Urdu poet Kaifi Azmi dead

The renowned Indian poet and lyricist, Kaifi Azmi, has died in a Bombay hospital at the age of 82.

A Communist Party member and committed social activist, Azmi felt the poet's role was to inspire people to bring about changes in society, and wrote many poems about the plight of the exploited.

His work reflected the social and political realities of the time, and was rooted in the tradition of Urdu poetry with its longing for intense emotions. As a child, Azmi's family despaired when he showed no interest in taking over the family estate.

Instead he sympathised with the rural poor, even refusing to wear new clothes at festivals so as not to embarrass them.

He wrote his first poem when he was eleven, and it became a hit across the sub-continent for the singer Begum Akhtar. Kaifi Azmi said he didn't remember his date of birth, and that all he could say with confidence about himself was that he had been born in the enslaved India, became old in the Independent secular India and hoped to die in the Socialist India. The president, K.R. Narayanan, was among those who paid tribute, saying Azmi's commitment to secular values should be a source of inspiration at a time when sectarian violence was still going on.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service