Faiz a Valiant Muse

 

Faiz memorial lecture arranged by Faiz Foundation was remarkable. Romela Taper's speculative stand was liberal in nature. An intellectual from Tea House chattered, "the organisers have looked down upon the scholars in Pakistan and run a risk of importing an instructress from India and it is in the air that she did well in saving them from baseless criticism.' Faiz Foundation has left no stone unturned to prove Faiz as the greatest Urdu poet of the century, giving less credit to the works of Allama Iqbal, N M Rashid and Majeed Amjad. It's a different issue and I would like to discuss it sometimes later. Today, I take up various aspects of boldness in Faiz's life and works. Throughout his life, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, the sublime progressive Urdu poet, penned committed, zealous and circumstantial literature. As he wanted to sublimate the consciousness of his readers, he created intelligible poetry. His poetry encompassed peoples' aspirations. When the bull of best selling poetry runs at the poet and he only tells his worthless experiences using ordinary means of expression, his poetry loses its worth. But as far as Faiz's poetry is concerned, the knowledge, analytical style, and complete command on Arabic and Urdu languages of the man behind it, did much for it. Faiz was a member of progressive writers movement. Many writers from this movement could only do ideological propagation, but Fan, did not dance to their tune. By the synthesis of romanticist and realistic experiences, he created a style of his own in Urdu poetry — a style charged with desperate pains, sorrows, richness of language and thought-

 Faiz's poetic units, "Naqsh faryaadi", "Dast-e-saba", "Zindan nama", "Dast-e-tahe sung." and the latter ones contain flavour of poetic appeal. The compactness of his diction having touch of sorrow and pain has made his poetry classic. The common jargons, signs and symbols fraternal to Urdu Ghazal take on fascinating shapes and designs in his poetic cosmos.

Throughout his life, Faiz faced difficult situations as there was prison house for those humanist who urged to live a life, wedded with emancipated spirit. He lived in that jungle where stones were under control and dogs were free. Pleasure-seeking people not only were petitioners but also had become judges. People were fighting against tyrannies and the poet was talking about growing flowers in fire. Though he was aware of the fact that since long authoritarians are winning and poor people are losing the war in a society functioning under the shadows of class system, yet a voice full of strong hope pulsates on his pen point.

"Today, no matter, if the enemy's luck is at its  peak, a few days of his despotism does not bother us".

"Whosoever love you forever he has the remedy of his bad luck"

Faiz always hankered after the expressions prepared with the blend of romanticism and realism. His ideology based on philanthropic speculations forced him to love people like Sartre and Mahmood Dervaish. Faiz in one of his short articles written on the conceptions of Sartre, the great French philosopher, honoured his ideological struggle against French oppression in Algeria and American aggressions in Vietnam.

Faiz himself played a serious role in this direction. His unforgettable struggle against dictatorial regimes in Pakistan was exceptional. He built a defence mechanism of words against unjust systems, exploitive philosophies and compromising attitudes.

Faiz demanded  human livelihood for the people living in class societies and enslaved territories. He dreamt of the abolishment of hunger, poverty, ignorance, backwardness, exploitation, severity and injustice from Africa, Asia and several other third world countries.

In his verses, we find, not a single example fraternal to the negation of natural human exigencies. He never ignored human aspirations and emotions. Idealistic poetry was not acceptable for him. He pointed out: "the mainstream of literature, which takes it from one destination to another, should encompass fully the intellectual, mental, emotional and ethical horizon of  its eon ".

Faiz gave same direction to his poetic thought. He highlighted in his verses with proper utterances, the intellectual, emotional, and psychic perplexities of his age.

When Faiz began his struggle against colonization of the subcontinent by the British empire, his psyche was charged with hope and energy. He tried to transform the orthodox value patterns. He was earnestly aware of the relevance of combativeness so he did not confine himself only to defence mechanism. Though his verses did not contain militant spirit than that of Habib Jalib's poetry,  but he was familiar with the aptitude of negating fascistic tendencies prevalent in a society working under autocratic dictates.

 We detect several ageless poems in Faiz's poetic collections. His lovers cannot forget his poems under the titles of "Sarood-e-shabana ,"Mujh say pehli see muhabat Mairay mehboob nah maang"  Chand roz aur mairy jaan" "Boal keh lab azad hain tairay "Tanhaiy" "Doaa" "Subh -e- azadi" "Loh-o-qalam" "Tauq-o-dar ka mausam" "Tumharay hussan kay nam" "Nisar mein teri gallion kay" "Irani tulaba key nam" "Shishon ka massiha koi naheen" "Mullaqat" "Humjo tareek rahoon mein maray gaey" "Aey roshanion kay shahar" Africa come back" "Aaj bazar mein pa bah jolan chalo" "Pass raho" "Munzar" "Yahan say shehr ko dekho" "Khursheed-e-mehshar ki lao" "Jis roz qaza aiey gi" and "Aay sham mehrban ho".

Faiz was prominent in Ghazal writing too. One can locate dozens of fascinating ghazels in his collections and owing to their melodious flavour, even his painful and sad verses have earned general popularity.

Readers can discover in his poems and ghazals, the glimpses of the grief given by his beloved and the manifestations of sufferings emerging from the socio-economic problems. Faiz tried to light the lamps over the diminishing foot prints on alien dust so that our future generations can refuse to be ruined by the millstones of fascism, imperialism, exploitation and slavery. He always protected the integrity of his committed pen. Living even in the unfavourable situations and shocking grief, his encouraging execution of ideas and passions were noteworthy.

"The daring style of someone coming to the place of execution has provided his personality a living elegance as soul is mortal and has no merit for him.

"The lightning struck hundred times and reduced itself to ashes, however the soil of nest is still in flourishing state"   

" After stopping I was like a grand mountain and when I walked I did not care for life."

" 0, my fiancée's path I had made you momentous. I am not afraid of the dark-day as I have cornered in my purview that beam which depicts the love of her reflective face. "                             

Faiz's poetry forced several of his contemporary poets to adopt political and social beats. Once. again, it awoke those ideas which were ignored continuously by our writers because of their so-called fears, limitations and slumber in the caves of oblivion.