शोषित वर्ग के शायर थे कैफ़ी आज़मी
कैफ़ी आज़मी मेरे समकालीन थे. उसी तरह जैसे उम्र के फ़र्क के बावजूद वह अपने सीनियर शायर जोश मलीहाबादी, रघुपति सहाय फ़िराक़ और जिगर मुरादाबादी के समकालीन थे. वह इन बुज़ुर्गों के ज़माने के नौजवान शायर थे. सन् 35-36 में…
Kaifi Azmi – the last comrade-poet
Kar chale ham fida jaan-o-tan saathiyo Ab tumhare hawale watan saathiyo (Consecrating our lives to our land, we leave (for war), our land is now in your care, friends…). There could be no greater tribute to offer than to quote…
Kaifi Azmi – A Heart Which Contained the Sorrows of the World
In the foreword to ‘Maha Prastavana’ by the famous Telegu poet Sri Sri, the famous Telegu humourist Chilam had said that Krishna Shastri is a poet who gives all his pains to the world, and Sri Sri makes the sorrows…
Shaukat Kaifi speaking about Kaifi Azmi
As young people Shaukat and Kaifi fall desperately in love with each other but are soon parted. For Shaukat’s family, a card-holding communist, a poet with no source of income, is hardly the kind of person their daughter should be…
Ali Sardar Jafri speaking about Kaifi Azmi
Ali Sardar Jafri being already involved with PWA, introduced Kaifi to Sajjad Zaheer and other stalwarts of PWA and they become de facto official poets of Leftist Movement in India, along with Sahir Ludhiyanvi .
Satirical Qawwali by Javed Akhtar on 50th Anniversary
It is a qawwali that was originally written by Kaifi Sahab’s dear friend Comrade Munish Narayan Saxena on Shaukat and Kaifi’s 25th wedding anniversary. On their 50th anniversary Javed Akhtar kept the Mukhda and wrote a satirical qawwali that was sung by…
Tribute – Poetry, Politics And Desire – by Anjum Hasan
The passing away of Kaifi Azmi represents the slow disappearance of a liberal humanism that was able to achieve a straightforward, passionate, unassailable manifestation in poetry. How would I, an English language poet and one separated from Kaifi Azmi by…