Tome & Plume: Words Of Muzaffar Hanfi Still Linger On Banks Of Upper Lake

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Bhopal has always been a wellspring of Urdu poetry. Yet only a few know about it.

Ai Muzaffar kis liye Bhopal yaad aane laga

Kya samajhte the ki dilli me na hoga asman? –

~Muzaffar Hanfi

(Aye Muzaffar, why did you recall Bhopal?

Did you think there would be no sky in Delhi?)

The poets Kaif Bhopali, Bashir Badr, Abdul Qavi Desnavi, Obaidullah Aleem and Muzaffar Hanfi are from Bhopal. But they are just a few to name.

Nawab Begum Sultan Jahan who ruled the city from 1901 to 1926 was herself an Urdu poet. She encouraged litterateurs.

Nevertheless, talks about Urdu poetry and Bhopal remain incomplete without a word for poet, critic, and essayist Muzaffar Hanfi, who was born in Khandwa on April 1, 1936.

 A brilliant student, Hanfi had command of several languages, including English and Bengali.

Hanfi studied at Barkatullah University and the Aligarh Muslim University and worked for the forest department of Madhya Pradesh for 14 years.

He had lived in Bhopal since 1960. In the City of Lakes, he met poet Dushyant Kumar. It was Hanfi who encouraged Dushyant Kumar to pen ghazals.

Hanfi taught Urdu at Jamia Millia Islamia from 1976 to 1989 and wrote more than 180 books and received over 45 honours, including the Ghalib Award and Siraj Meer Khan Shahar Award (Bhopal).

Hanfi composed over 1,700 ghazals that he began to write from the age of 14. He also taught at Calcutta University, where he was compared with French poet Gerard de Nerval.

Hanfi could say things in different ways and brought about several changes in Urdu poetry.

Eminent critic and writer Gopichand Narang once said, “Muzaffar Hanfi is different from others in his style and attitude. He has the skill of saying new things in an old style and old things in a new way.” Hanfi’s works are a blend of language and expression. It is a rare quality.

Ghazal, caged in the night of dating with the sweetheart, her coiffure, her red cheeks, her elegance, and her alluring eyes, found freedom in Hanfi’s words.

What ghazals meant for him was to express one’s thoughts in minimum words. He often said, “Do not blame the ghazal for talking to women; any relevant topic in the world can be a couplet of a ghazal.”

His first published collection of poems was “Paani Ki Zabaan". Hanfi wrote short stories for children. When he was studying in class 11, he translated an English novel, The Case of the Rolling Bones by Erle Stanley Gardner, into Urdu. He published a magazine from Khandwa, Naya Chirag. Poets like Firaq Gorakhpuri and Rahi Masoom Raza wrote for this magazine.

He left Bhopal for Delhi and worked as an assistant production officer in the National Council for Education, Research and Training (NCERT).

Hanfi was for the masses as well as for the classes. The masses used to appreciate his poems with the help of the sound of words.

The literary world loved to ferret out the meaning of those sounds. Their experience with Hanfi was as if they were peeling off an onion layer by layer.

Tikhi Ghazlen, Sarir-e-Khama, Parda Sukha, and Khul Ja Sim Sim are among his many notable works.

Calcutta University offered him the Iqbal Chair in 1989. Initially, the university offered the Iqbal Chair set up in 1977 to Faiz Ahmad Faiz.

But he was unable to accept the offer, for he became the chief editor of Lotus and left for Beirut. Hanfi retired from the Iqbal Chair in 2001 and returned to Delhi.

However good one’s command of the Urdu language may be twigging Hanfi is a sort of mental exercise.

His many poems are meant for those who love to rumble through the maze of words and their meanings.

He wrote: Jise Padhna Ho Mujhe Waqt Le Kar Padhe/Main Ek Jhalak Shayar Nahin (Those who yearn for reading my poetry, do take time/One cannot read my poetry casually).

He was known for refined sarcasm: Shukriya Reshmi Dilase Ka/Teer to Aap Ne Bhi Maara Tha (Thanks for your sweet consolations.You, too, have shot an arrow).

The bard of Bhopal always warbled a new melody. He settled on the banks of Yamuna, but the Upper Lake always lingered in his memory. This was the reason that he breathed out: “Ai Muzaffar Kis liye Bhopal yaad aane laaga?”