The title of this new selection of poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, The Colours of my Heart , brings to mind a line from Ghalib’s ghazal, ‘Dil ka kya rang karoon khoon e jigar hone tak’ (‘In what colours shall I dip my heart until my being turns blood’). The book could not have had a more brilliant title, especially in these days of turmoil.
The new generation regards Faiz as a spokesperson for global unrest; his influence is no longer confined to South Asia. All over the world, campuses resound with Faiz’s poetry: he touches the innermost recesses of students’ hearts. The translator, Baran Farooqi, has chosen
the poems which have universal relevance.
Farooqi contextualises the poems in the introduction. She takes the reader through Faiz’s life, into which bits of poetry are interwoven. From his first small collection, Naqsh e Faryadi (Supplicant’s Portrait), she moves to Dast e Saba (Touch of Breeze), Zindan Nama (Prison Chronicle), Dast e Teh e Sang , Sar e Vadi e Seena , Shaam e Shahryaaraan , Mere Dil Mere Musafir and Ghubar e Ayyam .
A brief sketch of the poet’s life emerges from these poems: his early awakening, study of Marx, involvement in the Progressive Writer’s Movement and friendship with fellow Marxists like Sajjad Zaheer, Rashid Jahan, Sibte Hasan, Ali Sardar Jafri, Kaifi Azmi and others.
Half dark roads
A reference is made to what is probably Faiz’s best-known poem, ‘Subh e Azadi’: ‘Ye daagh daagh ujala ye shab guzeeda sahr’ (This light smeared and spotted, this night-bitten dawn’). According to Farooqi, it reflects Faiz’s sorrow at the carnage of Partition and disappointment in the freedom won without a people’s revolution. All of Faiz’s translators—from Victor Kiernan, Shiv K. Kumar, Naomi Lazard, Agha Shahid Ali, Ralph Russell to Ludmila Vasilyeva—have interpreted this poem differently. But they have all been enthralled by it.
Another poem which speaks for our times, which Farooqi quotes in her introduction, is the one he wrote after reading the letters of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. A quote from the progressive writer Sajjad Zaheer explains its context. “Many poems in Zindan Nama were written by him in response to political events taking place in the wider world. Hence several international incidents or concerns—Iran, Israel, Africa, the arms race between the nations—figure in the poems again and again.”
How little has changed in the world, I thought, when I read this wonderful translation of the lines from ‘Hum jo tareek rahon mein maare gaye’: ‘Because we loved the flowers of your lips we/ Sacrificed ourselves on the dry stalk of the gibbet/ Pining for tapers of your hands we/ Were put to death on half dark roads.’
Magical effect
The discussion of Faiz’s use of the form of ghazal is unique. Farooqi says the “hinterland of meanings” he uncovers, “gives force and resonance to trite words like ‘shama’ (candle) ‘parwaana’ (firefly), ‘dar’ (scaffold), ‘maqtal’ (execution ground).” This is an effect that had been recognised by someone like Samuel Taylor Coleridge much before the advent of the Modernists.
The meaning of a word consists not only of its dictionary definition but also of the associations it conjures up. Faiz uses this concept to present the idea of the revolution enveloped in the alluring mist of sacrifice, leading to social change, if not to emancipation.
‘Kaifiyat’, a poetic expression loosely described as mood, becomes in Faiz the use of imagery to convey the power of poetry. According to Farooqi, a poem like ‘A morning in the prison house’ has lines which have a magical effect but have little role to play in establishing the character of the poem. ‘Whirlpools of silver began to dance everywhere/ And star lamps falling from the hands of the moon/ Drowning floating wilting and blooming/ Night and morning clung in a long embrace.’
There is a transliteration of the poems at the end. While this is useful, many readers like me, who have memorised the lines through musical and other renditions, would have liked to see them placed alongside the translations. This is a good way to learn the language. Volume II of Faiz’s poems could also try using the original Urdu script; Faiz would have liked it.
The author, former member of the Planning Commission, is a feminist and founder member of Muslim Women’s Forum.
