Notes from a people's poet

lsquoAaj ek harf ko phir dhoondta phirta hai khayalrsquou00a0Today a thought seeks once again a wordu00a0The delicate art of converting thoughts into beautiful words made Faiz Ahmed Faiz a legend in the Indian subcontinent A 20th century poet Faiz thrived on the simplicity of language and made fans of the man on the street Unlike his predecessors Mirza Ghalib and Allama Iqbal whose poetry was an amalgamation of complex words and views Faiz was a lsquopeoplersquos poetrsquo Faiz Ahmed Faiz centre with Palestinian poet Moiene Bissisou left and Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat right Pics CourtesyFaizfoundation trust The intensity and depth of Faizrsquos work was complemented by the simplicity of his choice of words For decades lovers have used the line mdash Teri aankhon ke siva duniya mein rakha kya hai And the endless depth of your eyes were enough for all creation to woo their loved onesu00a0Millions of his fans both in India and Pakistan admire and follow his work even three decades after his death In Faizrsquos biography The Way It Was Once his grandson Ali Madeeh Hashmi tells the story of the popular poet to a generation that may have merely heard of him Faiz was shy and remained so for the better part of his life He was seldom heard and only smiled at social gatherings His friends enjoyed coaxing and cajoling him into commenting on issues But all they got in return was the infectious smile that soon came to be recognised as the poetrsquos trademark But Faizrsquos shyness didnrsquot come in the way of his fiery and scathing editorials as the chief editor of The Pakistan Times His editorials often served as a lesson on what fearless journalism should be like In an editorial in 1949 he wrote ldquoThe selfish pack of men who have for the past 18 months revelled in peoplersquos misery and mocked at the nobility of freedom have been asked to quithelliprdquo As editor of The Pakistan Times Faiz often came in the way of the autocratic government of Pakistan He was accused of hatching a conspiracy against the Ayub Khan government and was sent to jail framed as the key conspirator in the Rawalpindi conspiracy case He stayed in jail for four yearsu00a0The government thought that putting Faiz behind bars would silence his voice but it was wrong As the editor of the national daily Faiz was unable to devote time to his poetry otherwise However confinement only spurred his creativity He published two of his best collections of poems mdash DasteSaba and Zindaan Naama mdash from prison After that his popularity soared in the subcontinent Faiz Ahmed Faiz with his wife Alys at their home in Model Town in Lahore in 1982 Faiz also wrote extensively about the need for land reforms in Pakistan The problems of labourers and the worker class formed the theme for many of his poems His poem SubhaAzaadi became a symbol of an unfulfilled desire for a free landu00a0lsquoDoing good without expecting rewardrsquo was the motto of Faizrsquos life and the author Hashmi has done a commendable job of highlighting Faizrsquos achievements with humility In the biography Hashmi shares some of the many letters written by Faiz to his wife Alys from prison The documents shed light on the turbulent times and also offer a glimpse into the personality of the reticent poet After his release in 1955 Faiz rejoined The Pakistan Times and wrote extensively He later wrote a screenplay for a film on the lives of fishermen in East Bengal Jago Hua Savera In 1962 Faiz was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize and soon after his work was recognised in the international community The unsavoury political atmosphere in Pakistan deeply affected Faiz and in his work during 19581962 he wrote extensively about the issues that affected the masses The Partition wounded Faiz considerably and the formation of Bangladesh only saddened him further He wrote Hum Kay Thehre Ajnabi We who became strangers at the request of Awami League leader Mujibur Rahman and expressed his grief Then in 1977 the Bhutto government fell and the military took over the reins Yet again Faiz was placed under surveillance and risked the prospect of arrest at any time He decided to leave the country and fly to Delhi In his own words Faiz called it lsquoselfexilersquo No one had forced him to leave the country and neither had he given up on the fight His spirit was still willing but the body could not take the physical punishment at his age In 1979 Faiz was chosen as the Editor of Lotus the journal of AfroAsian writers with Alys as the secretary They headed to set up office in Beirut There Faiz developed a close friendship with Yasser Arafat the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation PLO His poem Song for the Warriors of Palestine was translated into Arabic and became a national song for the struggling Palestinians When the war in Beirut escalated Faiz was advised to leave the city He moved to Moscow and later in 1983 decided to end his self imposed exile and returned to Lahore A year later he breathed his last He was laid to rest in a simple grave in Model Town Lahoreu00a0In his lifetime Faiz has been called a socialist communist an atheist but as Hashmi writes Faiz was a man beyond labels He was and will be simply Faiz The Way It Was Once Ali Madeeh Hashmi amp Poems translated by Shoaib Hashmi Harper Collins Rs 499 Faiz Ahmed Faiz was known for his shy smile but that didnrsquot stop the iconic poet and editor from writing scathing editorials in The Pakistan Times Faizrsquos life The way it was Born in Sialkot Pakistan Faiz Ahmed Faiz shared his hometown with another iconic poet Allama Iqbal Over the years he was influenced by the works of Iqbal Mirza Ghalib and was mentored by Sayyid Mir Hassan Faiz graduated from the Scotch Mission High School in 1927 with honours and excelled in languages like Arabic Persian Urdu and English He took up his first job offer as a lecturer at the MAO College in Amritsar in 1935 And it was here that he met his future wife Alys Faiz was a great fan of Ghalib and kept a copy of the DiwaneGhalib by his bedside and read it often Ghalibrsquos work bore a great influence on Faizrsquos earlier poems Faizrsquos poems have been translated into French German English Russian Arabic Swahili Polish Danish Hindi Marathi Kannada and othersu00a0He had joined the propaganda department of the British Indian Army as a captain He rose to the rank of colonel and was awarded as MBE for his services in 1946u00a0