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Great lives, great times
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Shabana Azmi, with her husband Javed Akhtar, brings to the city glimpses of the life of her celebrated parents Kaifi and Shaukat Azmi. The actor speaks to BAGESHREE S. about the great life of commitment and companionship they led
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Photo: Sandeep Saxena
IN THEIR FOOTSTEPS Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi play Kaifi and Shaukat Azmi in Kaifi aur Main; (left) Shaukat on whose book the presentation is based
You would know Kaifi Azmi even if you knew nothing of Urdu and its rich literary tradition. You would know him by the heartbreaking "Waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam" from Kagaz Ke Phool, the poignantly philosophical "Chalte chalte... " of Pakeezah and the youthful and naughty "Mana ho tum behad hasi... " of Toote Khilone. You would know him by his script for M.S. Sathyu's Garam Hawa based on Ismat Chughtai's moving Partition saga, and his role as the doting grandfather in Naseem.
But if you aren't a stranger to the wonderful world of Urdu poetry, you would know him as a poet who saw writing as a form of resistance, a voice against stifling orthodoxies. As a member of the Progressive Writers' Movement and the Communist Party, this son of a zamindar from a village in Uttar Pradesh went on to break conventional barriers in both his poetry and the way he chose to live his life.
Kaifi was famously thrown out of the madrasa in Lucknow where he was studying for forming a students' union and organising a strike! He said in an interview in 1998: "I was born in enslaved India, have lived in independent secular India, and God willing, I will die in socialist India."
And it's now time to know Kaifi from the point of view of his wife, Shaukat Azmi. As actor, feminist and rebel, besides being a doting wife, she sketches her life with him in her Urdu book Yaad Ki Rehguzar. The couple's celebrated daughter and son-in-law — actor Shabana Azmi and writer Javed Akhtar — are bringing excerpts from this work adapted to stage by Javed himself, Kaifi aur Main, to Bangalore this weekend.
"I would hesitate to call it a play. It's more a theatrical presentation," says Shabana. The book on which it is based, she adds, is very special because it does not stop at the personal, but goes on to speak of an ideology and a time that nurtured it. "It's a female gaze at the politics of the time. It comes with humour, romance and camaraderie. It's a whole life led."
The relationship begins with Shaukat, brought up in a conservative family, being fascinated by the man she first set eyes on at a meeting in Hyderabad: "Oh, how differently he thinks!" How the relationship grew and how they got married is an adventure in itself.
"My grandfather was a conservative man. But he took my mother to the commune where my father was then staying. He promised her: `If you think you can live with him here, I will get you married to him even if the family protests.' That was remarkable," says Shabana.
In his tribute to Kaifi in themusicmagazine.com after his death in 2002, M.S. Sathyu writes about this commune: "They were all living on a single floor of a big building, like in a chawl, and each person had a room. They had to live in that, with common toilets and things like that. Dedicated people working for a cause..."
Shaukat, of course, was unshakable in her decision and married Kaifi and lived with him for the next 55 years. She stood by him through thick and thin all the way, including the sorrowful time when he was paralysed and decided to return to his native village Majwaan. "I'm always overwhelmed by how determined they were against all odds. She was a feminist, writer and actor in her own right and fiercely independent. She was also an exceptional companion," recalls Shabana.
In Kaifi aur Main, Shabana plays Shaukat and Javed, Kaifi. In a format reminiscent of Tumhari Amrita (which also featured Shabana), the letters written by Kaifi and Shaukat are read to the audience. "There is an added sense of fun because there are references to me and Javed which we will ourselves be reading out!" laughs Shabana.
Javed may not be a seasoned actor like Shabana, but she assures that he is "in his element" in the presentation because he is much closer to the language and poetry than she herself is.
Kaifi's best verses
Interspersing the narrative will be some of the best verses of Kaifi (rendered by Jaswinder Singh), including familiar ones such as "Hoke majboor jab usne mujhe bhulaya hoga", "Bicchde sabhi bari bari" and "Tum itna jo muskura rahe ho".
Says Shabana: "There is great nostalgia for his songs, and so, the presentation also works like a mushaira." She promises to bring copies of Yaad Ki Rehguzar (in Urdu and Hindi) to Bangalore to make the mushaira that much more memorable.
A fund-rising initiative for the India Foundation for the Arts (IFA), Kaifi aur Main will be presented on July 29 at 7 p.m. at the St. John's Auditorium, Koramangala. Written by Javed Akhtar and directed by Ramesh Talwar, it has art direction by M.S. Sathyu and music by Kuldip Singh. Donor passes (Rs. 2,000, Rs. 1,000, Rs. 700 and Rs. 500) can be ordered online on at www.fabmall.com. You can order on telephone by calling Nirmal at 41303030 between 9 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. Passes are also available in Café Coffee Day outlets across the city. For more information, email contactus@indiaifa.org
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