Bhawana Somaaya

Miss you Abba

On May 2002 renowned lyricist and poet Kaifi Azmi passed away. It is eight years but I still vividly remember the first time I met him.
“Abba, ye hamari achchi dost hain…,” Shabana Azmi said introducing me to her father Kaifi Azmi sitting on a cane sofa-set, surrounded by the unique ambience of Janki Kutir, in Juhu, Mumbai. His left frozen hand characteristically resting on the arm of the chair, the right pressing it gently, he said softly, “Dost hai to zaahir hai achchi hi hogi.” That was my first exposure to his subtlety.

Over the years, due to my close proximity to the Azmi family, I got used to his towering personality and the master strokes of his intellect. The beauty of affection is that it makes no cerebral discriminations. I was included in the stimulating mehfils frequently held at the Azmi household, even though I understood very little of the language or the ideology. His awesome personality and thundering voice never intimidated only enchanted his lesser aware audiences. That was his magnanimity.

His strength was that unlike other performing artistes, he never craved for reassurance and remained truly detached from flattery. In a particularly low mood one evening, I asked him what triggered him to write the achingly romantic verse, ‘Dil ki nazuk ragen tutti hain, yaad itna bhi koi na aaye…’ from Hanste Zakhm. He looked at me with blank eyes for a long time, then looked away. It was his ability to hold back always that made his rare gestures of attachment so precious to all those who loved him deeply.

My special memory of him is walking into his room one afternoon to find Abba (as I later came to call him) disdainfully watching his man-Friday unsuccessfully struggle to pull out the naada from his pyjama. As soon as he saw me, he beamed and heaved a sigh of relief. “Is waqt mujhe ek aurat ki sakht zaroorat thi,” he said, signaling his attendant to pass me the pyjama and get on with other routine chores.

Several such magical moments come to my mind as I pen my memories. He and I wordlessly watching a murder mystery over chai and khari biscuit, unusually comfortable in each other’s silence. Me visiting him at Bombay Hospital soon after his back surgery. Brave as usual, his humour intact, he said almost like a mourning beloved, “Aaj Sheeba ki bahut yaad aati hai..” Sheeba was the temperamental dog who never left Abba’s side for a moment. And considering how little Abba communicated with anyone, it was amazing how they bonded in silence.

Over the decades, Abba visited Jaslok Hospital several times, shifting floors, rooms and doctors. Gradually from a robust man whose presence filled the room, he shrunk to a frail figure, permanently laid up on a high bed and closely monitored medically. Surrounded by gadgets and wrapped up in tubes, he was forever in discomfort, but not once did he complain even though his suffering was apparent.

In his last days, he seemed detached even from his poetry. When Shabana plugged in the ear-phones of his walkman and played for him his old numbers, there was no registration or joy in his eyes. The only time he perked up was when receiving the news of the country, or the progress in his village Phulpur, in Mijwan. The anguish was always for the larger mankind, never himself.

On the day he passed away, his new dog Gauri paced restlessly from one room to another. Sensing her master, but confused over not finding him at his regular place, she whined periodically. It was an unusually hot afternoon and a never-ending night. Lines from his poem Makaan reverberated in my mind:
Aaj ki raat bahut garm hawa chalti hai,
Aaj ki raat na footpath pe neend aayegi,
Sab utho, main bhi uthun, tum bhi utho, tum bhi utho,
Koi khidki isi deewar mein khul jaayegi…..

No window opened up to soothe our pain however. In fact, as the hours passed, the heartache increased. Grief flowed and ebbed as different members of the family displayed strength and vulnerability at different moments. Pain was omnipresent and a pall of gloom fell over the house with dusk.

When music directors Jatin-Lalit dropped by to offer condolences, it was late evening and after a long time, there was a nip in the air. After the formalities, in a spontaneous gesture, Jatin began humming Kaifi Azmi’s memorable songs. Soon Lalit joined him, then Javed Akhtar, Neelam Shukla, Parvati Khan and other family friends. It was a magical moment. From the poignant ‘Waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam…’ to the reflective ‘Jaane kya dhundti rehti hain aankhen mujh mein…’ the hopeful ‘Zara si aahat hoti hai…’, and the naughty ‘Sara mora kajra chudaya tune…’ to the inspiring ‘Itne baazu itne sar…’ Kaifi Azmi had a song for every mood and moment. Suddenly, the plants he had nurtured with so much love didn’t seem barren anymore. Suddenly, even our hearts filled with hope. Abba hadn’t gone away. It was apparent in the languid way Gauri lay asleep in the doorway. She had made peace. So had the swaying palm trees in the garden…

And so will us hopefully Abba, in your immortal poems and songs.

Bhawana Somaaya
www.bhawanasomaaya.com

On 9 February Shaukat Kaifi’s book Kaifi and I was released in the lawns of The Club, Juhu at the hands of Tabu. It was my duty to introduce the guests on the dais -Urvashi Butalia, pulisher Zubaan, Nasreen Rehman, the translator of the book, Tanvi Azmi who read passages from the English translation, Shabana Azmi, the moderator for the evening and finally, the star author Shaukat Kaifi, theatre and film actress par excellence.

All of us dream about writing our memoirs some day but very few of us get down to doing it. Shaukat Kaifi has dared to write hers at a time when most people her age hang up their boots. She makes a dramatic foray into the publishing world in sunset years and alters history.

The book has been translated into Hindi, Marathi and Japanese and selected by 14 Universities in USA for referential reading in the South Asian Department for a story that transcends the personal to encompass the socio political cultural ethos of the times in a voice that is distinctly female.

The original Yaad ki Rahguzar has been adapted into a very successful play by Javed Akhtar called Kaifi Aur Main starring Shabana Azmi as Shaukat Kaifi and Javed Akhtar as Kaifi Azmi with Jaswinder Singh singing both Kaifi’s film songs and nazms produced by IPTA and directed by Ramesh Talwar.

This is no minor achievement for writing about self, about people we love calls for alarming honesty, photographic memory and commitment. Shaukat Kaifi has all that and more. Those who know her intimately will agree that she can be uncomfortably candid and embarrassingly honest. Let me give some examples:

Thirty years ago when I became friends with Shabana, she introduced me to her father and said, ‘Abba ye meri achi dost hai’ to which Kaifi Azmi looked at me and said, ‘Dost hain to zahir hai achi hi hogi.’

Cut to…

Shabana introduced me to her mother; Shaukat Kaifi looked at me and said, ‘shakal soorat to achi hai magar sadi achi nahin pehni.’ That day I learnt my first lesson in connection with Azmi household. I learnt that if you have to be anywhere near Shaukat Kaifi, you have to be presentable because she is obsessed with aesthetics. She craves for beauty in everything she does and this reflects in her belongings, surroundings. I learnt that it does not matter whether you are heading from a wedding or a funeral, from a work meeting or travel, if you are visiting Shaukat appa you better meet with her approval.

A few years ago, when she was laid up in the hospital bed and all of us would be rushing to meet her, our tension had less to do with the restricted visiting hours and more to do with making an impact on her. As we got out of the car we worried if our hair was in place, our face washed and clothes not too crumpled and frail as she was, she never failed to reprimand us.

The family was not spared on any occasion either. Many years ago when her son Baba Azmi was making his debut as a cinematographer we were attending the premier of his film Bezubaan. As we walked inside the auditorium, Shaukat Kaifi found herself seated beside Naseerudin Shah. ‘Are you watching the film for the first time aapa?’ Naseer asked Azmi to which she rolled her eyes in utter boredom and said, ‘Nahin doosri baar aur meri himmat ki daat deni chahiye.’ Fortunately the producer or the director did not overhear the conversation, nor did they watch her fall asleep as soon as the film commenced but even if they had, I have no doubts that Shaukat would have disarmed them. That is her attraction, what draws people to her.

Over the years she has been a strong source of influence on many lives, mine included. She has provided me love, reassurance and confidence when the going was tough. On the brighter side she introduced me to finer arts, to weaves and hues, taught me to look at the sky and dress according to seasons. When I was launching a new magazine and struggled with designs and artworks, she unknowingly parted with a guru mantra has that come handy in my career. She said ‘Whenever in conflict about colours, seek from nature, see how the yellow leaf droops over the green leaf and entwines with the brown stem soiled inside the red earth and all will fall into place.’

It did, not just the colours in the design but the mounting problems of life. When I was unwell she fed me with her brand of homeopathy medicine and I recovered miraculously. In moments of crisis she tied imamejameen around my arm and whispered an ayat and it sounds bizarre but the problem suddenly ceased to exist.

There are so many moments, so many memories…From the heart of a well-known family of Hyderabad to life in a single room with the barest of necessities, Shaukat Kaifi’s memoir of her life with the renowned poet Kaifi Azmi, speaks of love and commitment.

As young people Shaukat and Kaifi fell desperately in love with each other but were soon parted. For Shaukat’s family, a card-holding communist, a poet with no source of income, was hardly the kind of person their daughter should be marrying. Yet Shaukat’s father, a liberal man and a loving father, took the bold step of putting his daughter’s happiness before social opprobrium, and brought the two lovers together.

A marriage of over half a century, a life steeped in poetry and progressive politics, continuing involvement with the Communist Party of India, Indian People’s Theatre Association,(IPTA) the Progressive Writers Association, Prithvi Theatre, ongoing links with the village Mijwan in Azamgarh to which Kaifi Azmi belonged… all of these and more forms a beautiful tale of love.

Shaukat Kaifi’s writing details life in a communist commune, a long career in theatre and film, and a life spent bringing up her two children, cinematographer Baba Azmi and actor Shabana Azmi.

Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen says of the book in his preface: “To say this is a lovely book would be an understatement. It is an enchanting recollection of the life of a hugely talented and sensitive human being, shared with a great poet. They were united not only by love and marriage, but also by an individually assessed joint commitment to social change, artistic creativity, and personal and political ethics. It is a lively account of an important part of Indian history – fired by sympathy, inspiration and imagination, but tempered by the hardship of reality.”

So many beautiful moments expressed on paper, an extra-ordinary life, an extra-ordinary character.

Bhawana Somaaya
blog.bhawanasomaaya.com