Both Faiz and Faraz were like the poet John Milton, ‘a party of one.’

Islamic Culture

29 Aug 2008, NewAgeIslam.Com

Both Faiz and Faraz were like the poet John Milton, 'a party of one.'

Dreams do not die   Ahmed Faraz, poet of love and revolution, languished under official approval   F. S. Aijazuddin   Posted online: Friday, August 29, 2008    In Pakistan, the Muse tends to settle in the suburbs - Allama Muhammad Iqbal was born in Sialkot; the Nobel Prize Winner Abdus Salam revealed his intellectual promise in Maghiana, near Jhang; Nur Jehan was discovered in Kasur; Roshanara Begum settled in Lalamusa; Faiz Ahmad Faiz came from Kalaqadir, Distt. Narowal; and Ahmed Faraz's unlikely origins were a village near Kohat, in the wild North-West Frontier Province.   Such rugged environs were hardly the Lake District to inspire a Wordsworth, but Faraz's inspiration was perhaps in his genes. His father Agha Syed Muhammad Shah Bark Kohati was a traditional poet, and although both he and his son Faraz were Pashto-speaking Pukhtuns, Faraz studied Urdu and Persian at Peshawar University, later teaching what he had not been able to learn himself.   Every poet has to begin somewhere and it is said that Faraz's first couplet was addressed to his teacher who had given him a suit of clothes at Eid which Faraz did not like. He coveted his brother's outfit and expressed his remonstrance in a makeshift verse: Layen hain sab ke liye kapre sale se/ Layen hain haamare liye kambal jail se. This early reference to jails and imprisonment is revealing — Faraz spent much of his life avoiding both.   Like most poets, Ahmed Faraz needed to feed himself and his Muse. He worked as a script writer at Radio Pakistan in Peshawar and later taught at the university there, meanwhile writing some of the most lyrical Urdu ghazals, heard at mushairas initially within Pakistan and then throughout the Urdu-listening world.   Faraz's role model was Faiz Ahmed Faiz, and it is interesting to compare the careers of both as they acquired reputations as social rebels. For Faiz, the Lenin Prize awarded to him by the Soviets hung like some albatross around his neck, marking him as a Communist when all he wanted was a place to sit, a desk to write on, and the peace of mind that poets seek but is denied them. But in his later years, even Faiz had to stoop in order to survive. In 1972, when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came into power, he appointed Faiz sahib in the as head of the Pakistan National Council of the Arts - an honour that paid the bills but starved his Muse.   Faraz similarly took two official posts — first, in 1976 as the project director of the Pakistan Academy of Letters and later as its chairman briefly in 1989-90. In between, he remained in exile during the tyranny of General Zia-ul-Haq, whose brutal authoritarianism drove Faraz to heights of inspiration. Ahmad Faraz's last official post was as the chairman of the National Book Foundation, where he remained for over 11 years , until he was unpoetically superannuated. The bureaucratic exercise of removing his belongings from his official residence was no more than officialdom at its petty worst. He was permitted by the then PM Shaukat Aziz to remain in the house.   During his life Ahmad Faraz received a number of honours, including the Hilal-i-Imtiaz in 2004. He returned this award to President Musharraf two years later, saying that his conscience would never forgive him for associating with a military dictator.   Today, with Faiz and Faraz both gone, what remains is not the fire of their revolution. Neither of them was able to bring about a change in the society they lived in. Politically, each was like the poet John Milton, 'a party of one.' What they did achieve during their lifetimes, and have left as a legacy after their deaths is a vocabulary of thought moulded into elevated expression. Future revolutionaries will find fiery slogans in Faraz's poetry, as will hapless lovers groping for the right phrase to convey the most sublime of their emotions. Faraz's burning poetry pitted itself against the injustices of dictatorships and authoritarian regimes — and certainly, Pakistan has provided plenty. His work will command a following so long as love itself lives, and the Muse finds a voice through a poignant Urdu ghazal.   F.S. Aijazuddin is a Lahore-based writer.   View Source article: http://www.indianexpress.com/story/354597.html