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By Amit Malhotra Š2002 Bollyvista.com |
Only a month after being conferred the prestigious Sahitya Akademi fellowship for his eminence as an Urdu poet and his exceptional contribution to Indian literature, Kaifi Azmi moved on to another world...
District Azamgarh, Uttar Pardesh, year 1918, a small village Majwan, a zamindar family welcomed a newborn. They named him Syed Athar Hussain Rizvi. At the tender age of 11, Athar Hussain wrote his first ghazal. He decided to become one of India's finest poet and consequently he was sent to Sultaan-ul-madaaris, Lucknow. There, he learnt the finer points of Farsi and Arabic. He also published his first nazm in Lucknow, entitled: Sarfaraaz. At the age of 19, Kaifi Azmi joined the Communist Party of India and became an active member of the party. He started writing for the party's newspaper Qaumi Jang and expressed his views on human struggle. Subsequently, he moved to Bombay and published his first book entitled Jhankaar. He published his second collection in 1947, this one was entitled Akhir-e-Shab.
In 1948, he started a new career: Lyricist in Hindi Film Industry. His first employer was Director Shahid Latif, who had Kaifi Azmi pen two songs of his feature film Buzdil. For the next two decades, Kaifi Azmi went ahead to write some of the most memorable songs for Hindi Film Industry. His lyrics were full of passion; love and they left their mark on the listeners. He worked with a lot of Music Directors, providing memorable lyrics to their compositions. In 1973, Kaifi Azmi published his third collection of poems, entitled Aawara Sajde. This collection won him the Sahitya Akademi award and was translated into Hindi in 1980. He also had another book to his name: Meri Aawaaz Suno, this one consisted of a collection of his songs written for Hindi Film Industry. Just last year, Pavan K Varma (author of 'Ghalib: The man') translated some of Kaifi Azmi's wonderful poems in English. The book, entitled Selected Poems: Kaifi Azmi was a dream come true for Kaifi Azmi.
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