Daily Times

Poetry is a medium whose true message can never be conveyed in any other language. The total ambience woven around its texture by the poet’s imagination during those moments can never get across to the reader not familiar with the original language. The poet’s true imagination is based on the wealth of allusions, metaphors, similes, symbolism and delicate nuances, which, for an unfamiliar reader, gets reduced into dull verbiage; not letting him enjoy or understand its message. It is especially true of great poetry that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of the poet’s experience.

We can describe most Urdu poets by using just one epithet–normally a romantic or love poet. But Faiz was too multi-dimensional to be put under a simple label. Due to the enormity of his poetic output, it is difficult to cover his multi-faceted genius within the span of this small article. I would, therefore, restrict myself to defining some of his unique trends of thoughts that he introduced in Urdu contemporary poetry; making him a class apart from the rest.

He was brought up as a Muslim under the austere guidance of his father but trained in classical Persian poets like Rumi and Hafiz. He learned to read English, French and Russian literature while growing up. He did his post-graduation in both English and Arabic literature; gaining sufficient knowledge of the East and the West. This led him to achieve an iconic legacy of his day.

Having imbibed most currents of his time, Faiz’s poetry reflected a syncretic tradition (i.e. brought about by a combination of different forms of belief and practice), both across place and across time. It found harmony in many local cultural traditions. He felt comfortable with both Muslims and Hindus and was also influenced by British poets like W H Auden. As he grew up, he learnt styles from across centuries, weaving together classical forms of 14th-century ghazal that was mostly concerned with poetic ideals like loss and longing as we find in Sufi philosophy. In addition, he was also inspired by the English blank verse, introduced into this region by the arrival of the British.

Having imbibed most currents of his time, Faiz’s poetry reflected a syncretic tradition, across both place and time.

Though love is the essential tenet of his poetry, his verses constantly reverberate with his great zest to uplift the lot of the common man who was the victim of poverty, injustice and exploitation. But he carefully avoided bringing politics into his poetry nor ever mentioned them by specifying their machinations. Being an ardent spokesman of the Progressive Writers Movement, most of his poetry is revolutionary and iconoclastic. Despite being a Communist ideologue, he never allowed his poetry to become an instrument of Communist manifesto. He was not happy with the division of the sub-continent because it did not promise any change for the better. This disillusionment is embodied in his earlier poems like “Dawn of Freedom”:

“This blemished light-this dawn devoured by night-

Surely this wasn’t what we we’ve all been aching for,”

He exhorted the people suppressed under centuries of thralldom by his most revolutionary Nazm “Bol” to speak their minds. He knew that for their fight against oppression, they will have to open their mouths to agitate. As a champion of humanism, Faiz was sad to realize all these injustices were being borne by the Pakistanis. Faiz’s poetry vacillates between rebellion and devotion, anxiety and peace, and with a strong desire for a new dawn.

He selected Nazm as his favourite form to release currents of traditional Ghazal as well his general philosophy about his nation. He had tremendous success to move freely about, ventilating his true feelings without the restrictions of classical love poetry, which was concerned only with celebrating or mourning love. Traditional tropes like devotion and separation, peace and madness, became mobilizing forces for critiquing state oppression and for upholding an ethos that empowered the exploited to rise.

Faiz belonged to the Progressive Movement, which was more liberal and embodied a revolutionary aesthetic spirit to fully speak their minds in the background of the changing times.

With his progressive zeal, he turned away from romance to realism, in his beautiful poem, “Mujh se pehli si mohabbat meri mahboob na maang,” which stands out as a landmark in his poetry. For the first time, he drew the attention of the world that in the totality of this existence, the ideals and aspirations to uplift the poor and down-trodden masses subject to centuries of cruelty and injustice are far larger ideals than simple expressions of love between two persons. This he does by affirming his present love for his beloved in most glowing terms, taking care not to hurt her. Addressing his lover, he tells her that the sincerity and intensity with which he loved her, he hoped that it could change his life and give her all the pleasures of life, but alas it was not so. The love between two love birds cannot resolve the riddle of this life. This love is pathetically inadequate to ameliorate the lot of the poor man’s sufferings.

Faiz’s message for his community of creative writers was that they couldn’t disentangle art from responsibility. Each line they wrote was an active commitment to the issues of the time and also an attempt to empower their audiences. Art took on an activist sentiment; readers of the Progressive Movement could not overlook these injustices

Now I turn to another new trend in Faiz’s poetry expressed in his poem, “Raqeeb se” which revolves around his common love, which he shared only with his Rival. He does so, by taking a completely new and queer twist quite contrary to the contemporary tradition, by establishing a new and endearing rapport with his Rival by exalting his image for choosing the same object of love with whom the poet was so deeply involved. The poet’s actual purpose was to recollect the fascinating reminiscences of his meeting with his lover, making his Rival a credible testimony, to which he eminently succeeded.

A rival in poetry is generally disliked by the poets since two claims of love cannot be made simultaneously about the same object of love. In the instant case, the poet, instead of nursing a feeling of jealousy against his rival, is too deeply anxious to recreate the same great moments of joy and pleasure with his lover by sharing their details with the only person who is his rival. Hence, the poet establishes an endearing rapport with his rival, ( a very queer move in the entire Urdu literature ) and writes a detail of his romance by holding his Rival as a witness to all those love overtures.

“Tujh se kheli hain wo mehboob hawain jin mein

Us ke malboos ki afsurda mehk baqi hae

Tujh per bi barsa hai us baam se Mahtab ka noor

Jis mein beeti hui Raton ki kasak baaqi hae”——–

The remaining portion of the Nazm recounts the ennobling effects of love shared by the poet and his Rival for the compassion, empathy and justice for all humanity which are the final goals of love.

The loving charm of diction and the exquisite use of love metaphors has made this Nazm one of the finest pieces of literature which was Faiz’s favourite poem and which he also made Madam Noor Jehan sing for him several times.

In the early days of the ’40s, Faiz exhorted the people to freely express their thoughts to rid of the excesses against them. This perfectly embodies the spirit of the Progressive Movement:

His poetry between 1951 and 1955 is replete with the metaphor of shackles when Faiz was imprisoned by Pakistan’s prime minister on charges of conspiracy to overthrow the government. Eventually, Faiz fled 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. But these shackles emboldened him to fight against cruelties with greater force. And as a champion of humanism, Faiz was particularly attuned to the injustices borne by Pakistanis.

In his poem “This Hour of Chain and Noose,” he says: “This is the hour of madness, this too the hour of chain and noose You may hold the cage in your control, but you don’t command The bright season when a flower blooms in the garden.

So what if we didn’t see it? For others after us will see

The garden’s brightness, will hear the nightingale sing.”

Faiz’s verses, falling somewhere between rebellion and devotion, anxiety and peace, open our eyes to new political dawn (in Gen. Zia’s regime) in which he thought that the time was ripe for masses to rise in revolt against their brutal excesses. He then came out with his best revolutionary poem, “Hum dekhenge.” Faiz was to become a symbol of revolt and dissidence. This poem has become an anthem of resistance against dictators. In this poem, he shook the foundations of the oppression by using his spine-chilling imagery in which the tyrants were conveyed the horrible tidings of the “rattling ground,” “fearsome lightening in the skies,” the “tossing of their crowns” and the “seizing of their thrones.” The message opens as:

“The day when the mountains of oppressions of oppression,

Will blow away like whips of cotton

When the earth will dance beneath the feet of once enslaved:

And heavens will shake with thunder

Over the heads of tyrants,

We, the rejects of the earth,

Will be raised to a place of honour.

All crowns’ll be tossed in the air,

All thrones’ll be smashed.”

This displays his revolutionary zeal for the uplift of the suffering poor of his country. One cannot see so many strands in one singular genius.

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