Revolutionary and romantic

I first met Kaifi Azmi saheb at Shabana Azmi’s Ashok Road home in New Delhi. It was December 2000. He was sitting on the verandah, a sh...

I first met Kaifi Azmi saheb at Shabana Azmi’s Ashok Road home in New Delhi. It was December 2000. He was sitting on the verandah, a shawl wrapped around his shoulders. It was late afternoon. He held both my hands in greeting. I bent down and touched his feet. A generation separated us but he made me feel as if we had always known each other.

Kaifi Azmi was born in 1918 in Azamgarh, UP, as Syed Athar Hussain Rizvi. He derived his nom-de plume from his birthplace. Tradition moulded him, but he was not defined by tradition. Indeed, he was the quintessential iconoclast. He read his first poem at 11. He joined the CPI at 19. He wrote for the party organ Quami Jung. He was a member of the Progressive Writers’ movement.

Although Kaifi saheb won recognition later in Bombay, he never lost his sense of outrage at the plight of the poor and the deprived. A great deal of his work was influenced by his prolonged stay in Bombay where he could directly witness the chasm between the rich and the poor. Yet, Kaifi Azmi was not a narrow ideologue. Perhaps, this is why, he was unwilling to yield the space of the romantic to the cause of the revolutionary.

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For me, the most amazing aspect of his life was the ease with which he combined the committed revolutionary and the romantic poet. His life proved both could co-exist without compromising either. I recall the evening I spent with him a day before the formal launch of my English translation of his poems. Shabana, Shaukatji and I sat around his bed.

After the launch, Kaifi saheb was untraceable for a while. He had slipped away from the Maurya Sheraton to get some chicken from Jama Masjid to celebrate with family and friends. I met him last before he was returning to Bombay. It was a short meeting. As I was about to leave, Kaifi saheb told me he was going to the nursery to buy some plants.

For some time, Kaifi saheb had been confined to a wheelchair. Past 80, his speech was laboured. Yet, all those who knew him or his lyrics felt he would always remain in our midst exhorting us with:

Sub utho, main bhi uthoon, tum bhi utho, tum bhi utho, Koi khidki isi deewar main khul jayegi (Come let us arise, you and I and you too and you, a window on this wall will surely find an opening).

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(Writer-diplomat Pavan K. Verma has translated Kaifi Azmi into English, Selected Poems — Kaifi Azmi, Penguin Books 2001. He is currently High Commissioner for India in Cyprus)