“I do not know when I was born, I do not know when I will die. I only know that I was born in the ग़ुलाम (servile) Hindustan, I will become old in an आज़ाद (independent) Hindustan and I will die in a समाजवाद (socialist) Hindustan” – said the Thinking and Visionary Poet Kaifi Azmi who lived his dream and inspired millions to live their common dream through his revolutionary writings rich in poetry and philosophy.
He had an undying faith in the human in himself and the humanity at large who were at all times guided and motivated to think alike and walk together in one direction with their dreams, hopes and aspirations.
It is on this hopeful note and with these lyrical nuggets that we commemorate the 101st Birth Anniversary of the romantic and revolutionary poet~ lyricist Kaifi Azmi:
अंधेरे क्या उजाले क्या, न ये अपने, न वो अपने,
तेरे काम आयेंगे प्यारे, तेरे अरमां तेरे सपने।
Kaifi Azmi was a human being first and then a poet, he was a lover first and then a poet. With the same passion and with the same ease and elan, he gave poetic expression to his deep concern and feelings for the pains and sufferings of the down-trodden and the common man and to his idyllic and romantic sensitivities through the wide spectrum of nazms and ghazals in his collection of poems “Akhir-e-Shab”, “Jhankar”, “Awara Sijde” and film songs.
As compared to his contemporaries Sahir Ludhianvi, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Shakeel Badayuni, Shailendra and others, the repertoire of his film songs was quite less. But what little he wrote – romantic and rhapsodic, rebellious and revolutionary – was highly emotional and intense, effective and evocative in their content and intent, message and philosophy. Most of them rested on the strong foundation of the flickering flame of hope which he strived to keep alive eternally and perpetually.
Kaifi Azmi’s rebellious attitude from childhood, his revolutionary thinking, his leftist leanings, his involvement with communist parties and activities and the banning and breaking of the communist parties both at national and international levels in the post-independence era affected him severely and influenced his progressive writings as well as film songs like:
Waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam and Bichhde sabhi baari baari
(Kaagaz Ke Phool);
Jaane kya dhoondhti rehti hai ye ankhen mujhmein
(Shola aur Shabnam);
Main ye sochkar uske dar se chala tha, Zara si aahat hoti hai, Hoke majboor mujhe usne bhulaya hoga and Kar chale hum fida jaan-o-tan saathiyo
(Haqeeqat);
Ya dil ki suno duniyawalo
(Anupama);
Mile na phool to kaanton se dosti karli
(Anokhi Raat);
Meri awaaz suno
(Naunihal);
Doli chadhte hi Heer ne, Do dil toote do dil haare and Ye duniya ye mehfil
(Heer Ranjha) to name a few;
One can feel the perception and sensitiveness of the romantic revolutionary through his cynical digs at the people at large and their stifled thinking, his mock at the hypocritical society and its pharisaic beliefs, his taunt at the materialistic world which has no value for love and humanity and which separates us from another. Kaifi’s poetry has intensity of emotion, particularly spirit of sympathy and compassion towards the disadvantaged and weaker sections of the society.
His film lyrics and non film writings highlight succinctly not only the sensitive romanticism and sarcastic cynicism of the common man’s poet but also the human side of the poet and his poems layered with rich poetic imagery and imagination.
Kaifi Azmi was a Thinking poet, a Progressive Writer, a Revolutionary and a Romantic. He was involved in the Communist activities from the age of 19 and he got married in 1947. In and around that time, he lost his first born child and the Party office was also banned. Struggle for survival continued. And, maintaining dignity even in desperation, he took to writing for films for survival.
His Party friends Ismat Chugtai and Shahid Latif gave him chance to write in Buzdil (1951). Several other B and C grade fantasy films followed like:
Gulbahar, Shaan-e-Khuda, Lal-e-Yaman, Sakhi Haatim, Hatimtai ki Beti, Yahudi ki Beti, Sultana Daku, Shaahi Chor, Zindagi, Chandu, Jannat, Lala Rukh. All these films were released in the 50s.
Recognition came with Guru Dutt’s semi autobiographical classic Kaagaz ke phool. Guru Dutt signed Kaifi Azmi for his film following ego clashes with Sahir. Music was by S D Burman. The pains and pathos resulting from the break up of the communist parties and the shattered hopes and dreams of the ‘comrades’ (as he addressed everyone) found allegorical expression in the poignant and pathos-filled song Bichhde sabhi baari baari!
Kaagaz Ke Phool was a commercial failure. All associated with the film were disappointed including Kaifi Azmi. But he was not one to lose heart and hope like Guru Dutt who was a picture of doom, despair and disdain. After all, it was Kaifi Azmi who wrote and, ironically, for a film of Guru Dutt:
बदल जाये अगर माली चमन होता नहीं खाली,
बहारें फिर भी आती हैं, बहारें फिर भी आयेंगी।
Kaagaz Ke Phool was followed by a few inconsequential films like: 40 Days, Naqli Nawab, Apna Haath Jagannath, Ek Ke Baad Ek…All of them flopped and soon Kaifi was branded an unsuccessful writer. That was not the ‘haqeeqat’!
Artistic and commercial came with Chetan Anand’s war film Haqeeqat in which Kaifi teamed up with yet another unsuccessful composer Madan Mohan. There was no scope for music in the film, yet the two came up evergreen songs like:
Kar chale hum fida jaan-o-tan saathiyo… a heart wrenching song dedicated to the martyrs;
Hoke majboor mujhe usne bhulaya hoga… a song depicting sympathy for and empathy with the pain and pathos of the beloved;
Main ye sochkar uske dar se chala tha… a song on unrequited love;
Zara si aahat hoti hai to dil sochta hai…. a song expressing the subdued excitement of meeting the beloved.
Kaifi Azmi teamed up successfully with Chetan Anand in several noteworthy films like Heer Ranjha, Hanste Zakhm, Hindustan Ki Kasam. All the three had immortal musical score by Madan Mohan for whom Kaifi wrote in many more films like: Ghar ka Chirag, Naunihal, Maa Ka Aanchal, Maharaja, Parwana, Sultana Daku, Bawarchi and Inspector Eagle. With the sole exception of Bawarchi, the others were eminently forgettable and / or unsuccessful.
Incidentally, Bawarchi was directed by Hrishikesh Mukerji, yet another serious and sensitive film maker. Initially, Kaifi never took ever took films seriously and nor did the films take him seriously. But his teaming up with eminent makers of serious and seminal films like Guru Dutt, Chetan Anand, Asit Sen, K A Abbas, Kamal Amrohi and Hrishikesh Mukherji, changed the thinking of both the funkaar as well as the film fraternity.
In particular, Kaifi’s teaming up with Hrishikesh Mukherji was highly rewarding. Mukherji signed Kaifi in films like Do Dil, Anupama, Satyakam, Bawarchi. Though Kaifi and Mukherji were of same age, the latter considered him as his teacher and his conscience. If Mukherji went off track in any fashion, Kaifi would rebuke him and say that a film director should be a conscience keeper of society and not a shop keeper.
Of the four films they worked together, it is believed that the filmmaker’s personal favourite was Anupama and music lovers’ favourite song was Kuch dil ne kaha written evocatively by Kaifi and rendered feelingly by Lata Mangeshkar. Arguably, the most sensitive lyrics by the writer sensitive to the feelings of women. In fact, his nazm “Aurat” inspired women to rebel, take up challenges and walk shoulder to shoulder with man.
Shauqat Azmi, who graced the Keep Alive lyrical tribute “Kaifiyat” in May 2012 with her artistic presence, was visibly moved beyond words and was almost speechless. Yet the ‘aurat’ in her gave her enough strength to recite a few lines from her husband’s inspiring poem “Aurat” which went :
ज़िन्दगी जहद में है, सब्र के काबू में है,
नब्ज़~ए~हस्ती का लहू कांपते आंसू में है;
उड़ने खुले में है नकहत, खम~ए~गेसू में नहीं,
जन्नत एक और भी है जो मर्द के पहलू में नहीं;
उसकी आज़ाद रविश पर भी मचलना है तुझे,
उठ मेरी जान, मेरे साथ ही चलना है तुझे।
Also present at the occasion were their cinematographer son Baba Azmi and his actress wife Tanvi Azmi (daughter of yester years actress Usha Kiran), cinematic symbols of the Indo-Islamic synthesis in contemporary times.
Kaifi Azmi was an atheist but his secular outlook made him respect the divine forms of all religions. Years ago in an interview Usha Kiron revealed how Azmi had come to meet her when she was opposing her daughter Tanvi’s marriage to Baba Azmi. “Having gone through the trauma of the post partition riots, I was always a shade suspicious of Muslims. But when he came to know the reason for my opposition, he came home and asked me to reconsider my decision. He said that if my problem was they were a Muslim family, he was ready to build a temple in their house for Tanvi”.
Incidentally, Kaifi met his to be wife Shauqat at a Mushaira in Hyderabad. It was a case of love at first sight (पहले पहल के दर्द की लज़्ज़त न पूछिये) followed by exchange of pleasantries, salam-dua (ये कौन सोचता है के सजदा कुबूल हो), exchange of letters and the marriage took place against certain odds (Shauqat was a sunni muslim and he, a shia). Both of them were to get married to someone else but ultimately they became partners of a lifetime.
Shauqat wrote on a piece of paper:
ज़िंदगी के सफर में अगर तुम मेरे हमसफ़र होते तो ये ज़िंदगी इस तरह गुज़र जाती जैसे फूलों पर से नसीम-ए-सहर का एक तेज़ झोंका!
Shauqat stretched her hand to give the paper and Kaifi gave his poetic heart saying:
आँचल की ओट हो के न हो अब नसीब में,
मैंने चराग़ आज हवा में जला दिया;
उनका बढ़ा जो हाथ यहाँ दिल लुटा दिया।
Kaifi was not just sensitive to the feelings of women; he was sensitive and susceptible to the sufferings of all human beings. Probably, that made him easily prone and vulnerable to crying.
He cried ceaselessly after he recited his first ghazal and was accused for claiming the intellectual property of someone else:
इतना तो ज़िंदगी में किसिकी ख़लल पड़े,
हंसने से न हो सुकून, न रोने से कल पड़े;
मुद्दत के बाद उसने जो की लुत्फ़ की निगाह,
जी खुश तो हो गया मगर आँसू निकाल पड़े।
He would cry at a very tender age when he saw his sisters suffer from and die of TB; he had witnessed miseries all over;
He would cry if guests came and left;
He would cry if he didn’t get letters from Shaukat… he wrote a letter soaked in blood:
अब तक आप की मोहब्बत में आंसू बहाये, अब खून, आगे आगे देखिया होता है क्या।
He would cry when as a punishment for not acknowledging the presence of an elderly person, he was asked by his father to go and salute the hundred and odd ‘ताड़ के दरख़्त’ (palm trees);
Kaifi Azmi was a romantic poet. Like all poets, Kaifi had a fascination for the word ‘Daaman’ so frequently used by him in his songs. In the literal sense, ‘Da’ means ‘to bind’ and ‘Daaman’ means the ‘skirt of a garment’. Kaifi has more often used the word as a figure of speech to describe a ‘soothing touch of the heart’; he has used the word not in the physical sense but in a philosophical way as can be seen in songs like:
Dekhi zamaane ki yaari… Ya phool hi phool the ‘daaman’ mein…
Jeet hi lenge baazi hum tum… Main bhi na chhodun pal bhar ‘daaman’….
Main ye sochkar uske dar se chala… Hawaon mein lehrata aata tha ‘daaman’
ki ‘daaman’ pakadkar bitha legi mujhko, Na daaman hi pakda…
Ye duniya ye mehfil…. Ae parbat rasta de mujhe, ae kaanto ‘daaman’ chhoddo..
Zara si aahat hoti hai… Chhoo gayi jism mera, uske ‘daaman’ ki hawa….
Dheere dheere machal…. Uske ‘daaman’ ki khushboo hawaon mein hai….
The term ‘Daaman’ is easy to explain and understand in Hindi:
दामन:
एक सूक्ष्म अस्तित्व जो पंच इंद्रियों से परे है; जो देखा नहीं जा सकता; सिर्फ महसूस किया जा सकता है as in
Uske daaman ki khushboo hawaon mein hai and Chhoo gayi jism mera uske daaman ki hawa…
Literally, ‘Daaman’ connotes an armour, a shield or an anchor, a haven, a support and figuratively, a person’s aura and charisma all over…in other words, the Charisma of Kaifi and the Aura of Azmi!!
Kaifi Azmi always spoke and wrote what he had in mind, what he practiced and what he preached. Even after he suffered from cerebral thrombosis in 1973 which fully paralysed his one side, his will power and urge to live and do something for the society became stronger. And he lived for another 30 long years and during the last ten to fifteen years that he lived in Mijwan, a small village in Fulpur, Azamgarh, he brought about a lot of social reforms and changes in the village beyond imagination and beyond recognition.
Both age and the disability weakened him physically, but his will power was still strong, the spirit to live and the urge to work indefatigable and the faith in humanity intact as reflected by his own lines:
थकन कैसी, घुटन कैसी, चल अपनी धुन में दीवाने,
खिलाले फूल काँटों में, सजा ले अपने वीराने!
He continued to walk on the path he chose to walk at the vulnerable and impressionable age of nineteen and walked ceaselessly and selflessly on it only to make a difference to the pain-infested lives of several millions.
एक दिन इसी रास्ते पर गिरूंगा और सफ़र ख़त्महो जायेगा;
मंज़िल पे या मंज़िल के करीब…
And, he stopped to take rest forever on the fateful day of 10 May, 2002. Even after 18 years of his departure, he continues to ‘live’ through his poems and songs full of hope, full of optimism and full of positivity.
Kaifi Azmi was both a romantic revolutionary and a revolutionary romantic. He gives the world the freedom of choices but has made his choice:
या दिल की सुनो दुनियावालो या मुझको अभी चुप रहने दो,
मैं ग़म को ख़ुशी कैसे कहदूं, जो कहते हैं उनको कहने दो।
Kaifi Azmi’s strong willed belief in equity and fairness for all, his courage and determination to protest against racism and repression, sexism and suppression and a society that alienates us, will haunt the entire nation and awaken the entire humanity as he talks and walks undauntedly amidst us as a spectre of hope. Influence of people like him is like the flickering undying flame of hope about which he talks about in a poem:
बुझे गए सारे दिये, हाँ मगर एक दिया,
नाम जिसका है उम्मीद, झिलमिलाता ही चला जाता है।
The Day marks the 101st Birth Anniversary of Kaifi Azmi and it is almost 18 years since he passed away. But, the number of years does not matter if it was years as the future generation will still remember Kaifi Azmi because he spent his life hoping for “something that will outlast it”.
Kaifi Azmi – Symbol of Undying Flame of Hope
