In January 1947, Qateel was asked to help write the songs of a film by a Lahore-based film producer. The first film he helped penned the lyrics for was "Teri Yaad". After that there was no looking back and initially, after working for some time as assistant lyricist to some of the famous poets/lyricists of the time (c.1947-48 to 1956-57), he eventually became a regular full-time film lyricist. Shifai wrote several collections of his poetry but is best known for being a film lyricist. During the 1970s and 1980s, quite some controversy developed regarding his 'misappropriation' of a couple of old poems, which had been adapted as film lyrics/songs in the movie "Gumnaam" (1954). It was later proved that this song, ' Tu lakh chale ri gori thum thum ke', was not Shifai's work and he had to retract his earlier claim and also remove it from a proposed collection of poems and songs he had planned to publish.