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.
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10:09 PM
Moderate Islamist here
