Ye Kavita Abhi Shuru Nahi Hui: In Converastion With Poet Kausar Munir

We all remember Mona Singh with the fringe haircut, rimmed glasses and braces from the popular show of 2003 Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahi. She was brilliant at her work and did a job in leading the fashion industry. The show was so popular that it ran from 2003 to 2006 and is remembered even today.

Poet Kausar Munir started her career as a screenplay writer with this show. She began as a script supervisor but as the show gained popularity and life on television for years, she made her way up to becoming the script and screenplay writer.

Since then Munir has written multiple scripts, lyrics and poems. She became the flag bearer of feminist poets and lyricists in the country. She has also written the song, Falaak Tak, from Tashan and has written songs for popular Hindi films like Ishqzaade, Ek Tha Tiger, Dear Zindagi, amongst many others.

Suggested Reading: Vital Voices in Verse : How the Feminist Poetry Festival is breaking new ground

The Feminist Poetry Festival by SheThePeople brings Munir to speak about her journey with poems and lyrics, her entry into a profession whose door never existed. In conversation with Saumya Kulshreshtha, she talks about her recent poem Aurat Ka Qaida and her other works.

The host and the anchor of the talk, Saumya Kulshreshtha is a writer, poet, editor and translator. She runs the Poets' Collective and is the founder of a homestay in Bir.

The session begins with one of Munir's thought-provoking poems named is Ye Kavita Abhi Shuru Nahi Hui (This Poem Has Not Begun Yet). It is a non-film poetry which she started with the request of Roshan Abbas, who started a forum called Komune India for the like-minded people who do stories and poetry. She had ">written the poetry for that.

"Yeh kavita abhi shurru nahi hui, yeh kavita abhi shurru nahi hui, pehle maine iske political correctness a kavach, je hazuri ka jama, dhakosle ki dhaal pehna du, phir isse padhungi...phir isse kahungi," Munir narrated.

Kausar Munir Poems

The Thought Behind A Poem

"The scope of the vocabulary and thought in the poem...this is who I am. I feel that I do not belong to anyone identity, any one location, geography," Munir said.

Her father's side of the family is rooted in writing and the Aligarh Muslim University, which is a rich cultural place of Urdu literature background. But surprisingly, she says she never learnt Urdu, nor was she ever taught to write or read in the language.

The year before last, in 2020, during Diwali, Gulzar sent her a book of his poetry called A Poem A Day, which is a curation of poems that he has translated and in that book he had inscribed in Urdu. She could not read it. It was only in the last two years that she learnt Urdu to read the words inscribed. According to Munir, that is "one part of her identity."

The other part is that she was born and brought up in Mumbai. She studied in a Convent school and went to St Xavier's College. "I hate it when people bad-mouth about the city of Mumbai, Bollywood, etc. My blood boils and that is where my vocabulary and thought also come from," she said.

Her Journey As A Lyricist

On how she began her career as a lyricist in a creative world and industry with almost no women lyricist, Munir said that she was not the only name, there were others like Anvita Dutt and other women are also coming up.

"Before this, I called up my sister, who is a writer... Rehana Munir and I asked her why there are such few women lyricists and poets. She offered a love quote by Susan Sontag, who is a writer and philosopher. She said that women are still in the cultural minority. In the demographic, they are 50 percent but culturally the representation is less. That is why it does not strike you to pursue those careers," Munir said.

Kausar Munir recently wrote dialogues for an OTT show on called The Rocket Boys.

"It took me the longest time to use the work lyricist for myself," said Munir. Ishaqzaade was her first complete album. It was a bonafide and a hit album but still, she would find it difficult to say, 'I am a lyricist.' She thought that she needs to do more in order to get that label because of the cultural condition and that the onus that the woman needs to prove herself worthy.

"Many of the purists especially men who have come from that "class" will not consider this (Munir's work) as poems," she said.

Munir has a witty logic to how the music industry brings gender balance. According to her the music industry in Bollywood is democratic in the sense that it gives grief to men and women equally. One is more valued by their hits and flops. Munir said, "You may be the 'womenliest' woman ever but if you are giving them all the chartbusters, there is no problem."

Romantic Tracks

Picking her personal favourite from the songs that she has written, she has a soft corner for Ishqzaade- Pareshaan and the title track. Then, songs with public appreciation like Doobay from Gehraiyaan, amongst others.

People have said to her that she uses simple words and conveys deep thoughts through them. There is a voice that she has in her lyrics that comes quite naturally.

Being Consistent

She is from Mumbai, "so I never came to this industry with a dream and a diary," said Munir. It was one step at a time and one day at a time, it is still like that for her. According to her the first cycle of success in this industry is overwhelming and then it dips and it needs to rise through consistent work and not one hit or one film.

"Being consistent is important. I have reached that point so it really does not matter," she said.

Speaking about the difference in the voice of her non-film poetry and lyrics, she said that it is very different for her.

"I feel a lot of things, I know a lot of things and I am not good at debate, I am not good with sitting in a room filled with people and trying to make a point. I am not good at standing in the front and centre of a protest because that is not my personality. It overwhelms me. I am glad that I found this idiom, this voice. Because I do not know if it matters or makes a small dent but at least I am able to use my words, not for profit," she said.

Screenwriter and Dialogue Writer

This was never a distraction but an attraction for her. There was no plan. She was in Xaviers and was working as a research assistant with a documentary filmmaker. From there she did Jassi, there Vijay Krishna Acharya was the head of the writer and she landed her first film Tashan. "Things just kept happening and I went along. But also grabbing opportunities, I am not very ambitious but neither am I laid back," she said.

"I do a lot of work which does not come in fronts of public eyes like events and some government script works, some social sector. I have one advantage and that is I can write in both English and Hindi, so that helps. If I was supposed to do only one thing, I would have gotten bored," said Munir.

Talking about her poem Aurat Ka Qaida she said, "This poem is like a melting pot. I think I wrote it around womens' day, it was for some event and I had read something like Urdu ka Qaida. This is not rules and regulations, Qaida is like an abcd book. Every time everybody is trying to define what one should be and there is no one thing."