Muzaffar Aazim was a Kashmiri-American poet and a writer of the Kashmiri language

Early life and career

Muzaffar Aazim was born in 1934 in picturesque hillside

Tangmarg Tangmarg is a town and tehsil in Baramulla district in Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. In 2014, Tangmarg was granted a sub division and trifurcated into three Tehsils (Tangmarg, Kunzer and Karhama), with Sub Divisional Magistrate ...

town located along Himalaya mountains in erstwhile Jammu & Kashmir State of India. He graduated from

Sri Pratap College Sri Pratap College, commonly known as SP College, is an academic and professional college in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India. The college has been accredited by NAAC with an 'A+' Grade. It is the oldest institute of higher education in the K ...

and briefly taught at

Amar Singh College Amar Singh College, is an academic and professional college in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India. It is the second oldest college in the Kashmir Valley after Sri Pratap College. History It was established in November 1913 as Amar Singh Tec ...

. He later became the Director of Sericulture in Kashmir, a position that enabled him to travel widely.

Kashmiri font and script promotion

He was instrumental in promoting Kashmiri poetry and language in digital media, partly by creating the first Kashmiri Narqalam font and Gulmarg Nastalik font. In collaboration with other language experts, he pushed for improvement in Unicode to better represent Kashmiri language. This enables almost seven million Kashmiri speaking population worldwide to write in their chosen language.

Literary works

Aazim started writing poetry at the age of 10 and published his first Kashmiri poetry book ''Zolana'' (''The Fetters'') in 1963. His contemporary, noted Kashmir poet Rahman Rahi, writing about this book comments that “The chief quality that distinguishes Aazim from almost all other poets of his age is his dexterity as a craftsman, a quality which can be appreciated in his ghazals”. His second Kashmiri poetry book was ''Manikaman'' (''The Desire''). His other poetry books include ''Saze-Salasil'' (''The Rhythm of the Chains'') in Urdu and ''Haraf Dai'' (''Two and a Half Words'') in Kashmiri. He authored ''Mahmud Gami'', (''Makers of Indian Literature'') published by Sahitya Akademi. He compiled a comprehensive review on "Experiments in Modern Kashmiri Poetry" in ''Indian Literature'', also published by Sahitya Akademi. He published ‘Yak Rang’, a popular collection of unpublished poems by mystic Kashmiri poet Anwar War Anwar (1873-1905). He has appeared multiple times on television to discuss poetry, literature, and life. He has written several plays for All India Radio Srinagar including ''Havas ta Haasil'' (''Longing and Gain''), and for

Doordarshan Doordarshan (), abbreviated as DD, is India's State-owned enterprise, state-owned public broadcasting, public television broadcaster. Established by the Government of India on 15 September 1959, it is owned by the Ministry of Information and B ...

TV including ''Nai Mout'' (''The Flute Fakir''). He started abstract digital art in 2014. This became his main, and a popular, outlet of creative expression in the later years of his life.

Translations

Muzaffar Aazim translated many classics into Kashmiri including

Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using pre-reform Russian orthography. ; ), usually referr ...

’s War & Peace published by Cultural Academy. He also translated

Emily Bronte Emily may refer to: * Emily (given name), including a list of people with the name Music * "Emily" (1964 song), title song by Johnny Mandel and Johnny Mercer to the film ''The Americanization of Emily'' * "Emily" (Dave Koz song), a 1990 song ...

’s ''

Wuthering Heights ''Wuthering Heights'' is the only novel by the English author Emily Brontë, initially published in 1847 under her pen name "Ellis Bell". It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moors, the Earnshaws and the ...

'', and Awami Raj, originally written as ''Iyaruingam'' (''Peoples Rule'') in Assamese by B.K. Bhattacharya and published by Sahitya Akademi.

Popular songs

Muzaffar Aazim wrote many melodious Kashmiri songs that are mostly played on All India Radio Srinagar and quickly became favorites. "Asi bor wizi wizi" was adopted by the

University of Kashmir University of Kashmir (UoK), informally known as Kashmir University (KU), is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public State university (India), state university located in the Hazratbal neighbourhood, on the western side of ...

as an anthem for 3 years. ‘Yina sa cheshman’, a song he dedicated to his wife became a classic. Other songs include ‘Jigar zakhmi’ and ‘Yena zulfow chanew’, both still very popular.

Awards and honors

Muzaffar Aazim received the best book award for two of his Kashmiri poetry collections ‘Zolana’ and ‘Manikaman’ by Jammu & Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture & Languages. He was awarded Soviet Land Nehru Award for translating ‘War & Peace. He also received a ‘Dastar Bandi’ by

Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture and Languages Jammu () is a city in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir in the disputed Kashmir region.The application of the term "administered" to the various regions of Kashmir and a mention of the Kashmir dispute is supported by the tertiary source ...

Death

Muzaffar Aazim died on July 8, 2022, in

Woodbridge, Virginia Woodbridge is a census-designated place (CDP) in Prince William County, Virginia, United States, located south of Washington, D.C. Bounded by the Occoquan River, Occoquan and Potomac River, Potomac rivers, Woodbridge had 44,668 residents at the ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aazim, Muzaffar Indian poets Indian digital artists 1934 births 2022 deaths