Manish Chauhan writes about Kaifi Azmi. He lists some of Kaifi’s lyrics, but doesn’t mention the one that is my favourite – O bekarar dil (lyrics in Hindi) from Kohra.

I wistfully recollect those times when most of the directors, writers and lyricists of Hindi films were communists. You know that Kaifi Azmi was a communist, don’t you? He was a card-carrying member of the Communist party. I remember hearing him recount his experiences in a TV interview. He and his wife used to turn over all their earnings (his from writing revolutionary poetry and hers from acting in revolutionary plays, I think. ) to the Party and live on the allowance and in the accomodation provided by the Party. He used to disdain romantic poetry because it would make a man weak and wean him away from revolutionary fervour. But then one day his third child fell very ill and they did not have money to treat him (or her – I don’t remember now) and the child died. So Kaifi then realised the importance of money and started writing lyrics for film songs and keeping the money. He still continued to “believe” in the ideals of Communism, of course.

That, it struck me, was a very good reason why a revolution will never take place in a meritocratic society. Even assuming (for argument’s sake) that vast numbers of the people stayed impoverished, if society provided a way for talented people to raise their station in life, there wouldn’t be anyone to lead the impoverished masses to revolution. Who will write the songs for the revolution if the best lyricists are busy writing silly romantic poetry and making money? Who will be the Union Leader if anyone with leadership skills can get promoted to management level?

Anyway, leaving that aside, I still feel wistful for the Golden Era of Indian Cinema when Communist influence loomed large. Back then, it was still possible to be a sincere Communist, and they created good stuff precisely because they were sincere Communists. See this one by Kaifi (Ibn-e-Maryam means “Son of Mary”, i.e Jesus.) One of the Hindi poems that I had in school went

“Listen you rascal rose
Don’t forget that the scent, the colour that you’ve obtained
By sucking the blood of the fertilizer put in.
And you’re perched on that branch of yours, you capitalist!

You made the gardener your slave
You made him suffer sun, the heat and the sweat…”
and so on. It went on to extoll the virtues of another flower (something called “Kukkurmutta” that grew in the wild. )

I would have got carried away by their sincerity if it weren’t that I noticed that they never ever seemed to talk about what would happen after they achieved what they were planning to achieve. Shri 420, for example, ends with a distant vision of a large number of buildings being built, a new world being created. Nice imagery, but it screamed “fraud” nonetheless. (The fraudsters were sincere, but that didn’t make it any less of a fraud).