In the course of a poetic career spanning over six decades, awards and encomiums followed Kaifi in ample measure: there was the Padma Shri, India’s fourth-highest civilian award; the Uttar Pradesh Urdu Academy Award and the Sahitya Akademi Award for Urdu for his collection Awaara Sajdey in 1975, Special Award of Maharashtra Urdu Academy, Soviet Land Nehru Award, Lotus Award from the Afro-Asian Writers’ Association, and President’s Award for National Integration. In 1998, the Government of Maharashtra conferred the Jyaneshwara Award on him. He was also honoured with the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Fellowship for lifetime achievement in 2002. In 2000, he was conferred the first Millennium Award by the Government of Delhi and the Delhi Urdu Academy and a doctorate from the Visva Bharati University in Santiniketan. He won the National Film Award in 1970 for Best Lyrics for the film Saat Hindustani and the National Award and Filmfare Award in 1975 for the screenplay (with Shama Zaidi) and dialogue (with Ismat Chughtai) for M.S. Sathyu’s iconic Partition saga, Garam Hawa.

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Kaifi wrote roughly 240 songs for eighty films. His career as a naghma-nigaar (lyricist) began with the song ‘Rotey rotey guzar gayi raat re’ for the film Buzdil (1951), produced by Shahid Latif, the husband of fellow Urdu writer Ismat Chughtai. The last songs he possibly wrote were for the film Chand Grahan (1997). His non-film poetic oeuvre comprises four collections: Jhankaar (1944), Akhir-e Shab (1947), Awaara Sajdey (1973) and Iblis ki Majlis-e Shuura: Doosra Ijlaas (1983). All his non-film poetry can be found in his collected works Kaifiyaat, and all his film lyrics are to be found in Devanagari in Meri Awaaz Suno. Taken together, they showcase a poetic vocabulary that drew from the classical idiom of Urdu poetry yet kept inventing new and modern ways of expressing timeless emotions.

Javed Akhtar is related to Kaifi by bonds other than marriage too. He is, of course, Kaifi’s son-in-law but is also the son of fellow progressive poet, Jan Nisar Akhtar and Safiya Akhtar, also a fine writer. From his mother’s side, he is the nephew of Urdu’s most romantically revolutionary poet, Majaz. Like Kaifi, Javed Akhtar shares the catholic, all-encompassing world view that was once so typical of the qasbati culture of Uttar Pradesh. Pointing out the inextricable link between Kaifi’s poetry and the person he was, Akhtar says, ‘He was a strange man. Unlike other lofty poets, his writing, his poetry, his life and his thinking were all resonant of each other. This is not easy to do.’ In fact, Javed Akhtar’s tribute to Kaifi, titled appropriately enough ‘Ajeeb Aadmi Tha Woh’ (‘He was a Strange Man’), lists the many combinations of contraries that came together in a very harmonious way. Indeed, Kaifi’s life and work mirror each other in a remarkable way and to a remarkable degree.