Bhawana Somaaya

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
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