Afaq Siddiqui, a teacher, poet, critic, translator, researcher and what not in the field of literature and academics, has given us a book titled Adni Baba a biography of late Iftikhar Ahmed Adni.
The book is not a simple narrative of the people, places and times. It has a different format; a bit of it, is dialogues between Afaq and Gauhar. Gauhar puts questions and Afaq provides answers.
Thus both of them disseminate there knowledge about the personality and character of Adni Baba, as they have named Iftikhar Ahmed Adni. Then there is a preface by Akhtar Hamid Khan, a friend of both Afaq and Adni, and as such quite competent to comment on the book. The third source of information is one Akhtar Mirza and the other is Mohammad Javed.
Mirza and Javed both were in close contact with Adni; there was some exchange of letters among them. The letters provide a lot of information about his interests, activities and his views about various things, situations and persons. These letters manifest his grip on the subject under discussion and also his command over the language.
Afaq in his own style introduces Adni, the poet. For that purpose, he chooses Adni's translation of Ghalib's Persian poetry into Urdu. Translation itself is a tough job particularly that of poetry wherein, there is a lot in between the lines, what really was intended to say but left unsaid. Of course, words are the guide to thinking, but the spirit embodied in the words needs imagination and cultural affinity for the proper appreciation of poetry. This is no place to sit in judgement on Adni's poetry. We are here, only concerned with the book on him.
The book also informs us about the company Adni kept. His early, roaming from journalism to advertisement, his contacts with eminent writers and participation in the meetings of "progressive writers association", etc.
It has been observed in the recent past that our bureaucrats, mostly after retirement, turn towards Sufiism. But the book under discussion suggests Adni was a Sufi even in service also. To complete the picture Afaq has quoted extensively from the book "Shakhsiat-e-Meeruth" written by Noor Ahmed Meeruthi.
Akhtar Hamid Khan has rightly said, "this small book will be a good book in the field of biography writing"... "Reading this book, it appears as if late Adni Khan was a Sufi saint who in disguise became a friend of common people like us".