Kaifi Azmi: Google Doodle celebrates Indian poet’s 101st birthday

Google Doodle celebrates eminent Indian poet, songwriter, and social change advocate Kaifi Azmi’s 101st birthday on January 14, 2020.

Sayyid Athar Hussein Rizvi, known as Kaifi Azmi was an Indian Urdu poet. He is recognized as the person who carried Urdu literature to Indian films. Together with Pirzada Qasim, Jaun Elia, and others, he partook in the most essential mushairas of the 20th century.

Kaifi Azmi was born Syed Athar Hussain Rizvi on this day in 1919 into a Shia Muslim family in the town of Mizwaa(n) in Azamgarh district of Uttar Pradesh, India. At age 11, he composed his first poem, a ghazal-style piece.

Propelled by Gandhi’s 1942 Quit India freedom movement, he later left for Bombay (presently Mumbai) to compose for an Urdu newspaper. He then published his first collection of poems, Jhankar (1943), as well as became an individual from the influential Progressive Writers’ Association that used writing to attempt to accomplish socioeconomic changes.

Kaifi Azmi is known for his passionate love poems and activist verses frequently used as Bollywood songs. Kaifi Azmi is the dad of veteran actress Shabana Azmi and cinematographer Baba Azmi.

Kaifi Azmi was prolific and won various awards for his contributions in poems and lyrics, including three Filmfare Awards for Garm Hawa (“Scorching Winds”) in 1973, the renowned Padma Shri Award for Literature and Education in 1974, and one of India’s highest literary honors, the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship in 2002. Azmi is likewise known for his work in Heer Ranjha, Kaagaz Ke Phool, and so forth.

Kaifi Azmi was the subject of a documentary movie called Diksha (2015), directed by Raman Kumar. In 1997, he discussed his poems for Kaifiyaat, an audiobook on his gathered works.

In one of his initial and most well-known poems, “Aurat,” Kaifi Azmi supported women’s equality, one of the causes he championed in his lifetime. He likewise established the NGO Mijwan Welfare Society (MWS) to help different educational activities to improve the lives of rural women and families, and right up ’til today, MWS proceeds with its work in the soul of its founder.

Kaifi Azmi was the winner of Padma Shri, India’s fourth-highest civilian award. Other than he was awarded the Uttar Pradesh Urdu Academy Award and the Sahitya Akademi Award for Urdu for his collection Awaara Sajde, Special Award of Maharashtra Urdu Academy, Soviet Land Nehru Award, Lotus Award from the Afro-Asian Writers’ Association, and President’s Award for national integration. In 1998, the Government of Maharashtra presented the Jyaneshwara Award on him. He was likewise honored with the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Fellowship for lifetime accomplishment.

In 2000, Kaifi Azmi was given the first Millennium Award by the Government of Delhi and the Delhi Urdu Academy. He has likewise been honored with a doctorate from Vishva Bharati University, Santiniketan.

With work ranging from passionate love poems and activist verses to Bollywood songs lyrics and screenplays, Kaifi Azmi has gotten one of the most famous poets of the 20th century in India, and his humanitarian endeavors keep on affecting individuals’ lives today.

The government has additionally initiated a train named “Kaifiyat Express” which runs from his hometown Azamgarh to Old Delhi.

On 14 January 2020, Google remembered Kaifi Azmi with a Doodle on his 101st birth anniversary.