Category: Arts & Culture

A part of the rare class of Urdu poets with social consciousness, Kaifi Azmi was a staunch Nehruvian, like Sahir Ludhianvi, Shakeel Badayuni, and others of his ilk.

Venkat Parsa

Kaifi Azmi was the King of Romance. Kaifi Azmi, Sahir Ludhianvi and Shakeel Badayuni formed a triumvirate of romantic poets-lyricists who dominated the Golden Era of Hindi Cinema. A part of the rare class of Urdu poets with social consciousness, Kaifi Azmi was a staunch Nehruvian, like Sahir Ludhianvi, Shakeel Badayuni, and others of his ilk. He became part of the Taraqqi-Pasand Tehreek, or Progressive Writers Movement, and was a Communist Party cardholder.

From Mushairas to Movies

Soon after Independence, many Urdu poets turned towards the world of Hindi Cinema. Urdu poets brought gravitas to the lyrics of Hindi film songs. So did Kaifi Azmi, leaving an indelible mark. May 10 marks his 23rd death anniversary.

Born Akhtar Hussain Rizvi on January 14, 1919, in Mizwaan village of Azamgarh district in Uttar Pradesh, he showed early signs of flair for Urdu poetry. At the age of 11, he composed a ghazal:

Itna to zindagi mein kisi ki khalal pade
Hasne se ho sukun, na rone se kal pade.

He recited it at a Mushaira in Bahraich and went on to choose the taqqalus, Kaifi Azmi, after Azamgarh. Recognising the spark in him, his father arranged for an Ustad, for Islah, to polish and firm up his poetic talent.

The Hyderabad connection

Kaifi Azmi had a Hyderabad connection, as well. His trademark persona was wearing a starched kurta-pyjama, smoking unfiltered Charminar cigarettes. Sarojini Naidu was familiar with his work. In fact, she advised Kaifi not to present his couplets in tarannum, but to recite them.

At a Mushaira in Hyderabad in 1947, he recited his acclaimed Nazm, Aurat. It cast a spell on his fan, Shaukat Khanam, who went on to break her matrimonial engagement in order to marry Kaifi Azmi. The Nazm was a hit, and it won him his life-partner.

Aurat challenged patriarchy in those times:

Tere qadmon mein hai firdaus-e-tamaddun ki bahaar
Teri nazron pe hai tehzeeb-o-taraqqi ka madaar
Teri aaġhosh hai gehvara-e-nafs-o-kirdaar
Tabakai gird tere wahm-o-taayyun ki hisaar
Kaund kar majlis-e-ḳhalwat se nikalna hai tujhe
Uth meri jaan, mere saath hi chalnaa hai tujhe.

And, literally, Shaukat stood up and walked away from Hyderabad along with Kaifi, who then moved to Mumbai.

Literary legacy

Aurat, Daera, Sarmaaya, Awara Sajde, Kaifiyaat and Doosra Banwas are among his acclaimed works.

Daera has a lyrical charm:

Jism se rooh talak ret hi ret
Na kahin dhoop, na saaya, na saraab
Kitne armaan hain kis sehra mein
Kaun rakhta hai mazaaron ka hisaab
Nabz bujhti bhi, bhadakti bhi hai
Dil ka maamul hai ghabrana bhi

Doosra Banwas gives the best expression to the composite Indian culture. In fact, December 6, 1992, was a black day, when it was targeted and torn down by razing the Babri Masjid.

Kaifi Azmi gave poetic vent to his feelings with Doosra Banwas, or Second Exile for Lord Ram, when confronted with barbarism in the name of devotion. It is a powerful indictment of those unleashing terror and gruesome violence, all in the name of Lord Ram.

Raqs-e-deewangi aagan mein jo dekha hoga
6 December ko Shri Ram ne socha hoga
Itne deewaane kahaan se mere ghar mein aaye
Jag-magaate the jahaan Ram ke qadmon ke nishaan
Pyaar ki kahkashaan leti thi angdaai jahaan
Mod Nafrat ke usi rahghusar mein aayee
Dharm kya unka thaa, kya Zaat thi, yeh jaantaa kaun
Ghar na jalta to unhen raat mein pehchaanta kaun
Ghar jalaane ko mere log jo ghar mein aaye.

Kaifi Azmi wraps it up powerfully:

Paun Sarju mein abhi Ram ne dhoye bhi na the
Ki nazar aaye wahaan khoon ke gehre dhabbe
Paun dhoye bina Sarju ke kinare se uthe
Ram ye kehte hue apne dware se uthe
Rajdhani ki faza aai nahin raas mujhe
6 December ko mila doosra banbas mujhe

Voice of a Nehruvian conscience

Essentially an Urdu poet, Kaifi Azmi moved to Hindi cinema where he gave poetic articulation to the Nehruvian political commitment, social and cultural ethos, and philosophical values. Choosing the popular medium of Hindi Cinema and turning into a lyricist immortalised him.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was shattered by the Sino-Indian War in 1962, which he described as the Great Betrayal. Kaifi Azmi responded with a stirring song for Chetan Anand’s Haqeeqat in 1964:

Kar chale hum fida jaan-o-tan saathiyon, ab tumhaare hawale watan saathiyon.

Other moving songs from the same film include:

• Ho ke majboor mujhe, usne bhulaya hoga, zeher chupke se dawa jaan ke khaya hoga
• Main yeh soch kar uske dar se utha tha ke woh rok legi, mana legi mujh ko

Perhaps his best tribute to Nehru was his song in Naunihal (1967):
Meri awaz suno, pyaar ka raaz suno.

King of Romance in cinema

Kaifi Azmi will be best remembered as the King of Romance with his songs in:

• Shama and Shola Aur Shabnam (1961)
• Do Dil and Faraar (1965)
• Anupama and Akhri Khat (1966)
• Naunihal (1967)

He wrote the script and dialogues in verse for Heer Ranjha (1970), a unique cinematic effort.

Songs like:

• Jeet hi lenge baazi hum-tum, khel adhura choote na
• Jaane kya dhoondti rehti hain yeh aankhen mujh mein from Shola Aur Shabnam created a magical impact.

Among his all-time hits are songs for Shama (1961), all sung by Suraiya:

Mast aankhon mein sharaarat, kabhi aisi to na thi, yunhi sharmaane ki aadat.

Another gem:
Dhadakte dil ki tamannahon mera pyaar ho tum, mujhe qaraar nahi jab se beqaraar ho tum.

A heart that felt deeply

Har roz haseeno ka deedar nahi hota
Yeh Tur ka jalwa hai, har baar nahi hota
(Tur is an allusion to Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments.)

Aap se pyaar huva jata hai / khel dushwaar huva jata hai
Dil jo har qaid se ghabrata tha / khud giraftaar huva jata hai
Tum ne kyon pyaar se dekha mujho / dard bedaar huva jata hai
Is tamannah mein ke tum doge saza / dil gunahgaar huva jata hai

Few poets can be as simple and direct as Kaifi Azmi.

Songs of pain and poignancy

Oh beqaraar dil, ho chuka hai mujh ko aansuon se pyaar from Kohra (1964) has rare poignancy.

Tera husn rahe mera ishq rahe, to yeh subah-o-yeh shaam rahe na rahe
Man mora naache, tan mora nache in Do Dil (1965) are among his finest.

Equally moving is:
Pyaar ki dastaan tum suno to kahe in Faraar (1965).

The pinnacle: Anupama (1966)

Anupama remains a high point in Kaifi Azmi’s career.

Kuch dil ne kaha, kuch bhi nahi is among the greatest songs ever written. It brings to life the character of Sharmila Tagore’s protagonist:

Dil ki tasallee ke liye, jhooti chamak, jhoota nikhar
Jeevan to suna hi raha, sabh samjhe ayee hai bahaar
Kaliyon se koyee poochhta, hasti hain woh ya roti hain
Aise bhi baaten hoti hain.

Other unforgettable songs include:

• Ya dil ki suno duniya waalon
• Bheegi-bheegi faza
• Kyon mujhe itni khushi de di, ke ghabrata hai dil.

Aur kuch der tehar, aur kuch der na jaa in Akhri Khat (1966) is quintessentially romantic.

Kaifi’s dream lives on

Kaifi Azmi gave poetic expression to deep feelings of pain and pathos. He had a dream, which he unveiled in his poetry and philosophy. This is what immortalises the work of Kaifi Azmi.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:- Inam Abidi Amrohvi, is an internet entrepreneur, author, and editor. He writes on a range of topical subjects and has contributed articles to various publications including Hindustan Times, Times of India, Gulf News and News Laundry. Inam has also edited publications like ‘IT Magazine’ and ‘InfoStore’.
Originally from Amroha, his family migrated to Lucknow in the late 1970s.

Inam holds a masters in computer applications, and manages a software consultancy dealing in cloud-based solutions.

MT: Please introduce yourself?
AUTHOR: I’m an internet entrepreneur who loves to write.

MT: What made you come into writing? AUTHOR: My father was very fond of reading and even set up a reading club with his friends. Every week they assembled at one house and books were distributed to each family for reading. This early family environment inspired me to start reading and as I delved more into novels, I realised that creative writing came naturally to me.

MT: Why did you select to write on Amroha?AUTHOR: Amroha is my ancestral town. The idea of first writing a book on Amroha crossed my mind in 2015 while researching for an article on the city. It was supposed to be a travelogue of sorts to introduce my kids to the city. The realisation soon came that there was no comprehensive English account of the city for the mainstream audience. I started working on it several years later.

MT: Tell us briefly about the book?
AUTHOR: The book is broadly divided into three parts viz., the political and social history of the city, a few prominent personalities of the city, and some cultural aspects.

MT: What do you feel is your best and most interesting chapter in the book? One that readers should not miss.
AUTHOR: I’ve tried to write a concise account so that every chapter is short and contains interesting information. Writing about Amroha’s connection to Gandhi’s civil disobedience and the city’s luminaries was the most fulfilling part.

MT: What challenges did you face while writing and publishing the book and how did you overcome them?
AUTHOR: The biggest challenge was reading the Urdu and Persian text and extracting relevant bits of information. Thankfully I found help at home (especially my wife) and from friends. For first-time authors, publishing is a tough task. In the end it all bottles down to how well connected you are.

MT: Are you planning to write any book in the future? If yes, what will be the topic?
AUTHOR: Currently only enjoying the positive reception to my book. If I do write another book, it’ll be a historical account.

MT: What future do you see for reading, especially books, in the era of virtual reality and mobile phones?
AUTHOR: I see a short format of books coexisting with the digital media.

MT: Any suggestions for budding authors?
AUTHOR: Write for others. People pick up a book only when there’s something of interest to them. An original idea rarely fails.

Will Urdu survive the next 25 years?

By Sami Qahar

Sampooran Singh Kalra, popularly known as Gulzar and one of the most iconic figures in Indian poetry and film music, loves Urdu. To the extent that in one of his most famous songs Chhaiyya Chhaiyya, he praises the beloved with the iconic line “Ho Jis Ki Zubaan Urdu Ki Tarah”.

He is not the only one to do so. The legendary dialogues and songs in Indian films would not be what they are today without Urdu. India still holds the Jashn-e-Rekhta event to commemorate Urdu every year. I wonder how many people reading this article know what rekhta means. For those who don’t, it is another name for Urdu.

I probably come from the last generation to have grown up with Urdu literature occupying a large part of my life. We, the eighties kids, had Ibn-e-Safi and Ishtiaq Ahmed to read and we graduated to Ashfaq Ahmed, Manto, Shafiq-ur-Rehman and Mustansar Hussain Tarar as we grew up. Our poetry was not a random guy turning incoherent sentences into words and calling it poetry. There was no Larro Mujhay or ‘Aisay Jeenay Mein’ because it was incorrect Urdu. Lyrics and poetry were ruled by Radeef, Qaafiya, Zameen and Beher. As I type these lines, I have a lump in my throat.

Let’s put the emotions and nostalgia aside and come to the problem at hand. Last month, Aurora’s website published an article called ‘Why is Urdu Difficult For Us’, which opened unhealed wounds. That piece was written by young creative manager and was more of an admission of guilt – and I felt his pain and conundrum.

The decline, if not demise of Urdu, particularly in advertising, can be attributed to several factors.

The Rise of WhatsApp and Roman Script

In 2004 when I started my career in advertising, the first language of communication for brands was Urdu. The communication was written and read in Urdu. Fast forward 15 year and a glance at the billboards on the streets and digital ads online, quickly show that Urdu is not written in Urdu script anymore. It’s all Roman, with everyone using their own spelling version to communicate. What is wrong with it, you may ask? It is a modern adaptation of a language and in keeping with trends. There is nothing wrong with it, except that it will kill the Urdu language sooner than later. Script, called Rasm-ul-Khat (رسمُ الخط ) is the basic difference between a ‘zabaan’ (language) and a ‘boli’ (lingo). A zabaan has its own rasm-ul-khat (script) and without a script a language cannot exist. What we have in advertising now, is Urdu spoken and written in English.

The biggest reason for this shift is the rise of apps, such as WhatsApp, where users type Urdu using English script and understand it the same way. It’s so common that advertisers consider it okay to only use one language. I would be fine with it if this was a global problem. It is not. In Turkey, ads are written in Turkish. In China the script is Mandarin. Greece, Spain, France… you name it. Go to the Middle East and see how many ads have Arabic written in English script. They all advertise in their own script. In Pakistan, you will see less than five percent digital ads using Urdu script. Instead, you see is five different spellings of ‘Hai ہے’ from Hey, Hai, Hay, Hae etc. Today’s copywriters do not understand the difference between writing ‘Nahin نہیں’ and ‘Nahi نہی’ as the two spellings are commonly used. In Urdu, ‘Nahin’ means No, whereas ‘Nahi’ used without an extra ‘noon ghunna’ (ں) sound, means denial or rejection. This is a huge difference and only one example of the problem at hand. ‘Kya’ and ‘Kiya’ have very different meanings. Kya is ‘What’ and Kiya is ‘Did’. Now open your ads and billboards photos and see how many times the two spellings have been used to say ‘What’.

Death of the Urdu Copywriter

The second and even bigger problem is that people do not even think Urdu is important or a skill worth having. In 2004, ad agencies had an Urdu copywriter who was an expert in his field and English copywriters were junior resources and usually part of the copy teams headed by an Urdu expert. More often than not, copy was written in Urdu and translated into English. Today, ad agencies have copywriters; there are no Urdu or English copywriters – just copywriters. Pitch decks are made in English, concepts are written and thought in English and if needed, translated into Urdu using English script. How then can one expect Urdu to exist or flourish in advertising?

The most unfortunate aspect of all this is that Urdu is no more a specialty. Anyone can write in Urdu. Any English copywriter can write Urdu taglines or dialogues (if someone is smart enough to create a concept where dialogue is required). Otherwise, a visual montage with heavy Urdu words without coherent sentences can always do wonders. Urdu jingles are written by English speaking copywriters. The end result is ‘Baby shor machay ga shor se zyda, party kar ley more se zyada’ – and this unfortunately is one of the better examples – at least it rhymes.

Decline in Reading Habit

Advertisers are not to blame for everything. Unfortunately, and that is the sad reality, there is a decline in reading all over the world. Books have been replaced by screens and screen-time is divided between social media, content, games and music. Reading is at the bottom of the pecking order. Forget anyone else, I used to be a one-book-a-week guy and now I am a one-book-every-six-months guy. If screens are going to replace books, Urdu will suffer way more than English because Urdu reading is limited to Pakistan.

Ranting aside, do I have a solution? I don’t want to be a pessimist, but the truth is advertisers will not switch to Urdu. Their rationale will be that Urdu is not the first language of the majority anymore; at least in terms of reading, if not speaking. As flawed as this argument may appear, there some merit for this rationale, particularly among the younger generation. The only way any of this can change is if the entire advertising industry decides to switch to Urdu as the first medium of communication. Not Urdu written in English script, but Urdu the language. They will have to bring back Urdu copywriters and give jingles to poets not English medium graduates. I am not being condescending towards a part of the fraternity, it is unfair to expect from them something that they have not studied or experienced.

None of this is going to happen. There is a strong possibility that 25 years from now, there will only be a handful of people who will know how to write Urdu. It will be a sad time to live in, but it’s okay. We will survive. We have survived Corona, haven’t we?

Sami Qahar is a marketer turned film producer. sami.qahar@gmail.com

Hyderabad: Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar, is known around the world over for the mourning of Hazrat Hussain, the son of Imam Ali and a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, who was martyred in the battle of Karbala, in Iraq (about) about 1400 years ago.

Hyderabad’s Moharram traditions, especially its huge processions, are believed to be the largest in the Indian sub-continent, which witness the participation of thousands of people, including those of non-Islamic faiths.

The processions begin from the first day of Muharram and end on the tenth of the same month. The Alam, which is a symbolic representation of the martyrs who died in the battle of Karbala, is usually carried out of the Bibi Ka Alawa ashoor khana on an elephant. It is followed by performing Khooni Matam, flagellation as a practice of mourning.

Every Ashoorkhana’s Alam has a Tabaruq (leftovers from the battle of Karbala or the anything which is associated Hazarth Hussian’s family).A number of people visit the Alam to offer their prayers.

History

The Qutb Shahi rulers were  Shia Muslims. During the reign of Mohammed Quli Qutb Shah, the fifth Qutb Shahi King, a prominent religious man named Aga Ali went for Hajj pimilgrimage (performed in Mecca). During the pilgrimage he had the privilege of acquiring a double edged sword which belonged to Imam Jafar Al Sadiq,who is a member of Prophet Hussain’s family.

The sword was received by Mohammad Quli Qutb Shah with royal honors. He later directed to construct Hussaini Alam Ashoor Khana and appointed Aga Ali as its chief cleric. The relic was installed as an Alam, which is incorporated in a specially designed Alam. The monarch also issued a decree for a Mahi Maratib, Royal Umbrella and Naubat for the Ashoor Khana. Aga Ali was endowed with Jagir and pension for the upkeep of the Ashoor Khana.

The Langar of this ashoor khana is very famous, and still attracts thousands of Muslims every year It was started by Hayat Bakshi Begum, the daughter of Mohd. Quli Qutb Shah, on her boon (mannat) coming true. According to a legend, Hayat Bakshi Begum’s son Abdullah was on his way to the Golconda fort, when the elephant he was travelling on went wild.

The elephant then picked up pace, threw down the mahout and ran with the then one-year old Prince into the forest. The worried mother seeing the crescent of Muharrum on the same day prayed that if the Prince returned safely she would offer a chain of gold equal to the weight of the Langar.

She vowed that this chain of gold would be tied round the waist of the Prince and he would be made to walk to the ashoor khana with it. After a day or two, the elephant recovered from its fit and reportedly returned tamely to the fort. With her wish coming true, the Queen mother arranged for a carpet to be spread from the Golconda fort to Hussaini Alam.

The legend also says that Hayat Bakshi Begum tied a gold chain of forty maunds (a traditional unit of mass) around the body of the Prince, who later went walking to the Hussaini Alam ashoor khana. The Alam in the historical Bibi-ka-Alawa ashoor khana goes round in a procession within the precincts of the building on the night of ashoora , the 10th day of Muharram.10). Ashurkhanas are called so since it is linked to the day of Ashura.

Hayat Bakshi Begum held a unique place in Hyderabad and Qutb Shahi history, give that she was connected to three kings: she was the daughter of a monarch (Mohd. Quli Qutb Shah), wife of a king (successor of her father, Sultan Mohd. Qutb Shah) and her son was also a king (Abdullah Qutb Shah). She was believed to be one of the most powerful women in the dynasty.

Courtesy: Siasat.com