MUMBAI: Lyricist Gulzar will launch a book – Nigahon ke Saaye, which has songs written by Jaan Nisaar Akhtar. The book will be launched in Mumbai on 18 October at Crosswords book store. Javed Akthar and Shabana Azmi will read from the book.

Jaan Nisaar Akhtar was a renowned Indian poet well-known equally for his Urdu ghazals and nazms as well as his lyrics in the Hindi film industry. He is also the father of the famous lyricist and script-writer Javed Akhtar. His film songs were of equally good literary quality as his well-appreciated nazms and ghazals.

He was an author of the Progressive Movement and has worked along with the likes of Sardar Jafri, Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Sahir Ludhianvi.

His association with Madan Mohan, the music director resulted in many memorable movie songs. His books include Nazr-e-Butaan, Salaasil, Javidaan, Ghar Angan and Khaak-e-Dil (all Urdu titles). He was awarded Sahitya Academy Award of India in 1976 for collection of his poetry titled Khaak-e-dil (The Ashes of Heart).

Out of the many film songs written by him, many have never been documented before. An effort on part of Rajkamal Prakashan to document such works yielded 151 such songs, included in this collection.