A young Kaifi had watched his four older sisters die of tuberculosis as his parents tried to get the best possible medical attention for them to no avail. This early exposure to disease and death made him inward, reflective, even ‘gham-pasand’ (‘liking sorrow’) in his own words. Fearful that none of his surviving children would be familiar with their religion or culture, Kaifi’s father decided that Kaifi should be given religious instruction in a madrasa unlike his elder brothers who had been sent to the Aligarh University. And so Kaifi began his formal education at the Sultan-ul Madaris, the largest Shia seminary in Lucknow, as a boarder. It was here that he first heard of the incendiary collection Angarey (‘Sparks’) and had his first encounter with progressivism.1 It was here, too, that the seeds of his later activism were laid; first, when he set up a students’ body to address the needs of fellow students and present them to the administration, and then when he launched a year-long strike to ensure that their demands were met. Already fond of writing poetry, having composed his first ghazal at the age of eleven,2 the strike compelled Kaifi to write inquilabi (revolutionary) and ehtejaji (protest) poetry.3 And thus was forged a poetic temperament that brought together, almost instinctively, the radical and the progressive with the lyrical and the romantic.