Syed Taqi Abidi’s ‘Faiz Fehmi’ launched

Syed Taqi Abidi’s book on poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz and his poetry was launched titled ‘Faiz Fehmi’. The book launch was held at the Alhamra Arts Council, organised by the Lahore Arts Council, with eminent guests including Intizar Hussain, Faiz’s daughter Muneeza Hashmi, drama writer Asghar Nadeem Syed and senior columnist Ataul Haq Qasmi.
During the book launch, Intizar said that although many books and articles had been printed on this great poet, it was important to read and understand each of these pieces, because with each piece of writing, a new side of Faiz was brought forward. “It is a must to understand him,” said the famous writer and intellectual. “And for this, it is important to read everything written on him. This book took has brought a lot forward,” he said.
Intizar said that Faiz’s poetry style was soft and gentle and hardly ever loud and aggressive. Sometimes, his tone became slightly assertive, but in general, Faiz was a master of subtle, soft poetry. He said that in those days Faiz was never understood by many of the thinkers of his party line because he never totally followed the party line either. But today in retrospect, Faiz was considered more a progressive than many of the one who thought he was not.
Taqi Abidi said that Faiz was always a very controversial poet, who was hardly ever accepted in many circles. “He was a romantic poet whose imagery never died, in fact was immensely powerful,” said Abidi. He quoted Faiz’s poem Shaam that gave the imagery of Hindu symbols all in one poem. The tree as a mandir, the orange setting sun spread all over the sky as the sindoor on the forehead of a saint, and its gray, the ashes that a sagoo rubs all over his body.
“Today we have brought forward Faiz as a man, but we have hardly studied his poetry,” says Abidi. “His personality and poetry are both equally important to know. But his poetry is so layered that we can attain a PhD degree in his poems,” he said.
He also pointed out that Faiz ‘resolved’ the problem of ‘tarseel and iblaagh’ (understanding and communication) by writing the simplest poetry. “Although some writers have said that he almost never used Persian words, this is wrong. Faiz probably used the most Persian words, but despite this, his allegories and his imagery was far easier to understand than was Iqbal’s,” said Abidi.
He pointed out Javednama by Iqbal, where the poetry style is highly complex. “Faiz also wrote some splendid verses for the Iranis in Persian but they know nothing of it, until I introduced these in Tehran some time back. We should bring forth our heroes so that others also know of them and their magnificence.”
Abidi said that today about 1,800 books have been written on Faiz, but if he was a Persian, some 4,000 books would have been written. It was unfortunate that we ourselves never studied and learnt about our own writers.