Dec 28
By Somrita Ganguly
I hear the historians discuss history
I hear the linguists discuss etymology
I hear politicians talk about patriotism and nationalism
And wonder where my allegiance lies
বাংলাদেশ/مشرقی پاکستان/ हिंदुस्तान
Bharat/ India/ Hindustan.
By Varsha Sundriyal
Wives tearing their hair out.
Not sindoor but blood on heads.
Clutching their tattered clothes running for their lives.
Hiding children on their breast shielding them from the bullets.
By Sourav Debnath
Never have I thought home as home
Until I was dragged out from mine own.
In that unconscious, uncertain turn,
I left my home to burn.
By Man Prasad Subba
With a flick of the remote control
I teleport myself
to an entertainment channel
And to another whisky
On ice
By Pooja Garg Singh
In this Café Dissensus issue on Faiz, we bring together essays on Faiz’s life and on his poetry of love and protest. The essays, stories, and poems in the second half of the issue are inspired by Faiz’s poetry.
By Ali Madeeh Hashmi
It has been more than three decades since Faiz’s death in Lahore. “Subh-e Aazadi” remains as relevant as ever, sixty eight years after Pakistan came into being. If anything, the sorrows and agonies of Faiz’s native land have intensified and perhaps this time it is Faiz, like Waris Shah, who is being asked to ‘speak from inside his grave’.
By Saba Ahmad
Once Faiz accepted a Sardarji’s offer to inaugurate his shop in London, when I asked him what the shop sold, he had no idea. He just said, “He asked me with so much love, I could not say no, it would break his heart.”
By Azam & Akbar Qadri
A conversation with Kanwaljit Singh.
By Zafar Anjum
I remember Faiz as a poet of love and a poet of protest. In him, I see a lover who is also a revolutionary, a big-nosed man with a hard Punjabi face and smiling eyes, surrounded by curls of cigarette smoke, worrying about the injustices of the world, injustices that come in the way of a lover – rubbish that must be cleared away from the path of love.
By Mosarrap H. Khan
As an admirer of Faiz and his vision of justice, I have been asking myself: What was Faiz’s particular position on the Pakistani Army repression in East Pakistan which began on 25 March, 1971? What was his view on the East Pakistani resistance that culminated in the death of millions (this number has been contested often and no consensus exists) and rapes of thousands of women?
By Vinita Agrawal
For Faiz, separation from one’s beloved is not something that stretches only between the two people involved. Instead it encompasses the entire universe, clings to the stars, ravages the skies, and gores the moon. Faiz has the ability to make metaphors for conditions; for example, hijr or distance is not merely the non-proximity between two lovers but the homelessness of being – the final wandering, the final journey.
By Bhupinder Singh
Faiz was with me as I travelled across countries. The pages of the book turned brown. It accumulated jottings of Urdu words that I did not know the meaning of. The original words became part of my vocabulary. Over the years, I am beginning to forget them again. Sometimes, their meanings come back to me. Sometimes, they don’t.
By Sunayana Kachroo
My love for Faiz’s poetry rekindled quite accidently in the year 2011, when a friend sent me some audio recordings of “Gulon Main Rang Bharo” a poetic tribute to Faiz Ahmad Faiz, brilliantly conceived and orchestrated by one of the best theater directors of India, Salim Arif. The premise of this show was set on the letters that Faiz wrote to his wife Alyss during his tormenting stay at the prison.
By Gorvika Rao
Faiz, in fact, would be giving a wry smile, if he had been asked to write how he felt about AAP and the ‘political revolution’ that it was supposed to bring about in the country. He would give a wry smile, maybe shake his head a bit, and tell you to just read a poem of his.
By Saon Bhattacharya
As the restrained wails of unwanted refugees rose up to mingle with the sooty chimney smoke from the factories and open air wood-fired ovens, he stepped out for the last time from the train compartment into the overcrowded platform below. There was much to be arranged for the family’s first funeral in that teeming metropolis.
By Rashida Murphy
We hear the bells outside. It’s Krishna’s birthday. The rich moneylenders have moved on to the street markets where business is brisk and Ganesh is more popular but the cows still come home the old way, pausing outside the house to bestow blessings.
