mumbai replying to his friend atiya faizis allegations that he was ignoring her allama iqbal wrote no please dont call me indifferent or a hypocrite it hurts my soul i want to open my heart to you so that you can peep into my soulnoted urdu poet iqbal 18771938 whose birth anniversary on november 9 is also celebrated as world urdu day had deep bonds with mumbai and faizi a member of the famous tayyabji family whose ancestors included badruddin tayyabji who founded anjumanislam and indian national congress president badruddin tayyabji was a strong linkas the city commemorates the poet who gave the country several patriotic poems including sare jahan se achcha theatre director mujeeb khan pays tribute to iqbal with his play on november 9iqbal is important and relevant not only because he was a patriot but also because he inspires us to strive to be selfreliant and stay positive said khan while qazi mushtaq ahmed has scripted the play zakir khan zakir who teaches urdu at mumbai university plays the protagonistother than the play there is literature on the poet that bears testimony to his love for mumbai noted urdu linguist and scholar dr abdus sattar dalvi has researched iqbals mumbai connection in his book iqbal aur bombayiqbal came to mumbai first in 1905 on his way to england for higher studies and stayed at a hotel in south mumbai one evening he strolled down to vt station and then drifted to anjumaniislam some boys were playing cricket there and he inquired from a boy about the majestic anjuman building the boy told him that the muslims of the city had established this school said dalvi oh muslims in bombay are wise too said iqbalfaizi the feisty nationalist indian was among the several people iqbal met in europe they spent a lot of time together in london cambridge and heidelberg islamic scholar late dr rafiq zakaria in his book iqbal the poet and the politician says that some of his critics read too much into the exchange of letters between iqbal and faizi after his return to india from england in 1908 iqbal remained largely located in lahore but visited mumbai several times one of the memorable visits was in 1931 when he stayed at the bycullabased khilafat house after attending the second roundtable conference in london during his brief stay there zahid ali son of maulana shaukat ali brother of maulana mohammed ali of the famous khilafat movement took good care of iqbal zahid ali joked when he saw iqbal in a western suit where did you get this suit from he asked dear i will tell you the name of the tailor but let me assure you i bought it with my own money replied iqbal the ali brothers were accused of misappropriating khilafat funds