“Poetry is the most effective way to protest,” said Ahmed Faraz, recounting how he had begun composing poetry.
In a piece titled ‘Main kyun likhta hoon?’ (Why do I write?), included in Mehboob Zafar’s book ‘Ahmed Faraz: fun-o-shakhsiyet’, Faraz says that when he had been in school it had been difficult to win bait bazi competitions.
He was usually defeated by a fellow girl student. In these competitions of reciting poetry, one has to recite a couplet beginning with a specific letter. Tired of memorising and recalling awkward couplets beginning with specific letters, Faraz decided to compose his own couplets on the spot.
Soon, Faraz got a chance to practise his art at home too when his father brought some clothes for him and his elder brother. The brother got a suit but a piece of checked cashmere was considered enough for Faraz. According to Faraz, it looked like a ‘prisoner’s blanket brought from jail’, so he composed a couplet protesting on the unfair treatment and after writing it on a piece of paper, he left it by his father’s pillow along with the shirt.
Faraz’s father, who had been a poet himself, was amused and after laughing at his son’s antic bought him new clothes. Faraz says: “The couplet was not of a very high quality but it was my way of expressing my sentiments over the class difference. It was a kind of protest. You may as well call it the beginning of my later-day protest poetry.”
Prof Fateh Muhammad Malik in his new book ‘Ahmed Faraz ki shaeri: naghma-i-dildaar ya shola-i-baidaar” (Ahmed Faraz’s poetry: love song or live fire) quotes the aforementioned anecdote from the book, saying: “Thus, Ahmed Faraz’s poetry began with a protest. His father’s love for him welled up because of this versified protest and he rushed to the bazaar to buy him his favourite clothes. Faraz never forgot his father’s affection neither did he forget the female classmate whose victory forced him to compose his own couplets. As a result of his father’s encouragement, his protest poetry proved to be a ‘live fire’ against the forces of tyranny and dictatorship and the fond memories of the female class fellow echoed in the shape of ‘love songs’.”
Quite a few cues have been given in the book for the reader to ponder upon. For example, let’s see what Prof Malik, a veteran critic and scholar, has narrated on the issue of national awards and the attitude of our two most-celebrated poets towards them. Prof Malik writes: “I remember when Faraz recited a naat written by him during a poetry recital session arranged under the aegis of Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation, a former general who was presiding over the proceedings had been outraged.”
“Faraz in his couplets had refused to compromise with those who had killed (Bhutto). […] But soon a day broke in our lives which just as dark as that night. On that day Ahmed Faraz kept on insisting like a spoilt child that Ahmed Nadeem Quasmi should refuse to receive a national award from Ziaul Haq whereas Quasmi sahib repeated his old logic that he had been awarded in the tenure of General Ayub Khan. Quasmi sahib believed that the award was a national honour and refusing it was tantamount to insulting the nation, saying, ‘Governments come and go but the nation lives on.’ Though Faraz kept on trying to persuade Quasmi Sahib the whole day, when it was finally time for the ceremony he drove Qasmi sahib in his car to the presidency.”
Prof Malik says that Faraz was quietly angry that Qasmi sahib had accepted the award from the hands that killed Bhutto, but later on he himself accepted an award from another dictator Pervez Musharraf. However, he returned it afterwards on a matter of principle.
Since Prof Malik is a senior academician and has been associated with research as well, this might be the reason why he looks at things from a different perspective. This has been his hallmark ever since he began his literary career some 50 years ago. Another aspect of his research is that unlike many of our scholars who rest on their laurels, he believes in continuous work and brings out new books and articles regularly. His new book tries to capture the essence of Ahmed Faraz’s poetry.
In the intro, Prof Malik writes: “For me studying Ahmed Faraz’s poetry has been the study of poetics as well as the study of Pakistan’s contemporary history. Some of the sore chapters of our national life that give themselves away from between the lines of Faraz’s poetry would perhaps remain hidden from the eyes of our historians. Historians just describe the tyrannical dictatorship in Pakistan in a chronological order. What remains unnoticed is the study of the influence of callous dictatorship on the human psychology, civilisation and society. However, the world of a poet is the world of culture and feelings. The wise sensitive way in which Faraz has studied these poisonous influences of a dictatorship totally lacking in national spirit is shared by none of his contemporaries”.
The author thinks that throughout his life Faraz resisted joining ranks of the so-called progressives, who when in public preached revolutionary principles but still embraced the old ritualistic ways in their personal lives.
The book tries to trace couplets in Faraz’s poetry that were composed against the backdrop of a political milieu. It also includes two articles written by Prof Malik shedding light on the early phase of Faraz’s poetry.
Faraz’s brief life-sketch and some of his rare photographs adorn the book that has recently been published by Islamabad’s Dost Publications.
