Adil Najam
For at least one more day I want to stick to the unraveling of Pakistan politics that is happening before us.
I have much to say about it. But people have been saying these things already in response to our last many posts on this issue. What can I add. What can I say that will not already be stale by the time you read it. We expect the ongoing conversations (here and here) to continue, but let me find solace in the one place where I always find it. In poetry. Especially in Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poetry.
Here is Faiz - in his own words, in his own voice. The second half has the same poem masterfully sung by Nayarra Noor. Enjoy this rare find of kalam i Faiz, ba zaban i Faiz. But more than that, think about what he is saying and how it relates to what is happening today.
Since nearly all members of ATP’s core-team are currently traveling we had a bunch of general posts ready for these next few days while we were stuck on long flights. However, it seems somehow inappropriate to use those posts today. We may well begin doing so tomorrow - not just because we will be on unable to post anything fresh from flights but also because we remain committed to celebrating all the diverse trials and tribulations of being Pakistan … the mundane as well as the profound; the sad as well as the gleeful; the immediate as well as the long-term.
something that has new relevance today
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyGQHJIoLN0
Bol kay lab azad hain teray….
words that kept journalism alive in 1976-77 during the Emergency in India.
May these words keep inspiring Pakistani media in these turbulent times.
Inteesab
Karachi is not different than what Faiz mentioned in this poem.
[quote comment=”47284″]Adil Najam,
She said, “Is this what millions died for? Is this what we left our homes for? We were better off in India.�
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Your mother may want to talk with a few Gujratis beforehand.
amazing! frankly speaking I understood today the background of this poem.
Is it not painful to see that Faraz,another Jiayala poet now appears in an AD C rather writing anything?
I had never heard Faiz so to see him reciting this was great
It’s saddened me to read and hear what’s been happening in Karachi.I also find refuge in poetry when my heart is filled with different emotions___ grief, anger, frustration, despair and so on.Here are two couplets of Obaidullah aleem .just see how relevant they are today although, he wrote these during the army operation in then East Pakistan. Maen kis kay naam lekhoen jo alum goozar rahey haen. Meray sheher jal rahey haen meray loag mer rahey haen. Koi aur to nahi hae pusey khanjer aazmai. Hum he qatul ker rahey haen hum he qatul ho rahey haen.
Ah love could thou and I with fate conspire
to grasp the sorry scheme of things entire
would not we shatter it to bits and then
remould it nearer to our hearts desire
Umar Khyam