I went to faiz with my mother ,he was sitting on a chair and smoking drowned in thoughts,as if he wasn't present there,I asked him whats the matter and faiz replied :baaz dafa mein apnay ap ko manzar say ghaib kr laita hn.
I liked this angle of faiz's life very much because sometimes I wish that i become invisible and just observe the people and world without having to say anything,without having to react to an opinion,just pure observation and getting submerged in the moment.
I have a passion for psychology ,to know what people think and how they feel.Its refreshes me.I did not want to get involved with philosophy because having a certain opinion u always have to defend it, not just in front of people but also in front of ur highly critical, guilty charged and furious conscious.Thinking about philosophical questions has pained my heart a lot .I feel exhausted and want to run away from it but I have recently found that philosophy is an integral part of me,I cant live with it and I cannot run from it.
Oh my! I've read faiz's complete poem for the first time!...why did they cut off the last part from the song...Its AMAZING!
ReplyDeletePuzzled apse contact kerna he pry ga...you know a hell of places to visit! :p
perhaps you can visit this website because it would be more helpful http://wikitravel.org/en/Lahore :)
ReplyDeleteI had the opportunity to meet him more often when I was an understudy of Sadequain. I was learning the art of calligraphy from the great artist, who was Faiz’s friend. One incident I will never forget is when an admirer of both men invited the three of us to the Karachi Gymkhana for lunch, but the watchman at the gate did not let them in because they were wearing kurta pyjamas. I was in trousers and so was allowed inside. This was before Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had popularised the awami (national) dress. The highly embarrassed host rushed out and took us to lunch at a nearby restaurant. He was apologetic about the incident but was put at ease by Faiz, who said that the rules and regulations of any place had to be abided. That was the soft side of a man, who never reconciled when it came to his principles.
ReplyDeleteLahore’s Mall road was as crowded as always. The old man was holding a little red flag. Those ragged dusty clothes, lengthy gray hair, wrinkled mystic face and small piece of scarlet; there was something very dramatic about that old man whose appearance reminded me of the realist Soviet paintings. He was heading towards the building of Alhamra Art Complex which was covered with the life sized posters of the Socialist poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz. The poet’s centenary celebrations were about to begin and the car parking was almost full.
ReplyDeleteThe old man stood there for a short while and looked at the smiling photograph of the poet. He then entered the main gate and headed towards the hall. One could find a lot of ‘cultured’ men and women, walking with an attitude towards the hall. All of those well-dressed, well-spoken people started entering the hall, but the old man kept standing there. The guards were not letting him enter. He remained there until the gates were closed and the hall echoed with the radical words of Faiz, Hum Dekhaingey – We shall see, We shall see…but the old man never saw anything! He could not afford to buy a ticket for a thousand rupees to celebrate Faiz day!
What an ordinary incident, isn’t it? It did not make any difference at all. It rained heavily that evening. The cars kept passing on the mall. All the people came out of the hall cheerfully. They were excited to see the VIPs from Bollywood. I heard, an aged gentleman saying, ‘We’ll drink tonight till late. Its Faiz’s birthday after all!’ But the old man kept sitting there on stairs. ‘They asked to buy the ticket. I don’t have a thousand rupees’, said the poor working class admirer of the working class poet. He added, ‘I came from Faisalabad to celebrate the 100th birthday of our beloved poet.’ Rahmat was an oppressed power loom worker, who – like thousands of other people – could never afford to enter that high-class intellectual gathering dedicated to the proletarian poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz.
The centenary celebrations of the man who fought against class-system all his life was clearly divided into classes. The next day was supposed to be an ‘Awami Mela’ known as Faiz Peace Festival. This event is being organized every year by the Progressive Writers Movement with an affiliation of the left-wing organizations at the open air theater of the Lawrence garden. But unlike every year, this time the organizers (Faiz’s family) – who were the organizers of the elitist event mentioned above – decided to organize the Peace Festival as well. It was open to all so it was truly filled with thousands of people, the workers and activists, who are the real family of Faiz. PTV was given the exclusive rights to cover the event.