Daily Times

Poetry is a genre essentially to be read, recited and enjoyed. The total effects of a good piece of poetry, which it leaves on the reader, are very difficult to communicate to others, because of one’s inability to convey the same emotions, excitement and delight that is only possible through the poetic medium. Faiz, for that matter, is too big a subject for this small piece, but I’ll attempt to give a faint overview of only a fraction of his genius, whose coverage too leaves me much humbled.

Hailing from a lower-middle-class family, Faiz Ahmad Faiz had to go through all tribulations that the youths of his class had to face to acquire a good education. He mastered in Arabic and English and was soon adapt in oriental as well as western knowledge and culture. In his early career as a teacher, he was lucky to sit and benefit from the company of great literary luminaries, like Patres Bokhari, Sufi Ghulam Mustafa Tabassum, Dr M D Taseer, Moulana Abdul Majeed Salik, Moulana Chiragh Hasan Hasrat and Pundit Hari Chand Akhtar, etc.

He was a leading left-wing intellectual and soon became known as a revolutionary and well-known poet of Urdu language. Faiz started writing on the conventional subjects of love and beauty, but, shortly, these conventional subjects merged into the larger social and political issues of the day. His poetical collections include Naqsh-e-Faryadi (1943), Dast-e-Saba (1952), Zindan-Nama (1956), Dast-e-tehe Sang (1965), Sar-e-Wadi-e-Sina (1962), Sham-e-Shehryaran (1975), Mere Dil Meray Musafir (1978) and Ghubar-e-Ayyam (1982). Out of these works, Dast-e-Saba and Zindan Nama were written when Faiz was in prison undergoing sentence awarded in Rawalpindi Conspiracy case.

Faiz’s poetry has long reflected a syncretic spirit, across place and time. It found a place among many local cultural traditions and also beyond. He derived inspiration from not only all the great poets of the sub-continent but was also influenced by British poets like W H Auden. He had a startling resemblance with Noon Meem Rashid and Meeraji amongst his contemporaries but was deeply influenced by classical poets like Ghalib, Mir, Sauda and Daagh, etc.

Iqbal, in whose praise he had also written a poem, had an overwhelming effect on his poetic growth. Faiz’s poetic diction is purely classical but he was also largely influenced by the western free verse. Some of his rare gems are in blank verse.

Moreover, Faiz’s poetry was distinctively critical in challenging the structures of power and the failures of governments to heed the concerns of the downtrodden, which lent a revolutionary zeal to his poetry. Most importantly, Faiz adapted the forms, images and themes of Urdu poetry to criticise and galvanise readers against the oppressive political regimes threatening the subcontinent.

Faiz’s poems introduce a collective call through his use of a universal “hum” (Hindi for “I” or “we”). His characteristic style of free verse, referred to as “nazm,” within the Urdu poetic tradition, assumed a revolutionary aesthetic. Nazm departs from the formal genre of ghazal, but its focus remains on love and various moods. In the lyrical fervour of “nazm,” Faiz transformed the attitudes of devotion and separation, and peace and madness by criticising the state oppression and for upholding an ethos that empowered the exploited to rise.

Faiz belonged to the Progressive Movement, a group of writers and poets who embodied a revolutionary aesthetic. They believed not in “art for art sake,” but in “art for life sake.”

This group of writers and thinkers believed that suffering could be done away with through action. What’s more, their community couldn’t disentangle art from responsibility. Each line they wrote was an active commitment to the issues of the time and an attempt to empower their audiences. Faiz, despite his tremendous aesthetic appeal, could not remain silent on the plight of the poor and down-trodden sections of the people. His revolutionary zeal was, therefore, directed to raise the lot of the poor and suppressed people. His social ideals also won him the Lenin Prize in 1962.

Faiz’s poetry was distinctively critical in challenging the structures of power and the failures of governments to heed the concerns of the downtrodden

In 1941, Faiz wrote a poem (Bol) that perfectly embodies the spirit of the Progressive Movement:

“Speak for your two lips are free,

Speak-your tongue and your upright body,

Are still yours.

Speak-your life is still yours.

Look-see how in the blacksmith’s forge,

Flames leap high and steel glows red,

Look-Padlocks opening their jaws,

Every chain ‘s embrace outspread!

Time enough is this brief hour,

Until body and tongue lie dead;

Speak, for truth is living yet_

Speak whatever must be said.”

Between 1951 and 1955, Faiz remained imprisoned on charges of conspiracy to overthrow the government. Eventually, Faiz went into exile in the years after his release because the political climate in Pakistan had grown so severe that he feared the constant threat of arrest. Faiz wasn’t interested in nationalist pride or propaganda or a patriotic consciousness but in the health of the Pakistani body politic and healing the trauma of a people torn asunder.

Later, when Pakistan came into being, he wrote “Dawn of Freedom,” which starts with these prophetic lines,

“Yeh daagh daagh ujala, yeh shab gozida seher,” (This much-stained radiance, this night-bitten morning)

Despite independence, the fruits of freedom were denied to the lower and poor masses. Some critics have attributed this poem to have been written soon after the outbreak of the Second World War, which largely affected the lives of the Indians. But the poem has the same universality as the earlier poem (Bol) had for the entire humanity. In any case, his poetic works of that time show his craving for the brave new world, which he was dreaming for his people.

For centuries, the Urdu ghazal celebrated the romantic love between the poet (The lover) and a woman (His beloved). Their romance knitted around the whole story countless moods of joy, hope, grief and depression, with the sole purpose of winning over the beloved. Most often, the romance failed but the real charm and value of the ghazal lay in the style and manner of the poet’s expression of his amorous emotions about the beloved. This tradition was for the first time broken by Faiz when he declared that there was much else besides love, which was important and demanded man’s attention. The message is contained in his famous poem, “Mujh Say Pehli Si Mohabbat Meray Mehboob Na Mang” (Don’t ask me for that love again).

The beauty of this poem is that without demeaning the beloved, he exhorts her that there are many more aspects of life, particularly the poor and deprived masses whose miseries need preferential treatment.

In the later part of “Dast-e-Saba,” he wrote, “Do Ishq” (Two Loves), wherein he completely harmonises the love one feels for a lover (some attribute it to his wife, Alys) with its demand for self-sacrifice with the wider and more inclusive love for his country and its downtrodden people. And finally concludes:

“Yet my heart feels no regret for either love,

My heart bears every scar but that of regret.”

There are numerous poems like “Tanhai,” “Raqeeb say,” “Chand Rose aur Meri Jan,” “Subhe Azadi,” “Nisar mein teri galyon kae,” “Shishon ka Masiha,” “Zindan ki aik Subah” and many others (which, for space constraints, cannot be mentioned), which are essentially love poems but the poet’s love for a person transforms into love and freedom for humanity at large.

Faiz never abandoned this stance and whenever he speaks of his love for nature or his beloved, he also speaks of his commitment to his country and its exploited masses.

From 1951 to 1955, he remained incarcerated and the prison-house became his second home. Despite being a communist ideologue, he never allowed his poetry to become an instrument of the Communist manifesto. Love and peace were the key-notes of his struggle. His Marxist sympathies used to be sublimated into his quest for peace, harmony and his love for the poor and down-trodden, whenever he went to prison. The distress and deprivation in a prisonhouse brought the best and finest of his poetic sensibilities to the fore. His poetic art needed to pass through the baptism of fire, which only the pangs of isolation of a prisonhouse could provide.

In the hallowed years of his life, he exuded the serene charm of a person who had wallowed through the harsh realities of life with rare grace and dignity, calling to mind the rapture of reunion, epitomised in his verse:

“Lo wasl ki sa’at Aa pohenchi;

Aur hukm-e-hazuri per ham nay;

Ankhon kay dareechay band kiyey;

Aur seenay ka dar baz kia.”

The writer is a former member of the Provincial Civil Service, and an author of Moments in Silence