MUJHE HASRAT THI, HASRAT KE BAARE MEIN SAB KUCH JAANNE KI. LEKIN AISA HO NA SAKA, AUR AAJ UNKI LAADLI BETI, KISHWAR HASRAT KE BAARE MEIN BAHUT KUCH BATA RAHI HAI.... BY ALI PETER JOHN

Meri zindagi rishto ka ek ajab aur lamba silsila hai. Kaun kab mere se judh gaya, mujhe aaj tak maloom nahi hai, lekin mujhe ek cheez zaroor maloom hai ki mai rishto ke siva kuch nahi hota... - ALI PETER JOHN

I was all excited about being involved in a musical show which was in honour of Mohammad Rafi. He's daughters and their husbands were attending the function and I was wanting to have one or two more names who were associated with Rafi Sahab ....

I had seen the name Kishwar Jaipuri on my Facebook several times and often wondered if she could be associated with the veteran lyricist Hasrat Jaipuri. I took a wild chance and called her on the number given to me by a friend. And my guess was right, Kishwar Jaipuri was indeed the only daughter of Hasrat Jaipuri.

It took us only five minutes to establish contact and we talked for more than an hour. I had a feeling that Kishwar could be living somewhere in the suburbs of Mumbai, but she told me that she was living in Pakistan with her husband and two children who were in their twenties.

All my hopes of inviting her to the Rafi show were dashed to the ground, but I asked her to send me a voice message which would be played at the function and what she said in the audio clip proved that she was still in command over the poetry and songs of her father and that she could speak very eloquently about Hasrat Jaipuri, her father who she kept calling "My dad, the king of romance"

It was promising to be an interesting association and that is what it has been ever since I established my first contact with Kishwar.

Kishwar can speak in English and Urdu with the kind of eloquence that can come only out of passion for the languages. She is so well - versed with the problems and the good things about life and can keep talking about them till qayamat and even beat qayamat.

But it is her being faithful as q wife and a mother that doesn't give her the kind of time that she could have dedicated to her two passions, her father and his poetry together with his brand of lyrics that have been alive and dancing for more than 60 years and will be the lyrics that will always be remember as long as poetry lives in the films made in India, especially in Hindi.

I find it a pleasure to talk to Kishwar because while talking to her, I come to know more about her father, Hasrat Jaipuri, his songs, his relationships with other great people like Raj Kapoor, Shankar Jaikishan, Shailendra, Naushad, V Shantaram and other legends of his time and even the time before him.

Kishwar surprises me when she gives me stories about the background to every song written by her father and also about the works of her father's contemporaries.

I have been talking to Kishwar almost every day for several precious minutes and I don't regret talking to her because I know talking to her is like talking to love and passion towards work.
I would like Kishwar to write a book on her father.

I know by now that she has the ability and the sense of dedication to do it and that all she needs is a gentle push from some divine force or that hand of destiny which she strongly believes in.

I care more than anything else in this life about good poetry and good poets who create good poetry and i can see how poetry is facing a tough time in the hands of poetastres (fake poets) who are making a mockery of poetry as it is meant to be and will not be as long as such fake poets with hurts and mines of thermocline write or think or feel that they are writing poetry and lyrics of a very high order....

Every time I talk to Kishwar, I see a glimmer of hope for poetry in the near future. But will Kishwar pick her pen and start giving expression to the flood of feelings I can see stored up in her heart, her mind and her eyes.

TOH CHALO, KISHWAR LIKHO, TUMKO LIKHNA HI HOGA, KYUKI TUM MEI HAI WOH HUNAAR OR WO DUM JO HAR GUM KO MITA SAKTA HAI . LIKHO KISHWAR LIKHO, AGAR TUMKO JEENA HAI SHAAN SE JO TUMHARA HAQ HAI.