#Faiz Ahmed Faiz

[mehreenkhan]

mohabbat mein nahin hai farq jeene aur marne ka usi ko dekh kar jite hain jis kafir pe dam nikle

[aridante]

feel and listen, faiz ahmed faiz (trans. sain sucha) // salomé, oscar wilde (trans. alfred douglas).

[thatanonymousgirl]

[komal01]

Har raat meri aankhein inhi sochon mein ghum ho jaati hain;

Ke mera maqsad-e-hayaat kya tha,

Aur mujhe thaka kin kaamon ne diya!

[apoemaday]

Let Me Think

by Faiz Ahmed Faiz tr. Agha Shahid Ali

Let me think just for a while… In that withered garden, more bare than even a desert now, which branch first burst into blossom? And which was the first to lose its colors before everything succumbed to regret? At what exact moment were the trees drained of blood so when the veins snapped, nothing could be saved? Oh, let me think…  

Yes, let me think for a while… Where in that once-teeming city, forsaken even by loneliness now, was that fire first lit that burned it down to ruins? From which of its blacked-out rows of windows flew the first arrows, tipped with blood? In which home was the first candle lit? Let me think…  

You ask me about that country whose details now escape me. I don’t remember its geography, nothing of its history. And should I visit it in memory, it would be as I would a past lover, after years, for a night, no longer restless with passion, with no fear of regret. I have reached that age when one visits the heart merely as a courtesy, the way one keeps in touch with any old neighbor. So don’t question me about the heart. Just let me think.

[rekhtaa]

“Mere paas khaamoshi ke siwa koi hal nhi hai, . Main baat karta hun toh baat bigad jaati hai.”

Credits : open

February 11, 2024

Sunday, 9:00 PM

Bangalore, India

[metamorphesque]

Memory, Faiz Ahmad Faiz (tr. Sain Sucha)

[metamatar]

In the West, poetry is written primarily for the afficionado, often other poets. In recent years, I can think of very few poets whose work is on everyone's lips. Perhaps Maya Angelou comes close, maybe Dr. Seuss.

But in Indian culture the situation is different. Tagore's poems - not only his songs, but the words themselves - are known to even the illiterate. Poetry is mass culture.

So it was with Faiz, and before him, Iqbal. Lazard writes:

When he read at a musha'ira, in which poets contended in recitations, fifty thousand people and more gathered to listen, and to participate. People who barely have an education know Faiz's poetry not only because of the songs using his lyrics but also the poems themselves, without musical accompaniment.

But poetry, in these cultures, as in Palestine, has a wide reach, and becomes an instrument of power. Faiz, Iqbal, and Darwish knew it. Like Tagore, they were not merely poets - they sought to transform society.

In an earlier version of the present introduction, written immediately after Faiz's death, Lazard was more personal, more elegiac:

Once when we were saying good-bye after our time in Honolulu I asked for his address. He told me I really didn't need it. A letter would reach him if I simply sent it to Faiz, Pakistan.

The reason - he had helped found the postal workers union. They were his people. They knew where to find him anytime.

So this is where Faiz came from when we met in Honolulu in the winter of 1979.

(Annual of Urdu Studies, v. 5, 1985 p. 103-110)

text from review by Amit Mukherjee of The true subject: selected poems of Faiz Ahmed Faiz translated by Naomi Lazard

[oldwinesoul]

Today once again on the thread of my sorrows,

I have strung the flowers of your memory.

// Faiz Ahmed Faiz

[postcardswithoutanaddress]

" give me a house with tall windows and white chiffon curtains, a warm kitchen hearth and the home of your even warmer arms. a little garden where we plant flowers and fruits together, laughing on lazy sunny days and read together with your head resting in my lap. "

"'مجھے لمبے کھڑکیوں اور سفید شفان کے پردوں کے ساتھ ایک گھر، ایک گرم باورچی خانے کی چولہا اور آپ کے اس سے بھی زیادہ گرم بازوؤں کا گھر دیں۔ ایک چھوٹا سا باغ جہاں ہم پھول اور پھل اکٹھے لگاتے ہیں، سست دھوپ کے دنوں میں ہنستے ہیں اور کتابیں پڑھتے ہیں جبکی آپکا سر میرے گود میں ہو "

[sivavakkiyar]

translated by Agha Shahid Ali. happy birthday, Faiz.

[mehreenkhan]

tanhai mein kya kya na tujhe yaad kiya hai

kya kya na dil-e-zar ne dhundhi hain panahen

In how many ways did I remember you, in solitude

How many refuges did the weakened heart seek

Faiz, Do Ishq

[khankidairy]

Dil na umeed to nahi na-kaam hi to hai, lambi hai gham ki sham mgr sham hi to hai

--faiz ahmed faiz

[thatanonymousgirl]

Aye gardish e aayam mujhe ranj bohot hai

Kuch khwab the aise jo bikharne ke nahi the..

[komal01]

Sab kuch seekh liya;

Par zindagi guzarna na seekha gaya

- Jaun Elia

[maihonhassan]

In urdu we don't say;

"I am hopeless but still waiting for you."

But we say;

"Nahin nigah mein manzil to justuju hi sahi, nahin visal mayassar to aarzu hi sahi."

— Faiz Ahmad Faiz