SUKHAN dard ka ab kaha jaaye na (of pain cannot be spoken anymore), wrote Ahmad Faraz, the greatest Urdu poet since Faiz. His departure leaves Urdu poorer, and at a loss for words which he so elegantly wove into its ghazal and nazm for over half a century. If ghazal was all about talking to women, Faraz lived as its Casanova; if it was a medium for romance, he was its reigning deity for the young and old alike. In its contemporary form, as crafted by progressive poets in the last century, ghazal became the medium for equating grief over unrequited love with that borne by a people, a nation wronged, and Faraz stood head and shoulders above the many crowding the genre. Likewise his nazm revealed the humanist in him who informed the poet; his inspirations were the people and the values of a life lived in freedom and dignity, which he cherished for all.
There was no ambiguity in the poet's stance ever; no exigencies could waylay the people's advocate, a rights activist par excellence, from his chosen path. Steadfast in his track and vesting full faith in a final win for the will of the people against despotism gripping his homeland, he marched on, even if all by himself, as he did by returning a government award in protest against Gen Musharraf's policies in 2006. In the ensuing civil society's struggle for the independence of the judiciary, his was the lone poetic voice, like Habib Jalib's before him, leading the protests on the streets of Islamabad. He was victimised by the Musharraf regime for his outspokenness, sacked from a government job and evicted from his Islamabad house, with the family's belongings thrown on the street. Earlier, too, Faraz paid quite a price for his political moorings, living in the anguish of self-imposed exile under the Ziaul Haq dictatorship, away from the people and the country he so affectionately resonated with. Of the separation from the beloved, the values he espoused, he sang eloquently in Wali Dakhani's rhyme Wali, Qutb ho woh keh Ahmad Faraz/ Piya baaj sach hai jiya jaye na (Be it Wali, Qutb or Ahmed Faraz/ Truth is, live one cannot without beloved). Alas, the poet is no more.
