[Reader-list] Dear Faraz

[Kshmendra Kaul]

Ahmed Faraz died on 26th August 2008.
 
Though not amongst my most favourite of Urdu poets, Faraz without doubt was a brilliant poet. Before his death, many rated him as the greatest living Urdu poet.
 
"Dear Faraz" is from Kishwer Naheed who herself is highly thought of Urdu poetess.
 
Kshmendra
 
 
Dear Faraz 
 
Tuesday, 26 Aug, 2008 
 
Kishwar Naheed 
 

KARACHI: Way back in 1964, we met in Peshawar in the office of Yousuf Lodhi (the great political cartoonist Vaiell). That night we talked about politics, literature and made small jokes about contemporary writers. 

That was the start of our friendship; you and my husband Yousuf Kamran became even more friendly as both of you were very glamorous. I know the way girls used to write letters, as the phone was not a common communicating system back then.
Yousuf was presenting popular TV programmes like Sukhanwar and Dastan Go, and you were being introduced on TV as the Hero Poet. Once, in your presence, a famous lady singer sang your ghazal Yeh Alam Shouq ka Dekha na Jai. Viewers still remember you looking shy like an adolescent boy while the singer, her fingers studded with gold rings, was feeling proud of her achievement. Yes, it was a small spark which was put to ashes by her mother.
Faraz, you had been my colleague in national centres. I was posted in Lahore and you in Peshawar. Earlier you had been teaching in Peshawar’s Islamia College where your colleague was the poet Mohsin Ehsan. You both remained very close. Memories of you as green as ever live with me, not only with me but also with my children, with whom you used to play in the mornings in my courtyard in Krishan Nagar, Lahore.
You opted to get yourself transferred to Islamabad in 1974. Again some love spark; very intense and very absorbing but you were always a vagabond, not staying at one place with the same face. Despite being a majnoon, you were conscious that a writer has to be a person with status. 
On the one hand your popularity grew after the publication of Dard Ashob, your second collection of poetry, while on the other you decided to build your own house. One after the other, luck was providing you the facility of being a rich poet (no other poet had been lucky like you — as you yourself often claimed).

You were paid the highest royalty for over 30 years. You were the best seller in poetry and had been a most charming person at the age when people stay at home and resolve to play with grandchildren.
You never liked to be called ‘uncle’; you remain ‘Faraz Sahib’ for everyone. You roamed around the world, reciting your poetry and letting the people in the audience repeat the lines. An aged man enjoys your poetry in the same manner as a teenage girl or boy.
Once, on the occasion of International Women’s Day, you and I were the chief guests at an event. When you started reciting your poetry, the fiery Tahira Abdullah objected: ‘we want poetry on women’. You replied: ‘all my poetry is about women’. You had such a remarkable sense of humour that even the eminent humourist Mushtaq Yousafi was convinced of your fiqra bazi.
I can never forget 1977 for two reasons. One was that you recited the poem Peshawar Qatilo at a function in Islamabad. Around two o’clock in the morning, a few people in white clothes (I don’t know why they always come in white clothes) entered the house and threw you in an army jeep and drove off. After a few days we consulted with the lawyer Abid Hasan Minto and filed an appeal in the Lahore High Court, stating that Faraz has been missing for the last 15 days. Justice Zullah was in the chair; he ordered the army to produce Faraz after two days and asked me and Saif Sahib to bring with us the maximum number of writers on that particular day.
Nobody will believe, Faraz, that right from Qasmi Sahib, all the writers were in high court on the appointed day. When I finally saw you, escorted by soldiers, I screamed. You were so thin and your complexion pale. The judge (at that time judges could speak like that) asked you why you were locked up, and if you had seen an arrest warrant.

When you said no, the judge, in a very angry voice, announced that Faraz may be freed immediately. The decision was presented before the army chief General Ziaul Haq. It was June 27, 1977.
Do you remember, Faraz? The general had spoken to you, to convince you how important it was to support Bhutto Sahib? He was the same general who placed Pakistan under martial law on July 5, 1977.
Faraz, you told us that during your stay in Attock Fort you were kept in a dark and dingy basement, where the food was given to you in a thali by a hand whose face you could not see.
During that crisis I talked to Begum Bhutto, as we came to know that your arrest had been with the approval of Bhutto Sahib. She promised to talk to him, but the next day, when I rang her again, she too was angry. She told us that Bhutto had said that all of us were his supporters, so why had Faraz placed him in such a difficult situation.
Then all of us writers were perplexed: how would we make Bhutto agree to release you? Masood Ashaar and I went to see Madam Noor Jehan, as she was your admirer and also we knew that she was a close friend of the ‘Black Queen’ (whose relation with Bhutto was known to everyone). After a lot of discussion, Madam went to Karachi and convinced Black Queen to request Bhutto to order your release. The story of Ziaul Haq started thereafter.
Once you wrote a naat, wherein you complained to the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) about what is going on in the country. There were fundamentalists like Kausar Niazi in the Assembly where the issue of terminating your services was raised. Do you remember how Pir Ali Mohammed Rashdi came to your rescue by presenting quotations from Hafiz and Rumi.
In 1978, you recited your famous poem Muhasra in Karachi. In the middle of the night you were made to get up, leave Karachi and Sindh immediately and were brought to Islamabad. Thereafter you felt so dejected that you left the country and stayed with your brother in London for six years.
Eventually you returned from England and Fehmida Riaz came back from India. We celebrated your home coming by organising a function in Lahore. We were together again, but the distribution of jobs created new dimensions in relationships. You were appointed the chairman of the Academy of Letters and Fehmida was made managing director of the National Book Foundation.
 
Faraz, you remember you were earlier made the chairman of the same academy by its founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto? The urge for employment remained in you till Pervez Musharraf got angry because you spoke against the army. You and your luggage were thrown out of the official residence. Despite protest by the press and writers, nothing happened.
Remember when we went together in the processions for the restoration of judges this past year? Many junior but non-committed writers, following your instructions, joined the processions.
You had the tendency to create controversies about either yourself, or about different issues. You once spoke against marriage and said it was also a sort of prostitution through a contract on paper. O God! How many newspapers and fundamentalists spoke against you.
Another controversy you aroused concerned the Urdu language. You said that Urdu was a dying language, which caused the MQM and many writers to become angry with you. You spoke against the army and then changed your wording, saying you were against the ruling junta, not the sipahi.
You are a very popular figure internationally. You hardly refuse an invitation for mushaira, but only agree to participate on your own terms. Faraz, you made writers conscious about getting royalty from publishers and even made the police catch illegal publishers. You are very fond of litigation; you used to get free legal advice and through it you lodged cases against many editors who ever published a smallest remark against you.
You were like Faiz Sahib: liked by the bureaucrats who always desired your company. But you were annoyed by how they behaved during daytime. Despite being the chief guest, you used to make sarcastic remarks while the poor host had no choice but to be quiet.
Faraz, you have been the darling of all the singers, so much so that ghazals by others but accredited to you were gaining popularity. In all the colleges, girls who had never read poetry were reciting couplets composed by you and each one of them wanted your autograph.
You are very conscious of your age, you never like any girl calling you uncle, but you never objected when my sons did so. And I have been a darling aunty to your three sons. I have not seen any son as fond of his father as your sons are of you.
Who is not fond of you and who will not remember you every evening with a glass in hand? Cheers my friend, you have played your inning with grace and glamour. You are our darling.

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