KARACHI CHRONICLE: Faiz hype

April 13 was poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz's hundredth birthday. The day launched a series of celebratory programmes which will continue through the year in all parts of Pakistan and many cities in the world. The programme includes literary, musical, and political themes. The enjoyment of these events is already beginning to bore the audience though only two weeks of the centenary year have past.
Singing Faiz, reading his poetry, talks, highly cultured and scholarly conversations between people who sat at the poet's feet or shared his incarceration or had an anecdote to tell, book launches, erudite articles and the opening of Faiz House, a museum of Faiz memorabilia, were some of the highlights of the fortnight.
The overall tone of the events and programmes was self-congratulatory. If Faiz so much as crashed his car through their house gate, the people wanted the world to know and record it for posterity. Future biographies are bound to include every bit of such trivia, and the real man will be lost in the quagmire of small talk.
The purpose seems to be to create a legendary persona based on impressions of Faiz recounted by all and sundry. This outward personality image has lost the inner man already, and Faiz is beginning to look like a glossy, colourful, cardboard cut-out. Some may say this criticism is unfair; That enthusiasm has been misread to be self promotion standing on the shoulders of the great poet. No doubt the reminiscences are sincerely enthusiastic and, had I any personal contact with Faiz, even if he had only sneezed in my presence, I would be jostling the adoring crowd to get my share of the reflected glory. So they say.
But what have we learnt that we did not know already, except these minor details? The popularity of his poetry has not faded an iota from the moment Faiz became a public favourite. This happened when Mehdi Hasan sang "Gulon mein rung bhare" (The spring breeze breaths colour in the rose) followed in quick succession by Madam Noor Jehan's rendition of "Mujh se pehli si mohabbat" (As I loved you once) in the film Qaidi. The poet, already be loved in literary circles, became overnight a public hero. In the mass of centenary hype there is no place for the public. No mention of their reason for loving Faiz's poetry, no focus on the common man for whom his heart beat with love, sympathy and empathy.
In an interview Mehdi Hasan mentioned why the public fell in love with his rendering of "Gulon mein rung bhare", which not only made Faize a public hero but launched Mehdi Hasan as the greatest exponent of ghazal singing. (The term ghazal gaiki or singing is applied to the genre of singing all styles of classical verse in light classical tunes). This interview was broadcast by Radio Pakistan, Karachi, sometime in the 1970s, when every great singer cashed in on the popularity of the poet and Mehdi Hasan's fame was at the peak.
Mehdi Hasan said, the phenomenal popularity was due primarily to the musical composition which was perfectly in tune with "Gulon mein rung bhare". He used the phrase "suchche sur". He did not take any credit for singing nor gave any credit to the meaning of the verses per se. He said people who did not even know what it was all about would ask him to sing, pronouncing "bade nau-bahar" (spring breeze) as "badal-o-bahar" (spring clouds).
This is not unlike the revival of public interest in the works of Ghalib following Indian film-maker Sohrab Modi's film 'Mirza Ghalib' and the wonderful musical compositions of the ghazals in the voice of Muhammad Rafi and Suraiyya. People whose mother tongue was not Urdu also went wild for Ghalib. People who knew Urdu but did not have knowledge of literary Urdu also began to read Ghalib. In Mumbai copies of his diwan was sold out in a matter of days after the release of Modi's film.
In the Faiz centenary celebration public interest has been ignored. No scholar has probed the reason why great verse appeals to people ignorant of the subtile and profound meanings.
The scholar may focus on the literary merits of prosody and composition. The public appeal of Faiz is based on subject the matter. Among his contemporaries there are so many great poets, yet it is only Faiz who became a national hero, and who rightly deserves to be called THE national poet. His themes are largely drawn from the vicissitudes in the life of Pakistani citizens. Even what he wrote to record the pain and suffering of masses in other parts of the world, the Pakistani public read into it their own pain.
Faiz wrote for the people, he did not write for scholarly applause. It is why his verse speaks to the human heart rather than the intellect. There is nothing as profound as Ghalib's metaphysical depth nor the intellectual depth of Iqbal nor the fire of Josh. His verse aims straight for the heart, first, foremost and always.
One must especially note and compare the styles of the two poets of our time who are dubbed revolutionary poets: Faiz and Josh. Josh lights the flame of protest, Faiz soothes and appeals for patients. Josh is disillusioned and so is Faiz but their approach is diametrically opposite.
One outstanding quality in Faiz's verse is his faith in God and human goodness. His detractors, especially in the era of Ziaul Haq's Islamization, attempted to put the label of atheism on Faiz by harping on his preference for Marxist politics. I believe there was even a fatwa declaring him a kafir.
As long as there is tyranny and oppression, be it fanatic, financial or political, in the world and in this country, Faiz's verse will endure in their appeal for the common man. Poetry, they say, is the medium of social change whether in the form of revolution or renaissance. This may have been the power of verse days gone by, unfortunately, not the greatest contemporary verse has that potential now.
Why is this? The reason could be the refusal of those who matter remaining unmotivated. While scholars wax eloquent about the themes of tyranny and oppression outlined in the verse, and feel pain as deeply as the poet intended them to feel, they do not have any interest in the people, the victims of tyranny and oppression.