The Unknown Who Defined Lucknow’s Lost Generation Bows Out
Saeed Naqvi
The mail from Lucknow was
terse.
“Mr. Ibne Hasan Advocate is no
more.” He was “Ibne Hasan bhai” to me ever since he cast me as the young Daagh
Dehlvi in 1954 in “Dehli Ki Aakhri Shama” (Flicker of the last lamp in Delhi) a
Tamseeli Mushaira, enactment of the last poetic gathering in the Red Fort in 1857.
Ghalib, Zauq, Momin, Daagh and other great contemporaries participated in this
historic soiree.)
The show was staged at the
University Union Hall where Ibne, as master of ceremonies, announced a hundred
awards for the young Daagh.
The couplet which brought the
ceiling down was:
“Jo rahe ishq mein qadam rakkhein,
Woh nasheb o faraz kya
jaanein”
(They who step onto the path
of love,
Do not distinguish the highs
from the lows)
Prof. Ehtesham Hussain, Prof.
Aale Ahmad Suroor, Amritlal Nagar, all sent chits of paper to Ibne requesting
him to announce awards for me as “Daagh” in their names too. At 14, I was eager
to collect these “awards” which, alas, never materialized. One had to take the
will for the deed.
This was typical of Lucknow’s
intellectual elite – their budgets having shrunk after the Zamindari
(landlordism) Abolition of 1951. In a general sort of way they moved in two
political directions. Some stayed with the Congress party, largely because of
Jawaharlal Nehru’s appeal. Others of a more literary bent gravitated towards progressive
causes, even communism. This became the stepping stone for the Progressive
Writers Association which received a shot in the arm when P.C. Joshi became
Secretary General of the party. Sajjad Zaheer, Ali Sardar Jafri, Kaifi Azmi, Majrooh
Sultanpuri, Niaz Haider, Saiyyid Mohammad Mehdi, Makhdoom Mohiuddin, Balraj
Sahni, Bhishm Sahni, Krishan Chander, Mahinder Singh Bedi, Ismat Chugtai, Sahir
Ludhianvi – the lot – became active in the PWA. Many followed Joshi to Mumbai
as “full-time” members of the party. Thence to Bollywood.
There were others who could
not make these stark choices. Majaz Lucknowi for instance. Ibne belonged to a
whole category of educated youth, highly politicized, but unable to strike a
balance between Leftist idealism and the practical requirement of bread for the
table.
Because he had been in
university with my firebrand Aunt, Alia Askari (later Alia Imam), and addressed
my mother a “Baji jaan”, we had a ringside seat on his impecunious
circumstance.
He spent his mornings table
hopping at the Coffee House, now with Ram Manohar Lohia, Amritlal Nagar, Ehtesham
Hussain and, most frequently with Majaz, a genius in the firmament of Urdu
poetry but in penury. He had found Bollywood too harsh and retreated into his
Lucknow shell. This provided Ibne the opportunity to know Majaz better, even
when the latter shifted to Delhi to take up employment at All India Radio. Ibne
had no great memory for poetry but he remembered Majaz’s couplet, the first one
ever to have been broadcast:
“Saara aalam gosh bar awaz
hai,
Aaj kin haathon mein dil ka
saaz hai.”
(The world listens with rapt
attention.
Who is playing this instrument
of the heart?)
Failed love, once with a
married woman in Delhi, and another in Lucknow were reasons for nervous
breakdowns which resulted in Majaz being confined to psychiatric centres for
long spells. This was Ibne’s version as Majaz’s informal Boswell.
Ibne was part of the well knit
team Alia Askari put together to organize the Urdu convention in Lucknow’s
Qaisar Bagh Baradari in December 1955. The mushaira turned out to be a historic
event: Sardar Jafri challenged the audience: let us see who tires first, poets
or the audience? The scintillating stalemate continued well past midnight.
Majaz, in an advanced stage of
inebriation, had recited a rather tepid ghazal:
“Jigar aur dil ko bachana bhi
hai
Nazar aap hi se milana bhi
hai.”
(How do I protect my heart,
And yet make eye contact with
you?)
No one noticed that someone
had whisked Majaz away to a country liquor tavern in a lane near Lalbagh. It is
not known what happened on the first floor of the bar. But when the bar opened
the next day, Majaz was found lying, in a coma, on the terrace. He had spent a
cold December night in the open. Efforts to save him in the nearby Balrampur
hospital failed.
The memorial meeting at the
Rifah e Aam club, where Ibne, like my elder brother, escorted me, will always
remain etched on my mind. As a teenager, I had the priviledge of shedding a
tear on the death of a great poet.
Ismat Chugtai was blunt. She
put her finger where it hurt.
“Shame on the women who loved
his poetry but, for married life, they sought middle class security elsewhere.”
Majaz describes this rejection in his masterpiece poem, Awara or Vagabond.
The term “Middle class”, had almost
derogatory implications for generations which had transited from feudalism to economic
embarrassment but progressive politics. They had totally missed out on the
“middle class” experience. Many of our eccentricities, it turns out, derive
from that missing link.
Ibne’s political acumen was
spotted by Keshav Dev Malaviya, a progressive member of Nehru’s cabinet. This
proximity was sought to be exploited by owners of some sugar mills in UP. For
Ibne, it was not harmless drudgery. But even these adjustments did not take
away from Ibne bhai his unconventional agnosticism.
In his last days Ibne bhai was
ailing but still found the strength to recite Majaz’s lines:
“Phir iske baad subah hai,
Aur subhe nav, Majaz
Hum par hai khatm
Shaame gharibaa ne Lucknow.”
(Look, a new dawn breaks. The night
of Lucknow’s exiles, will end soon – along with me.)
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