Kaifi and I

From the heart of a somewhat liberal, somewhat conservative elite family of Hyderabad, to life in a single room, with the barest of necessities, Shaukat Kaifis memoir of her life with the well-known poet Kaifi Azmi, speaks of love, and commitment. As young people, Shaukat and Kaifi fall desperately in love with each other, but are soon parted. For Shaukats family, a card-holding communist, a poet, with no source of income, is hardly the kind of person their daughter should be marrying. Yet, Shaukats father, a liberal man and a loving father, takes the bold step of putting his daughter's happiness before social opprobrium, and brings the two lovers together. A marriage of over half a century, a life steeped in poetry and progressive politics, continuing involvement with the Progressive Writers Association, ongoing links with the village to which Kaifi Azmi belonged... all of these and more inform this beautifully told tale of love. Shaukat Kaifi’s writing details life in a communist commune, a career in theatre and film, and years spent bringing up two children. Nasreen Rehman’s deft and fluent translation brings this luminous memoir alive with warmth and empathy.