|
|
|
May 26, 2002
ARTICLES: Faiz in exile
EDWARD W. Said, a Palestinian American and perhaps the greatest intellectual of the third world, has been living in America for over fifty years but still regards himself as an exile in an alien environment.
He has written extensively on exile which, according to him, “is solitude experienced outside the group: the deprivation felt at not being with others in the communal habitation”. (‘Banished for ever’, Dawn B & A dated April, 28, 2002). In an earlier piece he has given a sensitive and touching account of his meeting with Faiz Ahmed Faiz in 1979 or 1980 during the latter’s exile in Beirut. (‘The Pain of Exile’, Dawn B&A dated January, 29,2002)
Here is an excerpt:
The meeting Edward Said has referred to took place in Faiz’s second exile, which lasted from February 1978 to January 1982. There was, however, a first exile of two years from the middle of 1962 to the middle of 1964. Let me in the first instance specify that in both the cases Faiz was not formally externed from his country by the government of the day. He decided to stay abroad on his own having been forced to do so under disagreeable conditions created by the hostile elements around him.
In 1962 Faiz was the head of the Arts Council, Lahore. Nawab Amir Muhammad Khan of Kalabagh, the Governor of West Pakistan at that time, was not well disposed to Faiz and was constantly making things difficult for him. Then there was a section of the Urdu Press, which was against Faiz and never mentioned his name without adding “convict of the Rawalpindi conspiracy case”.
In the summer of the same year Faiz was nominated for the Lenin Peace Prize by the Soviet Union, at which his antagonists had a field day. So, after visiting Moscow where he received his prize, Faiz proceeded to London along with his elder daughter Saleema who had accompanied him. His wife Alys and the younger daughter Muneeza joined him in London.
I got all this information in a letter from Faiz written on March 15, 1963 which I received in Washington where I had been sent by the government to study for a doctoral degree in public administration. The letter in question has been reproduced in my book on Faiz. In addition to the above information, the letter contains a detailed account of Faiz’s journey, first to Moscow then to Colombo for the Afro-Asian Writers Bureau meeting, from there to Delhi and Bombay. Finally, he ended up in Moscow again and returned to London in November. In December he received an invitation from Cuba to participate in the anniversary celebrations of their revolution. He spent the entire month of January 1963 in Cuba and was most impressed by what he saw there.
Along with the letter Faiz sent me a ghazal and a poem, which he had composed a few days earlier. Both of them are now in his collection. The ghazal begins with the lines
Her samt pareeshan teri aamad key qareene
Dhokey diye kia kia hamein bad-i-saharee ney
and the poem starts with the lines
Dayar-i-yar teri joshish-i-junoon peh salam
Meray watan teray daman-i-tar tar kee khair
The ghazal portrays frustration of the unfulfilled hopes and the agony of exile and the poem depicts love for the homeland and best wishes for the struggle for a better future.
As for his life in London, he does not complain but it was obvious from what he wrote that he was not too happy; he felt lonely and was not interested in doing anything. He did have friends but he could meet them only once in a while, obviously these meetings were not like the meetings back home. Faiz returned to Karachi in the middle of 1964 when his appointment as principal of the Abdullah Haroon College was arranged.
As indicated, Faiz’s next exile began in February 1978. At that time he was in Lahore heading a centre for research in classical music, which he had founded with the approval of Prime Minister Bhutto. When General Ziaul Haq deposed Bhutto and imposed martial law, Faiz was in trouble again. The secret service agent kept hovering around his house and started following him wherever he went. He was disgusted with the situation and again decided to go abroad.
One afternoon in February 1978 he and Alys dropped in at our house in Rawalpindi. Faiz told us that they were leaving for Karachi the same evening on the way to London from where they will proceed to Beirut because Faiz had accepted the editorship of Lotus, a magazine of the Afro-Asian Writers published in Beirut. He bid farewell with a heavy heart; unhappiness was writ large on his face.
For the next three years he was based in Beirut but kept on visiting London, Moscow and other places. I had no direct contact with him, but continued to get news about him from people who happened to meet him. However, in February 1981 on my way back from Washington where I had gone on official business I happened to be in London for a while.
I distinctly remember the afternoon I met Faiz. It was indeed a sentimental meeting. I came out of the Knightsbridge tube station and started walking towards Mr Majid Ali’s flat where Faiz was staying. Just in front of Harrods I saw Faiz coming from the other side. He had set out to receive me. In our excitement we embraced each other in a manner that caused some passersby to stare at us hard.
We arrived at the flat and had a long session during which most of the talking was done by me because Faiz wanted to know so much about things at home, mutual friends, politics and literature, etc. He talked about his travels, his activities and the people he had met. At the end of it he told me quite emphatically: “Enough is enough. I have decided to return home early next year, (1982), whatever happens.” And he did.
The most memorable thing about this meeting, however, was an anecdote that Faiz related to me. When I told him about the first Writer’s Conference which General Ziaul Haq had addressed on April 11, 1979, just after one week of Mr Bhutto’s execution. He had declared without naming Faiz that Pakistan’s “food and water, its air and moonlight were haram on writers who have left their countrymen and were living in exile”.
Faiz had a hearty laugh at it and told me that he had already heard this and went on to narrate the incident. On a fine summer day, Faiz and Alys, along with their interpreter, were sitting in a Moscow restaurant having their mid-morning coffee. A middle-aged gentleman appeared at the doorway and after looking around for a while came forward and asked them for permission to join their table because the restaurant was full to capacity and he could not spot any other place.
As he sat down, he told them he was from Australia and when Faiz told him he was from Pakistan, the gentleman said with some excitement: “How wonderful! I was in Trieste only a couple of days ago visiting your great scientist Abdus Salam!” He then gave Faiz his name and told him that he was a physicist. When Faiz gave him his name and told him that he was a poet, the gentleman became even more excited. He shook his hand warmly again and said: “How very strange. You know, Abdus Salam is interested in poetry, and he told me about you and also that you had been awarded the Lenin Peace Prize!”
Needless to say that after this introduction the conversation at once became friendly and intimate. So when the gentleman came to know that Faiz had been staying away from Pakistan for the past several years, he grew rather curious and said: “ I know about Abdus Salam’s problem vis-a-vis his country; he follows what they consider the wrong kind of religion. What is your problem, Mr Faiz?” “I write the wrong kind of poetry!” pat came the reply from Faiz.
|
|
|
|
