FM quotes Badaun poet to underline power of belief

When Nirmala Sitharaman presented her maiden Budget in Parliament on Friday, a lesser-known Urdu poet from Badaun who retired as a library employee from Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) became a social media sensation, with his work featuring in the Union finance minister’s speech.

Sending a wave of bewilderment in the Urdu literary circle, Sitharaman begged pardon for her pronounciation and went on to recite a couplet by poet Manzoor Hashmi, albeit without crediting the poet for his work.

“Yakeen ho toh koi rasta nikalta hai, hawa ki ot bhi le kar chirag jalta hai (If there is belief, then ways open ahead; a lamp can burn brightly in strong winds if it gets a shield),” the minister recited even as Hashmi’s friends back in Aligarh wondered how he featured in the Budget speech. The couplet is a part of a ghazal by Hashmi.

Born in Badaun in 1935, the poet graduated from AMU and worked there as a member of staff at the varsity’s Maulana Azad Library. He retired from the post and died in 2008 at the age of 73.

“He was a poet, but not a very famous one. He was not featured in Urdu literature. He did attend mushairas, but those were not many in number either. He was well known in Aligarh, but not much outside of it,” professor Mahtab Haider Naqvi told TOI. He is Hashmi’s friend and a faculty member at AMU’s Urdu department.

“In fact, I was surprised when I heard Hashmi’s poem in the Budget speech. Perhaps, somebody from AMU who knew of Hashmi’s work is in the finance ministry and that is how the poem got where it did on Friday,” added Naqvi.

Hashmi, as his friend recalled, was a man of simpler ways and modest earnings who retired as a non-teaching staff member from AMU. He mostly wrote ghazals. Two poetry collections in Urdu, Baarish (1981) and Adab (1994), and one in Hindi, Phoolon ki Kashti, are credited to Hashmi.