Dhaka se wapsi per dismantles the moral certitude inherent in nationalism and makes identity narratives look absurd against the bond of common humanity States are quick to form narratives to contain, explain, and even exploit political tensions, and though poetry has been known to validate and bolster national narratives, it has also been known to puncture biases, engineer nuance and offer pliable perspectives. Nuance may not always lead to accurate conclusions or justice, but it does bring us closer to shattering prejudice and approaching political conflict on a human level. Can a poem speak for a nation and transcend nationalism at the same time? No ordinary poem can, but some of the best ghazals have been known to hit the mark due to the form’s ability to compress and counterpoise, in a sher (couplet), the energies of conflict with the energies of desire. Such an extraordinary example of the ghazal’s passion traversing the traumatic aftermath of war and the consequent split of a country is found in a ghazal by Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Faiz, Urdu’s seminal modern poet, is not remembered as a ghazal poet in the same way as the classical poets of Ghalib’s milieu, but his ghazal “Dhaka say wapsi par” (“On Return from Dhaka”) comes to mind as a radical instance of utilising and stretching the ghazal’s capabilities and modernising the form to suit the precarious political theme of the separation of East and West Pakistan. Typically, each couplet or sher of a ghazal offers a thematic or tonal variation; the same ghazal may include a highbrow existential enigma in one verse, a playful jab at a rival in another, and an elegy, a satirical comment, or a sentiment of mystic devotion in the other verses. Whereas classic Urdu ghazals have been known to suggest, complicate and expand the political, the form’s elliptical manner and its concern with subtlety causes it to shy away from specificity. Faiz’s ghazal “On Return from Dhaka” is a spectacular shift from this inclination. In no more than five couplets Faiz accomplishes the major feat of establishing an association of the ghazal form with the particular by unifying the verses thematically, anchoring them in a specific historic event, while still keeping them aligned with the traditional sensibility of open-endedness. The ghazal was written shortly after Faiz’s first visit to Bangladesh- the poet’s first encounter with the severance between the former East and West Pakistan. This poem, which carries conflicted subterranean emotions, is nonetheless genuine in its sense of loss and intense sadness, and is able to express the otherwise unsayable, at once confronting and transcending the tension between the newly separated nations. Faiz’s choice of the ghazal form for this poem couldn’t be more apt in this case: the subject, a fresh wound, is approachable and authentic only as an intimate address made partially to the self and partially to the beloved- the beloved being the central metaphor of a traditional ghazal- in this instance Bangladesh. The poem’s gestures hit the mark by translating political tension into romantic tension, not unlike the performance of a romantic ballet duet, one line of the verse bending, the other turning and lifting. The couplets enact the shift from the deep love shared in the past to the devastating separation and loss of trust and the present estrangement, ending with a couplet that is heart-breaking in its finality: the line “the one thing I had come to say, was left unsaid,” bears the anguish of coming to terms with the new reality that love, deep as it was, has become a thing of the past as we go our separate ways. The lines convey a lover’s deep regret at not having shared the heart’s burden with the beloved, as well as the even more painful truth that the present decorum commands that all past sentiments must remain in the past. As I attempt to translate this ghazal into English, I face the perpetual issue of Urdu poetry translating poorly due to the loss of sonic textures, subtle assonance and innovative use of stock metaphors. A treasure of music and meaning, this Urdu ghazal falls rather flat in English. Among the lost attributes, is Faiz’s poetic license of adding an Urdu plural to the formal plural verb forms of Persio-Arabic diction (“Madaraaton,” instead of “madaaraat” and “Munajaaton” instead of “Munajaat”); the double plural adds intimacy and intensity and grounds the poem in a colloquial rather than a classical dialect. The double-plural is a modernising gesture in this case as it subverts the idiom of the establishment and emphasises instead the abundance of love and the poignancy of loss. The need for strengthening actual diplomacy notwithstanding, “Dhaka…” pays homage to the former East Pakistan with the delicacy and genuine feeling that surpasses the finest diplomatic gesture between two countries that split from each other in such bitterness. Nayyara Noor’s beautiful musical rendition of the ghazal brought it to mainstream culture, making it one of the most popular modern Urdu ghazals of all time, a lyric time-capsule, a memorial of love and loss- personal, political, national and transnational. As long and as far beyond the place of its birth the ghazal is read and sung, the truth of a peoples’ sentiment will be remembered, a truth that bears weight despite atrocities and failures. The ghazal, in attributing love as the hinge between opposites, makes a permanent bond between contraries; it has a peculiar way of amplifying and pacifying loss because it raises love above loss. In the case of this ghazal, it dismantles the moral certitude inherent in nationalism and makes identity narratives look absurd against the bond of common humanity. On Return from Dhaka Faiz Ahmed Faiz Translated by: Shadab Zeest Hashmi We parted as strangers after all those celebrations of love ended How many times must we meet before estrangement has ended? When will the verdure of unblemished seasons return to freshen my eyes? How many monsoons until the bloodstains are washed, the mourning ended? The anguish of love ended in anguish, time was without mercy The days, they began cold, after our nights of warmth ended My heart was too defeated to permit itself its own desire: How I had wished to give myself up to a lover’s quarrel after the conference ended Faiz, the one grief I would have laid my life down to share with my love That one grief was left unspoken when all was said and everything ended Shadab Zeest Hashmi is the author of Kohl and Chalk and Baker of Tarifa, recipient of the San Diego Book Award and the Nazim Hikmet Prize. Her work has been translated into Spanish and Urdu. She has taught in the MFA program at San Diego State University as a writer-in-residence