Kavish Badri, the renowned Urdu poet is no more. He passed away on May 28 in his native place Ambur. May his soul rest in peace.
Born on February 3, 1928, Kavish Badri, whose real name was V.P. Abdur Razaq, emerged as a great poet. The Urdu adage ghar ka peer maskhara meaning ‘our own saint has no value’ is more applicable to Kavish Badri, the mercurial, self-respecting and emotional Urdu poet who did not seem to have “double standards”. He was straight-forward in his approach and called a spade a spade. He never minced words. In other words, he appeared what he was – a rare quality of head and heart in very few people, to say cautiously.
Kavish Badri was in Ambur after his retirement from the Madras University Library near the Marina Beach. He was a great admirer of everything good and strong critic of everything bad. His arguments were issue-based. He stood for doodh ka doodh paani ka paani.
Kavish Badri was not only an excellent poet but a good singer as well. He used to keep the audience under his spell with the powers of his pen and tongue. Urdu lovers were very particular about his participation in mushairas. However we missed him in a grand all India mushaira in Ambur held sometime ago.
Kavish Badri had many awards and laurels to his credit and one of them is the prestigious Hazrat Ameer Khusrao National Award which was bestowed upon him in 2006. He rose to the limelight after he had written a long epic Shradhanjali on the demise of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in 1965 which received appreciation from both Urdu and Hindi scholars, including Firaq Ghorakpuri. His another book, Kaviyam was also popular as it received both bouquets and brickbats from the people and it was discussed even in the Tamil Nadu assembly. His other books were Kunfayakoon and Qibla Numa.
Kavish Badri wrote a poem in praise of the late journalist and founder Editor of Radiance Viewsweekly, A.A. Ravoof, and recited it in the mushaira held in the latter’s memory in Ambur on October 3, 1976. I borrow the following verses from it to adore the poet: Kitne insan zinda rahkar pathar se bhi badtar hain / Kitne murde gal sadkar bhi gauher se bahtar hain / Naam uska zinda hoga kaam jo sab ke aaya / Phir bhi tera gham taza phir bhi tera gham taza.