Amongst his female friends Begum Akhtar was my favourite. She would sometimes stay with us as a houseguest. In fact, Josh Malihabadi, Firaq Gorakhpuri and Faiz Ahmed Faiz would stay with us too despite there being no separate guestroom, not even an attached bathroom. Luxury was never the central concern of these artists; they preferred the warmth of our tiny home to the five-star comforts available to them. I was fascinated by the mehfils at home. I would sit up in rapt attention, not even half understanding what they recited, but excited nevertheless. Their beautiful words fell like music on my young ears. I found the atmosphere fascinating—the steady flow of conversation, the tinkering of glasses, the smoke-filled room. I was never rushed off to bed; in fact I was encouraged to hang around, provided I took the responsibility for getting up in time for school the next day. It made me feel very grown-up and included.

Soon I started attending mushairas—Sahir Ludhianvi was popular, Ali Sardar Jafri greatly respected, but Kaifi Azmi had a different magic. He was always amongst the last to recite, his deeply resonant voice pulsating with vigour, drama and power. Baba and I used to be fast asleep on the stage, behind the gao-takiyas, and would invariably wake up to the thunderous applause that resonated each time his name was announced. I never saw him either surprised or flattered by the applause. In fact, to my mother’s despair, he would never come home and tell her how the mushaira went. A non-committal ‘Theek thha’ was all she could extract from him. Years later, when I was about eighteen, I remember prodding him to tell me which nazm he had recited and what the audience response was like. My mother said briefly, ‘Don’t even try; he’s not going to tell you. Over the years I have trained myself to bury my curiosity in a newspaper when Kaifi comes back from a mushaira.’ But I would have none of that. I sat across Abba’s chest and tickled him pink till he said, ‘Chhichhore log apni tareef karte hain, jis din bura padhoonga, aake bata doonga.’ (Only the lowly sing their own praise; I’ll tell you the day I recite badly.)