ISLAMABAD, Feb 14: Unlike critics and admirers discussing Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s life these days in rhetorical and philosophical terms, humourist Mushtaq Yusufi’s simple and lighter description on Monday brought out the poet as a thorough gentleman with loads of patience and tolerance.
Punctuated with one-liners bringing out smiles and laughs, Yusufi brightened up the audience that made to the National Language Authority (NLA) as heavy rain and hailstorm lashed Islamabad. His vivid and subtle descriptions in Urdu were a befitting tribute to Faiz, taking away the haloes around him, presenting him as a human who knew how to deal with celebratory status.
“Faiz sahib was endowed with patience, tolerance. But sometime we felt as if he was stuffed with them,” he said, while remembering his days with the poet in London in 1970s at the home of Majid Ali and Zehra Nigah. In a lighter vein, he explained how Faiz dealt with unwanted people with no sense of his greatness by never losing patience with them. “Faiz sahib never criticised anybody. It was not part of his personality to be angry.”
When Faiz asked him if he was writing something, Yusufi berated himself, saying he was more into reading than writing. Even then Faiz asked Yusufi to “forgive yourself”, saying he cannot stand people berating themselves or others. He said he never heard Faiz complaining about his financial difficulties, or about others’ attitudes.
Directing some of the jokes at himself, he also did not spare Iftikhar Arif, NLA chairman. Yusufi wondered why Arif has asked him to spend the Valentine’s Day with him. As he was the only speaker to talk about Faiz, Yusufi played on the word ‘iklota (alone), saying that a lone speaker and a lone ruler – dictator – go only after making lots of fuss.
Yusufi said Faiz decided to take a different poetic route, away from the lover’s pining for the rest of life. “For Faiz, the real issue was pain of humanity. He was master at turning personal grief into voice of the humanity.” The pain of humanity may have saddened Faiz, but he was an “incurable optimist” who never lost the hope of a better world. “Bitterness and disappointment was not his way of life.”
Talking about his last meeting with the poet in London, he said Faiz was looking smart in a black suit, but there was “tiredness and sadness” around him. But when Faiz talked, it was still about working for changing the world for better. “I will not say that we are fortunate to live in Faiz’s times, but his times will be recognised because of Faiz.”
For Yusufi Faiz’s poem ‘Bol’ is the manifesto of the third world. The poem written 75 years ago in the colonial era was the epitome of freedom of expression, he said, adding that it stands out for its “slow but determined and rising tempo”. He said Faiz is one of the few humans who give back to the world through their work. “I am proud that I lived in the days of Faiz.”