One of the greatest voices to come from the subcontinent
Vagaries of time can wipe clean a whole panorama full of memories; and multitudes are notorious for forgetting a once-legend, be it Ghalib, Zauq, Faiz, Faraz or Firaq. However, for connoisseurs of Faiz, both sides across the sub-continental border, it is heartening to see that legendary words of the celebrated poet still resonate among youngsters even after 28 years of his demise, Mujhse pehli si mohabbat meri mehboob na maang…( Ask not, my love, to love you in the way they used to do)
When I saw Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s daughters Salima Hashmi and Moneeza with bouquets at the Lahore side of Wagah border (to commemorate his centenary), it came to my mind that it was a pleasant return gesture to me for my presentation of flowers to Faiz, when I, as a school-boy of class 8, was asked to do so by the Shankar-Shad Mushaira coordinator in 1972 at Modern School, Delhi.
“Activists, artistes, writers, poets and school and college are perhaps the most powerful people who can change the images between both countries about each other. The only difference between India and Pakistan is the demarcation of the border; otherwise we are the same people,” Salima told us.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz happens to be the most eminent of the subcontinents’ four progressive poets; the other three being Ahmad Faraz, Ali Sardar Jafri and Habib Jalib.
After Ghalib Faiz was one poet who would really work hard on polishing his verse before he presented it to his readers. And if he felt the need to do so he was not reluctant to edit or amend a line in a poem even after its publication. Faiz’s letters to Iftikhar Arif are a proof of the perfectionist in him as is an article that appeared in the latest issue of Urdunama of the National Language Authority.
It was in a jail cell that he wrote some of his finest poetry and Moneeza, his daughter, told of the little gardens of roses and sweet peas he planted outside his cell window. She talked of the universality of his ideas, the pain he felt for Africa and Palestine but reminded us of a poem he wrote about the sense of loss he felt when he was away from his subcontinent
Why one and all love Faiz is because he is a man of all seasons and excels in different forms. There’s a Faiz for lovers, there’s a Faiz for those who lost their homeland and now there’s a Faiz for the overriding passion of peace among the people of the subcontinent as in the lines — Gham na kar, abr khul jaegaa, raat dhal jaegi, rut badal jaegaa… (Grieve not, the leaden sky will open, you will see the night yield and the season change…)
Ye daagh daagh ujaalaa, ye shab-gazidaa sahar Voh intezaar thaa jiskaa, ye vo sahar nahin… (This stain-covered daybreak, this night-bitten dawn/ This is not that long-looked-for break of day). Faiz dared to keep reminding the rulers of his country that although the British were long gone the lives of ordinary people remained as miserable as ever. He compounded his problems by remaining staunchly Marxist in a country that had become avowedly Islamic.
Muneeza says that despite a ban on most of his works during the decade-long dictatorship of General Zia ul Haq, Faiz’s writings continued to inspire, notable among them ‘Hum Dekhenge’, which became almost an anthem for liberty from tyranny — ‘Sab taaj uchhaley jayenge, Sab takht giraye jayenge’ (all crowns and thrones will be tossed, thrown and brought down). “The subcontinent has seen dark moments and when people read a line of Faiz, they find hope for a new morning — be it in Gujranwala (Pakistan) or in Delhi, Kolkata or Bhopal. When people are lonely and want a voice for their pain, they’ve run to Faiz and that’s what he strived for all his life”.
Interestingly two of Faiz’s old students from Government College Lahore — former Indian Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral and the writer Bhisma Sahani, have been nostalgic about him. Even another former Indian prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee has been a connoisseur of Faiz and has often recited his couplets in parliament.
It was not just that he was the greatest poet that either country has produced since Allama Iqbal but because as a human being, he seemed able to rise above the religious and ethnic divide that broke India and Pakistan up.
It was in a jail cell that he wrote some of his finest poetry and Moneeza, his daughter, told of the little gardens of roses and sweet peas he planted outside his cell window. She talked of the universality of his ideas, the pain he felt for Africa and Palestine but reminded us of a poem he wrote about the sense of loss he felt when he was away from his subcontinent.
Salima Hashmi, Faiz’s elder daughter, says, “It is being celebrated in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal simultaneously as an occasion to remember and celebrate our commonalities and to forget our divides. In a subcontinent facing extremism, conflict, inequalities and deprivation, Faiz and his poetry reinforce the struggle for justice and peace.”
On March 9, 1951, Faiz was arrested with a group of army officers under the Safety Act, and charged with the failed coup attempt that became known as the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case. He was sentenced to death and spent four years in prison before being released
Faiz Ahmed Faiz was born on February 13, 1911, in Sialkot, Pakistan. He had a privileged childhood as the son of wealthy landowners Sultan Fatima and Sultan Muhammad Khan, who passed away in 1913, shortly after his birth. His father was a prominent lawyer and a member of an elite literary circle which included Allama Iqbal, the national poet of Pakistan.
Faiz’s early poems had been conventional, light-hearted treatises on love and beauty, but while in Lahore he began to expand into politics, community, and the thematic interconnectedness he felt was fundamental in both life and poetry. Duur darwaazaa khulaa koi, koi band huaa, Duur machlii koi zanjiir, Machalke roi, Duur utaraa kisii taale kii jigar mein khanjar, Sar patakne lagaa rah-rahke dariichaa koi… (A distant door opens, another shuts, A distant chain scrapes sullenly, scrapes and sobs, Far off a dagger plunges into some locks’ vitals, a shutter rattles, rattles, beating its head…)
Faiz’s early poems had been conventional, light-hearted treatises on love and beauty, but while in Lahore he began to expand into politics, community, and the thematic interconnectedness he felt was fundamental in both life and poetry.
It was also during this period that he married Alys George, a British expatriate and convert to Islam, with whom he had two daughters. In 1942, he left teaching to join the British Indian Army, for which he received aBritish Empire Medal for his service during World War II.
On March 9, 1951, Faiz was arrested with a group of army officers under the Safety Act, and charged with the failed coup attempt that became known as the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case.
He was sentenced to death and spent four years in prison before being released. Two of his poetry collections, Dast-e Saba and Zindan Nama, focus on life in prison, which he considered an opportunity to see the world in a new way.
Faiz was imprisoned again and again. While he was under house arrest, he just posed to have a cigarette on a stroll around his locality, the ranger on guard faltered and the next moment, Faiz reached airport for Bahrain!
When Faiz had fled Pakistan later, he went first to Delhi where he had a large circle of friends and well wishers. Many universities there offered him a professorship in literature; he considered accepting a position at Calcutta University before he was told in no uncertain terms by the Pakistan embassy that such a move would be inadvisable. He then flew on to Moscow and later made several visits to London, before landing in Beirut.