Hope in despair

Faiz Ahmed Faiz: The Renowned Writer and Poet

There are times when one feels down in the dumps. What lifts the spirits then is not wine, the bottled poetry, but the real one. Trust Faiz Ahmed Faiz to articulate your feelings when overwhelmed by emotions.

Sometimes pain and suffering defies expression. Turn to pensive lyricism and the anguish finds a voice. One of the greatest poets of the subcontinent, Faiz's shayeri gives articulation to the inner turmoil. To all those who loved and lost, suffered and survived, Faiz holds a beacon of hope. His poetry has immense relevance in the present times when curbs are sought to be put on the freedom of expression. Faiz says:


Mata-e-loh-o-qalam chin gayi to Kya ghum hai
Ke khun-e-dil main dubo li hai ungliyan main ne
Zaban pe muhar lagi hai to kya ke rakh di hai
Har ek halqa-e-zanjeer main zuban main ne


If they snatch my ink and pen, I have no complaint
For I have dipped my fingers in the blood of my heart
What if they seal my lips
In every ring of manacle I have secreted my voice



In the present strife-torn age, Faiz remains immensely relevant and popular on both sides of the border. This is primarily due to the fact that his poetry is timeless and reverberates with pathos of the period. Injustice, poverty, oppression and exploitation figures in his poetry. If you want to wage a lyrical war against bias, inequality, socio-political discrimination, Faiz comes handy. His poetry puts things in perspective whatever be the situation and succeeds in bringing unity and focus to a cause. "He had a profound understanding of human existence and this is reflected in his shayeri", says Dr. Syed Taqi Abedi, who has authored two books on the celebrated bard.



Poet, editor and rights activist, Faiz blazed a new trail of love and revolution. One can detect the diction of Ghalib and Iqbal in his nazms and ghazals, the two important genres of Urdu poetry, he excelled in. The quantum of his work is not much, just 1800 couplets written in a span of five decades. Yet each of his verse has an enduring appeal to it. A Communist, he was adept at mixing lyricism with political comment. The poem Subhe-e-Azadi penned in the wake of the partition remains a masterpiece. Though it primarily mirrors the dashed hopes of people who looked forward to change after the end of British raj, one can relate to it whenever dreams crash and promises remain unfulfilled .



Ye daagh daagh ujala, ye shab-gazida sahar
Wo intizar tha jis ka ye wo sahar to nahin
Ye wo sahar to nahin jis ki aarzu le kar
Chale the yaar ki mil jaegi kahin na kahin


This stained light, this night-bitten dawn
This is not that long awaited daybreak
This is not the dawn in whose longing
We set out believing we would find



"There are few persons with whose name their countries are known. Faiz has this distinction in Pakistan", says Dr. Abedi, the Hyderabad born Canadian physician, who was in the city recently for release of a book.

The relevance of Faiz is all the more today with liberty at stake and human rights violations becoming the order of the day. Be it Syria, Palestine or other trouble spots the philosophy of  resistance and ideology of action and idealism advocated by him helps in galvanising support and lifting spirits. Even now his moving verses succeed in exposing grim truths and raising consciousness.

Perhaps the last of the practitioners of classical Urdu poetry, Faiz wrote with intensity on the agony and struggles of common man. In every poem, even the romantic ones, he expands the conventional thematic expectations to include, societal wrongs, political and social issues. A champion of humanism, he takes on oppressive regimes in his famous poem Hum Dekhenge. In the immortal lines of Bol  he goads the exploited to rise and speak the truth.

Bol, ke lab azad hain tere
Bol, zubaan ab tak teri hai
Tera sutwaan jism hai tera
Bol, ke jaan ab tak teri hai


Speak out, your words are free
Speak up, your tongue is still your own
Your body remains yours
Speak out, your life is still your own

The poetry of Faiz, according to Abedi, gives hope and encouragement. He explains the hard realities of life with evocative metaphors and traditional tropes of romantic poetry. Sample this verse where Faiz bolsters spirits and urges the struggler not to give up.

Dil na-umeed to nahin, nakam hi to hai
Lambi hai gham ki shaam, magar shaam hi to hai         


Not hopeless, the heart has only lost
Long is the evening of grief, but it's evening only  

J.S.Ifthekhar,

Hyderabad based journalist.

Article published in The Hindu

Dated March 15,2018