THE body of work produced by Aziz Hamid Madni, a modern poet of Urdu, is no more available to the lovers of cerebral poetic output. Born in Raipur on June 15, 1922, Madni Sahib died in Karachi on April 23, 1992. He had produced four collections of poetry, Chashm-i-Nigara’n, Dasht-i-Imkaa’n, Nakhl-i-Gumaa’n and Gil-i-Adam. A compilation of all the four collections was published as Kulliyat-i-Aziz Hamid Madni published in 2011.

Madni Sahib had not married. After the demise of his elder brother in 1976, he had become the guardian of the former’s family. His nephew, former vice-chancellor of Karachi University Dr Zafar Saeed Saify, is the rightful heir to all the published and unpublished works of Madni Sahib, including his letters and translations of modern French poetry into Urdu.

As mentioned by Prof Sahar Ansari in his essay on Madni Sahib, unlike many translation works that are usually done without permission of the writers and publishers, he had actually made efforts to acquire the relevant permissions from France. He decided not to publish them as his correspondence remained unanswered.

Dr Saify, with whom Madni Sahib spent the last 30 years of his life, should seriously consider publishing these important assets of literature.

Minhaj Ali
Karachi

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2021