Shabana Azmi’s fond memories of her father Kaifi Azmi

Gulf News

Read the full article here: https://bit.ly/2U8qaCg   See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos  Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  Shabana Azmi shares her fondest memories and great learnings from her celebrated father and poet Kaifi Azmi. The Indian National-winning actress is in the UAE along with sister-in-law Tanvi Azmi and actor Kanwaljit Singh for Mehfil-e-Urdu, an event dedicated to Kaifi Azmi’s birth centenary.  #ShabanaAzmi #KaifiAzmi #Urdu

Transcript

00:00It's a celebration of Kaifi and everything that Kaifi loved so obviously encouragement for Urdu

00:06to people who were born to the language and people who were not born to the language.

00:15Hi all this is Manjusha from Gulf News Tabloid and today we have a very special guest in our

00:21segment. We have national award-winning actress Shabana Azmi. She's in Dubai this week for her

00:27recital Urdu recital called Mehfil-e-Urdu where she observes the 100th birth anniversary of her

00:33father a legendary poet Kaifi Azmi. Let's find out from her what she has in store for us during

00:39the recital. Let me begin by saying that 2019 January 14th marked the birth centenary of my

00:47father Kaifi Azmi and throughout the year we've been having many celebrations all over the world

00:53not only in India but we've also had it in London and Bradford many parts of India and now we're

01:02also taking a film that has been made on him called Kaifi Nama by Sumantra Ghoshal. It is

01:09going to four different international festivals in the US so it is one of those things. What makes

01:15me very happy is actually we started as a family to celebrate his birth centenary in a big way

01:24but it took on a life of its own because different people sprung up from different parts of the world

01:30saying that they've been fans of Kaifi and that this is something that they would like to do

01:35and so Rehan got in touch with me and said that he's been a fan of Kaifi's for the longest and

01:40that he would like to seize this opportunity so that's how the evening started. Basically they're

01:46doing several things it's a celebration of Kaifi and everything that Kaifi loved

01:50so obviously encouragement for Urdu to people who were born to the language and people who were not

02:00born to the language and yet have contributed in very meaningful ways which I think is a very

02:04important contribution so they're going to get some awards for it. After that there will be an

02:09interaction with my sister-in-law Tanvi Azmi and myself about various aspects of Kaifi then

02:15there'll be a little short film on Kaifi and basically the main part of the evening is a

02:22collection of Kaifi's songs which will be sung by different singers. Now the one thing that I always

02:28find very fascinating is but when when we string Kaifi's songs together people suddenly say oh we've

02:35loved these songs forever but we didn't know that they were all written by Kaifi. All the time I keep

02:40getting that feedback. I'm one of them when I did up and I was like oh my god this song is by him

02:47it's amazing in a way it's like taking us revisiting those hits and actually giving it's

02:53kind of a case of reflective pride for you right knowing that his works are still alive. Yes

02:58absolutely and you know when we celebrate Kaifi we not only celebrate him we celebrate his times

03:04we celebrate people, artists who were committed to the idea of art should be used as an instrument

03:11for social change. There were people involved with the progressive writers association they were

03:16involved with the Ipta with the cultural activity that was used for social change. So we must also

03:25remember that there was a collective time when you had Majrooh and Kaifi and Sahir and Janisar

03:33and Shailendra where the lyric was as beautiful as a poem. Even today when you recollect Hindi

03:40film songs you find in the songs little homilies which almost become little philosophies of life

03:46that you can cling to when you're in love, when you're sad, when you're looking forward to

03:53something. So for me it's very important that we celebrate that because in today's day I mean I

03:59accept that change is a constant and there will be changes but for me because I come from a writer's

04:09family pronunciation, use of correct spelling, use of grammar all these things are very important

04:19and what is happening in the whatsapp world we are losing pronunciation, we are losing

04:24we are losing spelling, we are losing grammar and it seems to be the cool thing to do and I don't

04:29understand it. I mean I might sound like really ancient but I really don't understand why language

04:35has to be compromised because it is such a deep part of our culture and if you use language

04:43sensitively and beautifully it can convey much more than its words. So I have a great feeling

04:49for language for Urdu of course but for all languages spoken well and so I'd really like

04:54to congratulate Rehan for making this attempt they're also teaching Urdu to many schools in

05:01India. You know on the one hand we feel maybe the interest is dwindling but on the other hand you

05:07have occasions such as this you have a very big organization called Rehta which encourages

05:14Urdu and what is wonderful is that it started off as such a small festival

05:19and now you see in thousands people throng to the festival and it's the young generation

05:25so I think if you feel, I'm not surprised I am encouraged. How did he shape your existence if

05:32you were to? Well both my parents Kefi and Shaukat have had obviously a very deep influence on my

05:41brother Baba and my life and they really taught by example they did not sit us down and they did

05:50not tell us that these are the values that you should grow up with their whole living because

05:58till the age of nine I was living in the communist party commune where we had eight

06:05families living together in only a room which was about 180 to 200 square feet and eight families

06:12were sharing one toilet and one bathroom it was a commune of the communist party where gender

06:19justice was a given social justice was a given India's pluralism and her composite culture

06:27was embraced so we grew up valuing all that in fact I think I must have been about 19 when I

06:33first realized that gender equality is an exception rather than the rule because that's

06:40how I grew up. My parents always encouraged us to speak our minds to be respectful but to speak

06:50our minds about issues that we felt very strongly about and there was a totally unconditional

06:55support both from Kefi and Shaukat. That's amazing and you're talking about pluralism now

07:00in India right now all the artists live in fear perhaps or there's also as pluralism being

07:07embraced is their divide what is your take on what's happening in India? This is a very simplistic look

07:14simplistic way of looking at things because all over the world it's not only in India all over

07:20the world there seems to be like a shift towards the right it's not particular to India I mean

07:26look at America look at France look at Europe look at so many different things but this I think

07:33is a cycle that happens after every 33 years you go through a cycle where people move right or they

07:39move left. I am an optimist my father was an optimist and I just believe that India cannot

07:48but be a pluralistic country because she firstly is a country that lives in several centuries

07:57simultaneously and her people live back to back in multiple cultures multiple languages multiple

08:07religions so the very existence of India cannot be uniform it can be common but it cannot be

08:14uniform. You think that and you don't live in fear as an artist you don't know about your father

08:19what's the lasting memory that you have of him? Something which for me is really my mantra which

08:24is basically he said when you're working for change you have to build into that expectation

08:30the possibility that change might not occur within your lifetime but you have the confidence

08:37you have to have the confidence that if you carry on working with sincerity and dedication

08:43then change will happen even if it does so after you're gone. That to me is the biggest lesson

08:50that I've got from him and I hold it to my heart when I get impatient when I feel things are not

08:56going after the way I wanted to it's always this and a lot of my father's poetry actually has also

09:03been a source of inspiration for the work that I do. So my father to me has been my guru he's been

09:10my father he's been my friend many many many many things he was I could always rely on him

09:20to give me an objective opinion if I was concerned about something he would be able to give me an

09:27objective opinion and I've always gained strength from the support I received from him. Fantastic

09:34and what's the last question what's the legacy that you want to leave Shabana ji? I know you're

09:38doing a lot of work it's not just movies or you fight for change. I believe that every I believe

09:44that every person has the capacity to be a catalyst for change if they can be motivated to do so.

09:54A lot of us want to work a lot of us want to do things but we get so overwhelmed and we feel

10:00oh my god the task at hand is so huge and it's poor little me but every single

10:06drop contributes towards the ocean and so I feel that if we can commit to being responsible for

10:14even one person outside of oneself we are making that contribution. He was very erudite as well and

10:21cerebral so did that transfer to you as well did you also feel the need to like perhaps catch up

10:25on his work what was that like? Well you see I come from a traditional Maharashtrian family

10:33so Urdu was not the not the language that we are familiar with and Kefi Sahib's writing is

10:41extremely deep and it's extremely sharp Urdu and it's really his amazing command over the language

10:51so I don't really get all his poetry but it used to be fantastic to just hear him

11:00when he was reciting something at home or we're just all sitting around and in that

11:04booming voice of his he would recite and we used to be totally spellbound.

11:11So I did start understanding much more than I did but his poetry is

11:23intense I get the intensity of it I don't really understand all the words even now but

11:31his surprisingly he the world views him as an extremely serious kind of person

11:41but he also had another side to him which was really really really wonderful I mean that is

11:46I don't expect poets yeah I find them like creative poets are extremely charming

11:52and charming people have a great sense of humor and so it was it was all of that it was it was a

11:58package with him. I'm just reciting a few who's poetry I'm absolutely in love with and I love the

12:09man and me in fact I have I had personal bondings with him and

12:20I have been reciting his poetry for a long time earlier as well.

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