Last month one fine morning I received a registered packet of books from Islamabad. To my pleasant surprise the packet contained books by Dr Azam Kuraivi, a popular name of Urdu short story belonging to a period which has now receded into oblivion.

However, thanks to one precious collection of popular Urdu-Hindi songs his name remained alive in my memory. The collection compiled by him had been published by Delhi’s Ismat Book Depot. And how happy I was to find that a new edition of that collection titled Dihati Geet formed a part of the present lot of books sent to me. The other book which attracted my attention was Hindi Shairi. The rest were collections of his short stories.

It goes to the credit of Azam Kuraivi’s younger son Khalid Azam that we now have access to the late author’s works, which for long were not available. But what a pity that he has not cared to provide the necessary information about the author to the present-day Urdu readers, who know so little about him. For the few biographical details recorded here I am indebted to the Academy of Letter’s publication Urdu Afsany Ki Riwayat.

Dr Azam Kuraivi was born in June 1898 in the town Kurai, which lies in the district of Allahabad. Named Ansar Ahmad he started writing poetry under the pseudonym Azam accepting Nooh Narvi as his ustad. But soon he turned to prose writing and earned fame as a short story writer. From 1942 to 1947 he lived in Meerut, where he acted as the superintendent of the Veterinary Branch of Military Headquarters. In 1947 he migrated to Pakistan and settled in Karachi. He was fated to a violent death in June 1954.

Writing in Urdu he was well-versed in a number of languages, such as Hindi, Bangla and Persian. He translated a number of stories from Bangla into Urdu. But he was chiefly interested in Hindi. That was what prompted him to compile a book of Hindi poetry.

It was because of his interest in Hindi poetry that he also took an interest in folk songs of poorvi and allied dialects. Then he decided to present them in Urdu for the benefit of Urdu readers. In later periods we find a few other writers doing research in this field. For instance, we now have a big collection of these songs collected by Azhar Ali Farooqi under the title Uttar Pradesh Kai Lok Geet. But in those days our Urdu world was hardly conscious of the significance of these folk songs. Azam Kuraivi took the initiative and made this precious contribution to Urdu.

That is equally true in the case of his book of Hindi poetry in Urdu. How unfortunate that Urdu researchers were so obsessed with the Persianised version of the Urdu language that they lost track of the linguistic soil where this language was rooted. So when they cared to trace its origin in the soil of this land they went straight to the south. Here I am reminded of what Akhtar Hameed Khan has written: “The Deccani language of the 16th and 17th centuries has been defined as Urdu. During the same period Malik Mohammad Jaisi, Tulsi Das, and Kabir were engaged in writing poetry in Oudh. Their language is far nearer to Urdu as compared to the Deccani language. But we don’t find them mentioned in the histories of Urdu language and literature. Those three poets wrote verses in the spoken language of Agra and Oudh and on that basis won popularity among the people of these regions.”

Dr Azam Kuraivi stands distinguished among the Urdu writers of his times for insisting that “Urdu and Hindi are sisters to each other. On the level of spoken language they are one and the same language.” And he added: “those who are trying to make Urdu exclusively a collection of Persian and Arabic words are mistaken. At the same time, those who are bent upon Sanskritising the Hindi language are misled.”

So aiming at a peaceful linguistic co-existence he chose to write a tazkara of Hindi poets. Here a large number of Muslim poets such as Amir Khusrau, Masood Sad Salman, Malik Mohammad Jaisi, Abdur Rahim Khankhana, Mulla Daud and Ras Khan are seen along with Kabir, Tulsi, Mirabai, Bihari, Bhartand, and Lalloo Lalji, all engaged in writing in a common language. They all are held in high esteem in the circles of Hindiwallas.

Of course, Urdu now stands accommodative to writers who had hitherto been treated as exclusively Hindi writers. The original texts of a number of poets, particularly of Kabir and Mirabai, are now easily available in the Urdu script. The recent compilations of these two poets made by Ali Sardar Jafri are shining examples of this. While reading them we no longer feel that they are writing in a language other than Urdu.

Seen in this perspective Dr Azam Kuraivi will appear to be playing a historic role in bringing a change of attitude in Urduwallas. He was the one who took the lead in starting a campaign in this respect with the zeal of a missionary.