By Jonaid Iqbal
ISLAMABAD: Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s 99th birth anniversary coincided with the International Women’s Day on Saturday.
So it was not a surprise that at the function arranged by the National Language Authority in memory of the legendary poet, Dr Fauzia Sayeed brought up the subject of women empowerment.
She spoke in reverence of Faiz and said his poetry provided the motivation for all that rights activists had done to improve the lot of women.
The participants had come more to be charmed by listening to Faiz’s lyrical poetry. The beginning was in accordance with this wish. We saw Shahram singing his poem Au sehar ki baat suno in elegant Raag Aimen; Afsheen rendering the poem Aaj ke gham ke nam in her intense sweet voice. This was followed by the event’s president Prof Fateh Mohammad Malik reading snatches from Sar Vadiye Seena; NAL Chairman Iftikhar Arif reading from Ao hath unthawed ke ham bi/Jinhen rasm dua yad nahin, and Agha Nasir reading the poem Subah ki dharkan.
However, since Faiz was such a legend, a number of discussants decided into affectionate interpretation of Faiz’s life and works, especially how he had opted to become social activist or otherwise as one of the foremost romantic poets of Urdu literature. But the division was sharp and Iftikhar Arif had to comment that a speaker should enjoy the freedom to shape his argument in the manner he saw the poet and the audience remaining patient.
However, Prof Malik completely destroyed the widely held notion that the great Faiz espoused communism or socialism as a dogma. Indeed, he subscribed to the golden philosophy of socialism and communism as a means to change the lives of the downtrodden and wretched humanity. In the end, he became disappointed with the infighting of the revisionist and the idealist (China and Russia) and lent his passionate support to the Palestinian struggle.
Prof Malik suggested all the beautiful images of Faiz’s poetry were incantation of Islamic ideas and borrowed from the holy Quran.
Prof Jalil Aali recalled a conversation between Abul Khair Kashfi and Faiz Sahib. Kashhfi had complained that the great poet had not written natia poetry. Faiz retorted that the thought was unjust and Kashfi was speaking out of the character of the Prophet (peace be upon him) who had never upbraided any one in public. Jalil Aaali said one should ponder over his poem Aaj bazar main which is an expression of helplessness recalling the martyrdom of Hazrat Imam Hussain.
Ashfaq Saleem Mirza reproduced several perspectives of Faiz’s life and works with how Faiz was drawn to the communist cult after meeting Sahibzada Mohammad Zafar and his wife Dr Rasheeda.
However, Dr Rawish Nadeem started the polemics by reading a selection from Faiz’s writing in Meezan and quoting a conversation between Banne Bhai (Sajjad Zaheer) and an Indian thinker, Malik Sahib.
Source: Dawn
Date:2/14/2010
