His name was Syed Raza Ali, and ‘Wahshat’ was his pen name. He is also popularly known as Wahshat Kalkatvi. He was born to Maulvi Shamshad Ali on November 18, 1881, in Hooghly (Kolkata), where his father had moved from Delhi. He was schooled in Madrasa Aaliya, Calcutta, and was fond of poetry from an early age. In 1898, he became a poetry apprentice of Abul Qasim Mohammad Shams, son of Abdul Ghafoor Khan Nasakh. After completing higher education, he worked in the Imperial Record Department, Calcutta, as Chief Maulvi in the Persian department. When Islamia College started in 1926, he became a professor of Urdu. In 1931, he was honored with the title of ‘Khan Bahadur’ by the British Government. After independence, he migrated to Pakistan and settled in Chittagong, where he died. In 1950, his collection ‘Taraana-e-Vahshat’ was published, which consists of ghazals, qataa, rubaii, Sehra, mukhammas, musaddas, and nazm. Parvez Shahdi, the eminent progressive poet, was his disciple.