mujhe ai Josh/Kya karun niyat badal jati hai saghar dekh kar. (I do repent breaking my promise not to drink, but what to do when seeing the wine-cup I can't resist the temptation.)" Such was Josh and such was Firaq, both being slowly forgotten by the new generation.