Why Faiz must be read today more than ever

d) the music of his verse and its rich imagery which was not only evocative of Urdu poetry’s resplendent and much-admired premodern idiom, but which also still sounded contemporary and relevant

e) his melancholy voice which was never devoid of undertones of hope and promise. 

"As his reputation grew, so did his image, so much so that it almost became larger than life. And its lustre contin-ues to dazzle us long after his death in 1984," writes Farooqi. 

"Just as Ghalib became the mirror of the tumultuous changes occurring in India with the decline and fall of the Mughal empire and the ascendancy of the British, Faiz became the voice of his era with the rise of socialism and the cataclysms of the First and Second World Wars and all they entailed,” wrote Ali Madeeh Hashmi  

A few days more, my love, just a few days

Breathing the air under the shadow of tyranny

Suffering cruelty, injustice, weeping some more

We are doomed, crippled by our inheritance

With caged bodies and chained emotions

Imprisoned are our thoughts, and utterances censored

Just staying alive speaks of our courage

Is life nothing but the tattered gown of a

poverty-stricken man

On which is added every moment a new patch of pain?

But tyranny’s term is now due to depart

A little more forbearance, and our days of

complaint are numbered

In this scorched wilderness of time’s desert

We have to live, but no longer the same

We may have to put up with the heavy, nameless

tyranny of alien hands

Today, but not forever

Misfortune’s dust clings to your radiant body

Witnesses to youth that lasted but a day or two

The futile smouldering pain of moonlit nights

The ineffectual throb of the heart, the call of the

despairing body

A few days more, my love, just a few days

Speak, for your lips are free

Speak, for your tongue is still yours

Your upright body belongs to you

Speak, for your soul still is yours

Look, how in the blacksmith’s shop

The embers are hot, the iron glows

The mouths of the locks are being opened

Chains lengthen their reach

Speak, for the little time that you have is sufficient

Before the death of body and tongue

Speak, for the truth still lives

Speak, say all that is to be said

If I was sure, my companion, my friend

If I was sure the weariness in your heart

The sadness in your eyes and the burning in your breast

Can be dispelled by my comforting words, my love

Were my words of solace a medic which

could bring back to life your desolate and extinguished mind

Washing away the stain of humiliation from your forehead

and cure your ailing youth

If I was sure, my companion, my friend

Day through night, morning through evening

I would spend whiling away your pain

Singing to you light, melodious songs

Of spring, gardens and waterfalls

Of sunrise, of the moon and the planets

I would tell you tales of beauty and love

I’d tell you how

Unresponsive bodies of proud, snow-moulded women

Melt under the heat of passionate hands

How the stable contours of a familiar face

Change shape in an instant

How the crystal-bright visage of a beloved

Flushes red with a sip of the ruby red wine

How the rose branch offers itself to the flower-picker

How the night’s mansion becomes fragrant

I would sing to you, go on singing for you

Weaving songs for you, always around you

But my songs are not the cure for your grief

Melodies may not be surgeons, though they

can be friends and sympathizers

Songs may not be lancets, though

They can be a salve for pain at least

There’s no help for your affliction but the knife

And that cruel blood-letter is not in my power

Not in any earthly being’s power

Except you yourself, you, only you

Let there be some clouds, let there be some wine

After this let there be whatever punishment there may be

Let the moon come down from the decanter’s balcony

And the sun shine in the hand of the cup-bearer

Let every vein in the body light up like fire

Let the beloved appear unveiled once again

On every page of life the heart saw inscribed

Chapters of your love and fidelity

I was taking count of life’s sorrows today

Your memories flooded my mind uncountably

The sovereignty of love’s sorrows never went away

Though the heart witnessed revolutions every day!

The pillars and arches of the rival’s assembly

burst into flame

Whenever the homeless like us happened to arrive there

My silence echoed everywhere so

As if every direction were in response

Every road, every path was the destination, Faiz

We arrived successful wherever we reached

Before you had come, everything was just what it is now

The sky endless, the road a road

the wine glass a wine glass

And now: wine glass, road, the sky’s hue

Have all become the colour of my heart

until the liver’s crushed into blood

The colour of the champak flower

and occasionally the hue of the joy of seeing you

Occasionally the steel grey that’s the shade

of tedium

The colour of yellowed leaves, of brambles and twigs

Crimson red flowers, the colour of a flaming garden

The colour of poison, of blood and of the black night

Sky, road, wine glass

The soaked hem of a garment, a throbbing nerve

A looking glass constantly changing

Now that you have come, stay

so that some colour, some season, some entity

Should stay in place

One more time everything become just what it really is

The sky endless, the road a road

the wine glass a wine glass

Now why talk of the day

When the heart will be shattered

And all kinds of sorrow will be no more

Whatever was gained would be lost

And we’ll get what we never could get?

This day is that very first day—

The first day of love

The day we always longed for

And whose advent we always dreaded

Numerous are the times when this day came

We were settled a hundred times, plundered

a hundred times

Sacked, and compensated a hundred times

Why worry now about the day

When the heart will be shattered

And all kinds of sorrow will be no more?

Pass by anxious thoughts and fears

Que sera sera—

If it’s to be laughter, then laughter it’ll be

If it’s to be tears, then tears it’ll be

Do what you must do

Whatever happens, we’ll see how it goes

Nawaid Anjum: The poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz has always been relevant. But, as you point out in your wonderful introduction, it's more so in our times when “the dignity of an individual is at stake and the freedom of speech much at risk of fast becoming an obsolete concept.” What does Faiz’s poetry teach us about the dignity of man and the freedom of expression?

Baran Farooqi: Faiz’s name has always stood for the struggle for human dignity and freedom. His voice is a voice which never berates the human condition or ingratiates the human being though it may be full of complaint against the tyrannies of the prevailing social order. An everlasting example of his assertion of freedom of expression against all odds would be his poem ‘Mata-e Lauh-o Qalam’ whose translation featured on page 19 of my book and it goes like this: 

My pen and tablet, all that I had

Taken away from me

But what’s there to grieve for?

For I have dipped my fingers in my heart’s blood 

So what if my lips have been sealed shut?

I have now put a tongue in

Each and every link of the chain.

Another famous example would be his poem ‘Bol’, translated as ‘Speak’ on page 13 of the book:

Speak, for your lips are free

Speak, for your tongue is still yours...

The poem ends with the lines:

Before the death of body and tongue

Speak, for the truth still lives

Speak, say all that is to be said

If you are interested in more such examples where Faiz talks about the dignity and courage of human beings and their unflinching resolve, I would like to quote from his poem ‘Hum jo tareek rahon pe mare gaye’ translated as ‘We who were put to death on Dark Roads’ and I quote a few lines from the translation:

Because we loved the flowers of your lips, we 

Sacrificed ourselves on the dry stalk of the gibbet 

Pining for the tapers of your hands, we 

We’re put to death on half-dark roads

Nawaid Anjum: What role did the Progressive Movement play in shaping his sensibilities and oeuvre?

Baran Farooqi: The Progressive Movement provided Faiz with a new literary-political agenda. But for the Progressive Movement, the kind of political content and unrest would not have been present in Faiz’s poetry with just the right tinge of literary imagery of melancholy and frustration and revolutionary fervour. 

Nawaid Anjum: Do you see Faiz as a revolutionary or a romantic poet? Or did he strike a fine balance and was at once both a great revolutionary and a great romantic poet?

Baran Farooqi: I would say that Faiz is basically a romantic poet turned into a revolutionary because of the circumstances of the times which I think I’ve discussed in some detail in my introduction

The Punch: What are some of the striking elements of Faiz’s poetry that appeal to you both as a reader and a critic?

Baran Farooqi: I’m first and foremost an Urdu reader and my awareness of the background of Faiz’s poetry (which includes his use of image and metaphor) locates him as being very much in place in the long line of Urdu poets. His metaphorical style, which is also full of musicality, is extremely appealing. His poetry displays human warmth and strikes a chord with the Urdu reader. 

Nawaid Anjum: What makes Faiz poetry unique has a great deal to do with imagery. His voice, laced with the despair of the times, echoed the melancholy of the masses. What do you think is the greatest victory of Faiz as a poet over three decades after his death?  

Baran Farooqi: Faiz’s greatest victory is his relevance, which is very apparent if not intensely so to today’s generation. I think he’s relevant because he talks to the suppressed nature of man and celebrates the human spirit.

Nawaid Anjum: What were your key areas of concern while translating his poetry? Tell us something about the choice of nazms and ghazals for The Colours of My Heart?

Baran Farooqi: As far as my key areas of concern while translating are concerned, I think it was the translatability of the poem. One had to rate the quality of the poem with regard to translatability as to how well would the poem be able to carry itself in English. Popularity, if at all a concern, was a minor one.

Nawaid Anjum: Tell us about the state of Urdu poetry after Faiz. Could you name some of the contemporary Urdu poets whose works must be read?

Baran Farooqi: It must be remembered that Urdu poetry in the subcontinent had taken a different turn since Faiz where experimentation concerned with the inner state of man and poetry as individual expression have taken the front position against the concerns that drove the Poetry of the Progressives. Among the recent Urdu poets that are worth mentioning, I would name Balraj Komal, Shahryar, Muhammad Alvi, along with many others who made their mark on the literary scene during the nineteen-sixties. Amongst those from Pakistan, mention must be made of Ahmad Mushtaq, Munir Niazi and Zafar Iqbal. Nasir Kazmi came a little before them and made his mark in ghazal.