With the name of Allah on his lips my father took leave of the world. As news of his death reached Agra, people began to collect at our hospice to pay their last homage to him. Among them were some Hindu shopkeepers who offered me money. I declined to take it from them but when one of my father’s Muslim disciples put a bag with five hundred rupees in my lap, I accepted it. I paid off my father’s creditors and buried his body next to the grave of Chacha Amanullah. At the age of eleven I was left alone in the world to look after my widowed mother, younger brother and sister. Besides the hundred rupees that remained with me after I had paid for the burial expenses and creditors my only wealth consisted of the words of wisdom bequeathed to me by my father.

Chacha Amanullah had taught me Farsee and Urdu as well as the technique of composing poetry. I used this little knowledge to coach the children of rich families. Some evenings I would go to mushairas and hear the famous poets of Delhi and Agra recite their compositions. I found most of them were commonplace rhymesters without a single new thought in their poems. Such poets, particularly a songster named Masood who was a great favourite at mushairas, roused my contempt. Masood was a handsome, roguish looking fellow who could make up for the execrable quality of his verses by singing them in a dulcet voice. No sooner would a mushaira start than the audience would clamour for ‘Parwana’ (moth), the pseudonym which he used. (I always referred to him as Patanga which is the pejorative for a moth). Women loved him. At every gathering I saw maidservants bring slips of paper from their mistresses seated behind the purdah with requests for songs composed by him. These songs were usually about the moth’s love for the flame in which it burnt itself. It amazed me how a theme as old as Moses and Abraham could rouse people’s emotions. What irritated me about Parwana was that even on this hackneyed theme he could not produce a single new variation. I confess that it was envy of this worthless moth that first impelled me to try my hand at composing poetry.