"Lekin main yahaan phir aaoonga"

I do not think I ever exchanged anything more than polite greetings with him but, somehow, I always felt as if I knew Sardar Jafri. I certainly know that I felt greatly drawn to him. The first time we met, some 30-odd years ago, it was in a somewhat small but formal group, at the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund function in Delhi: we had both just been awarded a Nehru Fellowship. I was already familiar then with some of his poetry, and with those luxuriant, leonine locks of his, which he used to pass his gentle fingers through while reciting at mushairas. I also knew the wonderful timbre of his voice. But I was totally unprepared for the way in which he said aadaab in greeting, raising his right hand up to his eyes, body very slightly bent forward. It is as if centuries of tahzeeb had come to reside in that single word: there was such civility in the voice, such cultivation of manner.

With that kind of greeting, I felt as if the slight reservation that I had had about him had suddenly dissolved. My first encounter with his poetry went back to several years earlier, when I was presented a book of his, Khoon ki Lakeer, by my younger brother. I had liked some of the images; was even struck by the startling similes he used. But the tone of the poems as a whole – Laal parcham, Nayi roshni ko salaam, and those eulogistic references to Lenin and Mao – were too abrasive, too propagandistic, for my liking. By the time we met, however, much of it had already become toned down. The "safed qaum ke aiyyaar taajaron ke giroh" still came in for some pounding, and Bombay, the city where everything is up for sale — race ke ghore, sarkar ke mantri/cinema, larkiyan, actor, maskhare/gaajaren, mooliyaan, kakariyaan/jism aur zehn aur shaairi — was still viewed with a mixture of affection and contempt. The concerns remained the same, but the mood had changed somewhat, and the writing was mellower. He was speaking more often of the place of poetry, that repository of centuries of thought, aeons of imagination — main hoon sadiyon ka tafakkur, main hoon qarnon ka khayaal— and of the poet, himself perhaps, in whose lap are hidden countless dawns: mere aaghosh-i takhayyul men hain laakhon subahein/aaftaab aur bhi hain mere giriban men abhi. This was a voice, a lahja, I had come to like and respect. And even when he spoke of "Bhookhi maan, bhookha baccha" – "mere nanhe, mere ma’soom, mere manzoor-i nazar …tere honton ka yeh jaadoo tha ki seene se mere/naddiyaan doodh ki bah nikli theen/chhaatiyaan aaj meri sookh gayin hain lekin/aankhen sookhi nahin ab tak mere laal….", one could see that poetry was in command, not the raging social concern alone.

In sum, this was the Sardar Jafri that I met in Delhi: filled with deep concerns, but possessed of a mellow, affecting voice in his poetry. A warm, gentle being who registered everything, had internalised so much, but was somehow able to withdraw to a distance and view things, calmly, from there. "Daaman jhatak ke manzil-e gham se guzar gayaa/uth uth ke dekhti rahi gard-e safar mujhe". There were several occasions after that for me to watch him, on the small screen, in mushairas. I also kept reading his poetry, at least what I could lay my hands on, and heard him, sometimes, speak with great incisiveness on the poetry of men long gone: Mir, Ghalib, Anees, Iqbal. But by the time I met him in person again – this was in Chandigarh, where, together with Kaifi Azmi, he was, briefly, a guest of Dr Chhuttani at the PGI – a certain aura had come to surround his name: the aura of a man who had seen it all, and who was viewed with enormous respect and affection on both sides of the Indo-Pak border, for he embodied in his person patriotism, freedom from rancour, and a remarkable breadth of mind. Also a man who had written, by this time, Mera Safar, that utterance of limpid thought, which is likely to live on, over all else that he wrote, as his imprint. On this occasion — the Ram Mandir had already been demolished at Ayodhya — Kaifi Sahib recited Ram ka doosra banbaas, that poem of sad, nagging protest. But the evening belonged to Sardar Jafri. For there he sat, a picture of calm dignity, not eager to recite but willing, when asked. What else could one have wished for but his Mera Safar. In that voice of rich timbre, laced now with a seductive rasp, each word, each nuance, clearly illumined.

It is not an especially long poem, and the diction — for Jafri Sahib — is relatively simple, a seamless blend of Urdu and Hindi words. One knows the poem well by now, and I have spoken of it, briefly, elsewhere: "Phir ik din aisa aayega, aankhon ke diye bujh jaayenge, haathon ke kamal kumhlaayenge …." But each time one reads it, or hears it recited, one is moved. The images of death, and renewal, that are conjured up in it start whirling in one’s mind all over again, and one comes face to face with a long, deep vista of time in which events unfold over and over again, and magical things happen. Consider the descriptions of death alone: apart from what the poem opens with, the day when "ik kaale samandar ki teh men …. saari shaklen kho jaayengi", "khoon ki gardish, dil ki dhadkan/ sab raaginiyan so jaayengi". And then, of course, the return, the renewal: "Lekin main yahaan phir aaoonga, bacchon ke dahan se boloonga, chiriyon ki zaban men gaaoonga …." What will the return be like? "Main rang-e hina, aahang-e ghazal/andaaz-e sukhan ban jaaoonga/rukhsar-e uroos-e nau ki tarah/har aanchal se chhan jaoonga": as the colour of henna, the lilt of a ghazal, the utterance of poesie; eager to shimmer, like the glow on a newly-wed cheek, through each tantalising veil.

Now that he is gone, one knows that Jafri Sahib was, as he said himself, but a fugitive moment in this magical realm of time. But then he left this world with a hope, and a promise: "Lekin main yahaan phir aoonga …."

This article was published on August 12, 2000