Mustafa Zaidi's modern Urdu ghazal, "Chalay toe kat hee jaa-ay gaa safar, ahista ahista" showcases the way two lovers interact... there is no haste, everything moves languorously and falls into place slowly. The relationship matures, crystallizes at its own pace. It was sung with just the right amount of coyness by the Pakistani filmstar of yester years, Musarrat Nazir and the musical composition is remarkable in the way it falls in sync with the refrain in the ghazal. A delightful creation !
Mustafa Zaidi (1930-1970) was a modern Urdu poet who wrote Urdu ghazals as well as Urdu poems. This beautiful and moving Urdu ghazal has a modern sensibility. Mustafa Zaidi's poetic voice has a wonderfully sensitive and personal feeling in this ghazal. This ghazal was sung by Musarrat Nazir sometime in the 1980's or 1990's when she visited Lahore, Pakistan from Toronto, Canada. This ghazal was set to a bueautiful musical composition and broadcast from the official government of Pakistan TV channel (PTV).
Mustafa Zaidi (1930 - 1970) was a courageous romantic who wrote Urdu ghazals and Urdu poems in his own style with characteristic candidness and a warm openness that invited the reader into his world. He was a total misfit in the rigidly conservative, narrow mindedly religious Pakistani society. He is alleged to have been murdered due to his extra-marital affair with a young married socialite Shahnaz Gull . . . and the scene of the crime was allegedly made to look like he committed suicide . . . Mustafa Zaidi was 40 years old at the time of his untimely death in Karachi on 12th October, 1970.
Mustafa Zaidi was the Hamlet of modern Urdu poetry . . . neglected by mainstream literary society and a rebel at heart . . . he had so much to give in the form of immortal poetry to the people of Pakistan (whom he served as a Deputy Commissioner who refused to take bribes) and to Urdu language lovers all over the world . . .
The renowned and leading modern Urdu poet Majeed Amjad wrote a touching poem at his sad end. Mirza Hamid Baig wrote a book entitled "Mustafa Zaidi Kee Kahani." Lahore's avant-garde publishing firm "Mavra" run by Khalid Sharif published the collected poems of Mustafa Zaidi in an anthology entitled "Kulliyat" in 1980.

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