ہم مسافر یوں ہی مصروفِ سفر جائیں گے
بے نشاں ہو گئے جب شہر تو گھر جائیں گے۔
Faiz Ahmed Faiz, a name linked with the revolution, one which certainly does not need any introduction; a name which is still alive because of the courage, ethics and poetry it relates to; a name that will remain illustrious in the chronicles of Urdu literature forever.
Born in a small village near Sialkot in 1911, he was first sent to a religious institution for basic religious education and later began his formal education at the age of 10. In his autobiography, he mentions his first day at school; dressed in his best clothes, he rode there in the best of pull carts available at home, eager to embark the life that awaited him. Following his matriculation from Scotch Mission School, he went to Murray College Sialkot for his intermediate studies. His father aspired his son to follow the exemplary steps of Indian Muslim educationist Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, and so, after graduating with the highest of honors from Murray College, Sialkot, Faiz left for Lahore in the autumn of 1929. From there he advanced to Govt. College University Lahore, where he was enrolled in the department of languages and fine arts. During that period, he was greatly influenced by pioneers of religion and Arabic like Professors Mir Hassan and Shamsul Allam.
In 1930, Faiz joined the post-graduate programme of the GCU and obtained an MA in English literature in 1932. He did his masters in Arabic from Oriental College Lahore and finally became a lecturer in the English department at MAO College, Amritsar, in 1935.
From his early childhood, Faiz was an enthusiastic Urdu reader. Though he had made his first attempt in the field of Urdu poetry during his 10th standard, for the sake of perfection, he waited till the completion of his education to cement the words he felt brewing inside him. Faiz was also an exceptionally brilliant student; he did his Masters both in Arabic and English.
A famous anecdote from his student life spells his expertise in the foreign language. Once his English professor awarded him a 120 out of 100 marks, way past the threshold possible. When asked why he awarded a single student one-twenty marks out of a hundred, he simply replied, “Because I could not give more!”. However, despite his finesse in the English language, it was the beauty of his mother language, Urdu, that Faiz wanted to pursue.
Unlike most the people of his time, Faiz chose to marry the woman of his own choice and tied the knot with Alys Faiz, a French noble. Elis Faiz proved to be a dedicated and understanding wife who spent most of her life in Pakistan, even after her husband’s death. She was highly fluent in spoken Urdu. Elis and Faiz had two daughters, Muneeza and Saleema Hashmi. Both of them are renowned personalities today.
In 1941, while teaching at Hailey College of Commerce Lahore, Faiz published his first literary book “Naqsh-e-Faryadi”. It contained his earliest poems – in nazm, ghazal and qita form – and set him on the course to become the greatest and most-read Urdu poet of the 20th century.
Faiz, in the opinion of his peers, was fiercely independent. In the new state of Pakistan, Faiz took the lead in advancing the demands of various groups such as the workers, women, peasants and the poor through his work with trade unions and his editorship of the Pakistan Times. For his troubles, he was arrested on trumped-up charges in the notorious Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case. Over the next two years, he was set to face trial before a secret tribunal that held the power to condemn him to death before a firing squad. During his time in prison, Faiz composed the remarkable poems of his second book, Dast-esaba (The breeze’s hand), declaring to his jailers:
متاحِ لوح و قلم چھن گئی تو کیا غم ہے
کہ خونِ دل میں ڈَبّو لی ہیں انگلیاں میں نے۔
One of his most popular and highly acclaimed poems from that era is titled ‘The soil of my land’. It is dated in 15 August 1952, Pakistan’s fifth anniversary of Independence. Faiz wrote to his wife, Alys, that there had been a celebration in jail, with colorful buntings, lights, and loudspeakers. Yet while the Pakistani government was busy celebrating, he felt, the ordinary people of Pakistan had no reason to rejoice. Mohammad Ali Jinnah had died just a year after Independence. Liaquat Ali Khan, the prime minister at the time of Faiz’s arrest in 1951, had soon after, been assassinated in public. A long period of political chaos and instability culminated as Pakistan’s first military government told hold in 1958. This was the backdrop for a poem, ‘The soil of my land’, that became immensely popular, and is still quoted widely today:
نثار میں تیری گلیوں کےاے وطن کے جہاں
چلی ہے رسم کہ کوئی نہ سر اُٹھاکے چلے۔
Faiz was arrested several times during the reign of General Ayub Khan, and faced a dilemma when the India-Pakistan war broke out in 1965. Friends pressured him to write ‘patriotic’ songs; instead, he wrote ‘Lament for a dead soldier’:
اُٹھو اب ماٹھی سے اُٹھو جاگو میرے لال
تمہری سیج سجّاوَن کارن دیکھوں آئی رَین اندھیارن۔
While loved throughout the Subcontinent, like all great artists, Faiz remained dissatisfied with his life’s work. On multiple occasions, he also said that he had received much more than his share of love and acclaim and, as a result, felt perpetually guilty for not having done enough through his work to justify it.
