The lion still roars
Date: Wednesday, September 9, 1998 by Yogesh Pawar You mention `socialism’ and his gnarled face lights up. “It can never die,” says the octogenarian poet, Kaifi Azmi, on whom the Maharashtra government has decided to confer the Dnyaneshwar award, this year.…
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…
You Are Always With Me Abba
I look out of the window from Abba’s room. The first showers of the monsoon have freshly bathed the trees. The sky is blue, the grass green, the gulmohar resplendent in full bloom. I turn back to look inside the…
Leaving The Land In Your Care, Friends
His parents wanted him to be a maulvi, but Kaifi Azmi chose protest and hope over God Naresh Nadeem on Kaifi Azmi Kaifi Azmi, one of the last pillars of the progressive tradition in Urdu, died on May 10. Kaifi’s…
Preface to Selected Poems by Pawan Verma
Kaifi Azmi was born in 1918 in Azamgarh, UP. His nom-de-plum ‘Azmi’ is derived from his place of birth. His real name is Syed Athar Hussain Rizvi. Kaifi Saheb had his early education in Arabic and Persian in trditional madrasa…
Kaifi & I – Epilogue
Shabana has just returned from Mijwan full of excitement at the rapid steps of progress Mijwan has taken ….. Namrata Goyal, the 20 year old daughter of Jet Airways owners Naresh and Neeta Goyal has now taken over as President…
For Abba With Love
He was always different, a fact that didn’t sit too easily on my young shoulders. He didn’t go to ‘office’ or wear the normal trousers and shirt like other ‘respectable’ fathers but chose to wear a white cotton kurta-pyjama 24…