© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Bula raha hai kaun mujh ko chilmano ke uss taraf/Mere liye bhi kyaa koyee udaas bekarar hai. These words written by the great Urdu poet Shahryar, composed into haunting music by Khayyam, and given much-admired prominence for posterity on film by the peerlessly talented and wondrous human being and artist Muzaffar Ali, changed my life forever. The words from ‘Yeh Kyaa Jagah Hai Doston’, a song from the Umrao Jaan, that speak of someone calling me on the other side of the closed blinds, waiting restlessly with feelings of disquietude and sadness for me, took over my entire being, gave me sense of belonging, a ray of hope, and brought Ali into my world at age 9. Lost to the splendour and grandiloquence of his film, I dared to live with audacious hope, new confidence, rare comfort and heartfelt feeling as, line by line, my life unfurled before my own eyes, and I came of age.
Tamaam umr ka hisaab, maangti hai zindagi, another line of this song, says that life asks from us an accounting of the entirety of our time on this earth, and, at age 80, Ali’s has been a life most well lived. He has inspired multitudes, showing a way forward to lost souls like me and giving loving comfort to relatives, friends and strangers. At his 80th birthday dinner, Kathak dancer Manjari Chaturvedi credited Ali with having been her lifelong muse. Of course, anyone who has followed Manjari’s incredible journey will understand how poignant that compliment is, as Manjari isn’t merely a dancer; her dancing goes beyond the confines of the art and becomes a story and narrative that are lived palpably on stage. Life will always be favourable in its accounting of Muzaffar Ali’s life, as Manjari and I are two of the countless many for whom this man of words, cinematic brilliance, artistic prowess, and generosity of self has been a pillar of strength and a font of aspirational dreams.
Yeh kis makaam par hayaat, mujh ko leke aa gayee are words that also inform me. Muzaffar sahab has been at points in his life where he has had to accept what is and make peace with it. After garnering incredible critical success with his films Gaman, Umrao Jaan, Anjuman, and Aagaman, he began work on his labour of love, his film Zooni. A film that I have been privileged to see portions of, that fell victim to the unrest and insurgency in Kashmir in 1989. Fleeing the Valley with the actors and crew in tow, any hopes of starting the shooting again were quashed by two decades of waiting where actors aged, and so did time, and with its passage the film too passed away. But Muzaffar sahab continued to live, love and share, never without hope.
Na jis ki shakl hai koyee/Na jis ka naam aai koyee – that who doesn’t have a face, the one who is without a name. Through the character of the tawaif (nautch girl Ameeran ‘Umrao Jaan’), Muzaffar Ali gives the viewer a deep insight into the life of a remarkable human, one society would have otherwise robbed us of gaining tutelage from. Umrao Jaan had me healing from scars of my own identity crisis. When I asked Chaturvedi about what role Muzaffar Ali has played in making us understand the place of a tawaif, she said, “Muzaffar sahab gave tawaifs a respectful identity; he gave wajood (the ideal essence of existence) to a tawaif. Through the film Umrao Jaan, he shows us that a tawaif is a woman of art, poetry, music, etiquette and more. She has her own persona, not dependent on others–financially, in thought or sexually, she is one who never has to worry about conforming to norms of society.”
Eight decades is quite a remarkable journey to have lived on this earth. In Muzaffar sahab I see glimpses of my own father, who was taken too early from us. I see generosity of self, love for life, quick wit and ready humour, and deep, heartfelt gratitude for life and using that to live and love with careless abandon. Tall and statuesque, born to the Raja of Kotwara, a seat established in the year 1007 at Lakhimpur Kheri, 100 miles from Lucknow, Muzaffar sahab is quick to remind me that zamindari was abolished in the year 1950 and all royal titles were taken away. This is the honest integrity that makes this man more man amongst his peers. He has no false illusions of grandeur, yet he has the magnanimity, grace, gentility, vision and etiquette that are associated with royalty. What I see in Muzaffar Sahab is a man acutely aware of the good luck and privilege his birth afforded him as well as the responsibility that it placed upon his shoulders.
Hade nigaah tak jahaan ghubaar hi ghubaar hai — where till the horizon all one sees is despair. These lines connected with me as a pre-teen. In my life as a gay kid I had no icon to look up to, no idol to idolise, not even a word for my different identity, as my vocabulary at age 9 hadn’t yet given me a label. In the poetry of Umrao Jaan, I found solace and hope; I saw in action people who challenged the status quo. With Meera Ali, his wife for the last 34 years, Muzaffar sahab started the House of Kotwara, a clothing line that captured the attention of fashionistas everywhere, even before there was such a term. My kurtas from their collection remain my favourites, bereft of heavy work, spared of forced bling. In every inch of the fabric, I feel and sense the handwork of real people stitching and embroidering, weaving and dyeing the fabric with immense care, respectful pride, deep humanity and timeless culture. When I asked Meera Ali what brought them to do this, she said it was about bringing Dwaar pe Rozi, employment at the doorstep, for those women who can’t leave their homes yet need employment. Their work gives them a way to command both agency and respect. The couple have trained thousands of women over three decades, and we who wear their creations, are blessed to connect with the fruits of this storied loom.
Kab milee thee kahaan bichadi thee hamein yaad nahin, Zindagi tujh ko to bas khwaab mein dekha hamne (When we met, and when we parted ways, I hardly remember, life, I have only beheld you in my dreams. These lines of yet another song from Umrao Jaan are the perfect analogy to the depth and heft of Muzaffar Ali’s life and stature. A man too incredible to define in just one song, a man who has lived a dreamy life, too brilliant to be human, and too human to be dreamy. In my childhood Muzaffar sahab gave me rich hope and comfort, and as he has turned 80, he teaches me to live with dignity and grace, with authenticity and pride, to allow life to happen, and to live to be one with it.
