Javed Akhtar releases grandfather’s poetry

Says he found the rare manuscripts while shifting flats in Mumbai.

ALIGARH: Poet and film lyricist Javed Akhtar has released Kharman, a collection of selective poetry of his grandfather Muztar Khairabadi.

Speaking at the launch of the book at a conference at Aligarh Muslim University recently, Akhtar revealed that he came across his grandfather’s rare collection while shifting flats in Mumbai. “I found a cardboard box filled with odds and ends among my grandfather’s things. Not knowing what to do with it, I kept it in the store and forgot about it,” he said.

It was much later that Akhtar found letters from Muztar’s friends and literary luminaries and manuscripts of the late poet’s collection of unpublished poetry, in his own handwriting.

He added that the collection appeared ready for printing, for it had a title, Kharman, appended to it by his grandfather. The content of the collection has now transformed into a handsomely produced five-volume compendium.



Akhtar said while none of Muztar’s poems were published in his lifetime, he was nevertheless a bit of an urban legend. “A very famous ghazal of Muztar’s, Na kisi ki ankh ka noor hoon, na kisi ke dil ka qarar hoon, Jo kisi ke kaam na aa sakey main woh ek musht-e-ghubar hoon [I am the light of no one’s eyes, the throb of no one’s heart, I am that fistful of dust that can be of no use to anyone] has been wrongly ascribed to Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor.” 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 7^th,  2015.

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