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FAIZ AHMED FAIZ
(1911-1984) |
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Faiz Ahmed Faiz was born at Sialkot, also the birthplace of Iqbal, and was educated, like Iqbal, at Lahore, where he studied English literature and philosophy. He began his career as a lecturer in English at Amritsar. During World War II, he joined the Welfare Department of the Army and became a Lt. Colonel. However, with his strong sense of independence, and a commitment to the socialist ideology, he could not for long brook the shackles of military discipline. He turned to journalism and distinguished himself as the editor of The Pakistan Times. He was charged with complicity in the Rawalpindi conspiracy case and was condemned to 4 years' imprisonment in 1951. The jail-term gave him a first-hand experience of the harsh realities of life, and provided him with the much-needed leisure and solitude to think his thoughts and transmute them into poetry. Two of his books, Dast-e-Saba, and Zindan Nama, are the products of this period of imprisonment.
As a poet Faiz began with the conventional themes of love and beauty, but soon these conventional themes get submerged in the larger social and political issues of the day. The traditional griefs of love get fused with the travails of the afflicted humanity, and Faiz uses his poetry to champion the cause of socialistic humanism. Consequently, the familiar imagery of a love-poet acquires new meanings in the hands of Faiz. The conventional figures of the beloved or mistress come to represent the poet's cause, or country or people. Separation from the beloved implies separation from the poet's cherished ideals. The garden and the rose-bud symbolise the poet's homeland and people; wine becomes the wine of political truth or insight, or it may signify the self-sacrificing madness induced by progressive political ideas. This turning away from romance to realism, from EROS to AGAPE, is beautifully suggested in his poem, "Mujh se Pehi si Mahabbat Miri Mehboob Na Maang", here translated as: "Ask me not, my Love, for the love of former days." This poem is meant to give a jolt to the traditional view which regards love as the source and centre of life, to the exclusion of all other interests. But life is not love alone. There are other pressing problems of life-hunger, want and social inequity-which have even stronger claims on our minds and hearts. The idea harks back to Ghalib who, in one of his verses, makes a similar point:
How can your love alone offer recompense?
I've suffered many blows besides those of love.
In the matter of diction and style, Faiz may be called the inheritor of the tradition of Ghalib. His admiration of Ghalib is also reflected in the title of his first published work, Naqsh-e-Faryadi, which comes straight from the opening line of the first ghazal of "Dewan-e-Ghalib." Although he has written poems in a simple, conversational style, he has a marked preference for polished, Persianised diction, the diction of the elite rather than of the commoners. But because of the universality of his thought and a sympathetic vision, and because of the universality of his thought and a sympathetic vision, and because of his consummate art, his poetry is read and admired in both parts of the Indian subcontinent.
Faiz is a "committed" poet who regards poetry as a vehicle of serious thought, and not a mere pleasurable pastime. He does not accept the maxim of "art for art sake." An admirer of Karl Marx and a poet of the people, Faiz was honoured by Soviet Russia with the prestigious Lenin Award for Peace, and his poems have been translated into Russian language. His poetical collections include Naqsh-e-Faryadi, (1943), Dast-e-Saba, (1952), Zindan-Nama, (1956), Dast-e-Tah-e-Sang, (1965), Sar-e-Wadi-E-Seena, (1965), Sham-e-Shahr Yaraan, Mire Dil Mire Musafir, and Ghubar-e-Ayaam. The first two poems of this selection, Mujh se Pehli si Mahabbat and Mere Humdum, Mire Dost, occur in Naqsh-e-Faryadi while Lahu Ka Suragh comes from
Sar-e-Wadi-e-Seena.
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