Aziz Qaisi

Hyderabad's modernist in Bombay — the sigh that went unheard, the gaze that would not move. Aziz Qaisi (1931–1992), born Aziz Muhammad Khan on 1 July 1931 at Hyderabad, was a modernist Urdu poet of the Progressive movement whose ghazals and nazms carried a pungent, unsparing intensity. His father, Mahmood Khan, was a government servant, and the boy had a bent for poetry from childhood; by the mid-1950s he was already writing poetry and short stories, and his work began to appear in magazines and newspapers, some of it recited on the radio. In 1957 he came to Mumbai, where he made his name in poetry and literature, wrote songs for many films, and — disliking the work — took a job on the daily Inqilab, though his restless nature never let him stay in one job for long. After leaving the paper he wrote the story of Hum Kahan Ja Rahe Hain (1966), the screenplay of Rakhi Aur Hathkadi (1972), and the dialogue of Ankur (1974), the film for which he is best remembered; his later screen work included Kunwara Baap (1974), Dayavan (1988) and Indrajeet (1991), and Dushman Duniya Ka (1996) carried his dialogue, story and screenplay after his death. His poetry collections are Aaina-dar-Aaina (1972), Gird-bad (1984) and Do Atisha (1987), and his novel Dusre Kinare Tak became widely read; his poems and stories have been translated into English and other Indian languages and anthologised. He was one of the most intelligent poets of the modernist mode, yet he respected the classical tradition as deeply as he broke with it. He drank heavily, something those around him knew. He died in Mumbai on 30 September 1992, aged sixty-one.