Yeh dhadakta hua gumbad mein dil-e-Shahjahan

Yeh dar-o-baam pe hansta hua malika ka shabab

Jagmagata hai har ik tah se mazaq-e-tafriq

Aur tarik•h uddhati hai mohabbat ki naqab

Chandni aur ye mahal alam-e-hairat ki qasam

Dudh ki nahr mein jis tarah ubaalaa jaaye

Aise sayyah ki nazron mein khupe kya ye saman

Jisko Farhaad ki qismat ka k•hayal aa jaaye

Dost! Main dekh chuka Taj Mahal

. . . vapas chal

Ye damakti hui chaukhat ye tila-posh kalas

Inhin jalvon ne diya qabr-parasti ko rivaj

Maah-o anjum bhi hue jaate hain majbur-e-sujud

Vaah araam-gah-e-malika-e-maabud-mizaj

Didani qasr nahin didani taqsim hai ye

Ru-e-hasti pe dhuan qabr pe raqs-e-anvar

Phail jaaye isi rauza ka jo simta daaman

Kitne jaan-dar janazon ko bhi mil jaaye mazar

Dost! Main dekh chuka Taj Mahal

. . . vapas chal

My friend, I have seen the Taj Mahal

let us go back

A diamond boiling over with alabaster flowers

Silvery minarets blazing in the fire of the moon

Winking continuously at the poet’s mind

The grand and alluring mausoleum of an empress

Like a question, it flashed through the mind’s eye

The thought of those who lie in the streets like corpses

Whose nerves and sinews shrink lifelessly

Whose skulls smash like cymbals in the heat

My friend, I have seen the Taj Mahal

let us go back

In this dome the beating heart of Shahjahan

The smiling face of an empress on its walls

Glittering from every layer satire and discrimination

Over which history drapes the mask of love

I swear by the moonlight and by this world of wonders

Like a canal of milk coming to the boil

So too does this scene meets the traveller’s gaze

One who is reminded of the fate of Farhad

My friend, I have seen the Taj Mahal

let us go back

This gleaming threshold, this becrowned dome

It is these marvels that have encouraged the worship of graves

Even the stars perforce bow in prostration

Such is the boudoir of the much-adored empress

Not a palace but a clearly visible division this is

Like smoke on the face of life, like the dance of light on a grave

Spreading across this garden tomb as soon as its hem shrinks

May many life-filled funerals find such mausoleums

My friend, I have seen the Taj Mahal

let us go back

Kaifi joined the CPI in 1943 when he was twenty-four years old and remained a card-holding member his entire life. While the party suffered many ups and down in the course of its existence in India since its inception in 1925, its split in 1964 into the CPI and the CPI-M makes him write the hauntingly elegiac ‘Awaara Sajdey’ that ends with this heart-breaking admission:

Eik ke baad Khuda eik chala aata thha

Keh diya aql ne tang aake Khuda koi nahiin