Posts filed under ‘Urdu’
Shaam
Faiz Ahmed Faiz
is tarah hai ke har ek peR ko’ii mandir hai
ko’ii ujRaa huaa, benuur puraanaa mandir
DhuunDtaa hai jo Kharaabii ke bahaane kab se
chaak har baam, har ek dar kaa dam-e-aaKhir hai
aasmaaN ko’ii purohit hai jo har baam tale
jism par raaKh male, maathe pe sinduur male
sar-niguuN baithaa hai chup-chaap na jaane kab se
is tarah hai ke pas-e-pardaa ko’ii saahir hai
jis ne aafaaq pe phailaayaa hai yuN seh’r ka daam
daaman-e-vaqt se paivast hai yuN daamna-e-shaam
ab kabhii shaam bujhegii na andheraa hogaa
ab kabhii raat Dhalegii na saveraa hogaa
aasmaaN aas liye hai ke ye jaaduu TuuTe
chup ki zanjiir kaTe, vaqt kaa daaman chhuTe
de ko’ii shanKh duhayii, ko’ii paayal bole
ko’ii but jaage, ko’ii saaNvlii ghuuNGhat khole
Translation by Agha Shahid Ali
Evening
The trees are dark ruins of temples,
seeking excuses to tremble
since who knows when–
their roofs are cracked,
their doors lost to ancient winds.
And the sky is a priest,
saffron marks on his forehead,
ashes smeared on his body.
He sits by the temples, worn to a shadow, not looking up.
Some terrible magician, hidden behind curtains,
has hypnotized Time
so this evening is a net
in which the twilight is caught.
Now darkness will never come–
and there will never be morning.
The sky waits for this spell to be broken,
for history to tear itself from this net,
for Silence to break its chains
so that a symphony of conch shells
may wake up to the statues
and a beautiful, dark goddess,
her anklets echoing, may unveil herself.
(from The Rebel’s Silhouette)
[blackmamba]
Tanhaa’i
Faiz Ahmed Faiz
phir ko’ii aayaa, dil-e-zaar! nahiin, ko’ii nahiin;
raah-rau hogaa, kahiin aur chalaa jaaegaa.
dhal chukii raat, bikharne lagaa taaron kaa ghubaar,
larkharaane lage aiwaanon mein khwaabiida charaagh,
so ga’ii raasta tak takke har ek rah guzaar;
ajnabi khaak ne dhundlaa diye qadmon ke suraagh.
gul karo shamiin, barhaa do mai-o-miinaa-o-ayaagh,
apne be khwaab kivaaron ko muqaffal kar lo;
ab yahaan ko’ii nahiin, ko’ii nahiin aayega!
Solitude
Someone, finally, is here! No, unhappy heart, no one –
just a passerby on his way.
The night has surrendered
to clouds of scattered stars.
The lamps in the hall waver.
Having listened with longing for steps,
the roads too are fast asleep.
A strange dust has buried every footprint.
Blow out the lamps, break the glasses, erase
all memory of wine. Heart,
bolt forever your sleepless doors,
tell every dream that knocks to go away.
No one, now no one will ever return.
Tr. by Agha Shahid Ali
More Faiz.
[blackmamba]
Paas Raho
Faiz Ahmed Faiz
tum mere paas raho
mere qaatil, mere dildaar, mere paas raho
jis gha.Dii raat chale
aasamaano.n kaa lahuu pii kar siyah raat chale
marham-e-mushk liye nashtar-e-almaas chale
bain karatii hu_ii, ha.Nsatii hu_ii, gaatii nikale
dard kii kaasanii paazeb bajaatii nikale
jis gha.Dii siino.n me.n Duubate huye dil
aastiino.nme.n nihaa.N haatho.n kii rah takane nikale
aas liye
aur bachcho.n ke bilakhane kii tarah qul-qul-e-may
bahr-e-naasudagii machale to manaaye na mane
jab ko_ii baat banaaye na bane
jab na ko_ii baat chale
jis gha.Dii raat chale
jis gha.Dii maatamii, sun-saan, siyah raat chale
paas raho
mere qaatil, mere dildaar, mere paas raho
Be Near Me
You who demolish me, you whom I love,
be near me. Remain near me when evening,
drunk on the blood of skies,
becomes night, in the other
a sword sheathed in the diamond of stars.
Be near me when night laments or sings,
or when it begins to dance,
its stell-blue anklets ringing with grief.
Be here when longings, long submerged
in the heart’s waters, resurface
and everyone begins to look:
Where is the assasin? In whose sleeve
is hidden the redeeming knife?
And when wine, as it is poured, is the sobbing
of children whom nothing will console–
when nothing holds,
when nothing is:
at that dark hour when night mourns,
be near me, my destroyer, my lover me,
be near me.
Agha Shahid Ali’s translation. From The Rebel’s Silhouette
[blackmamba]
Aah ko chahiye
Mirza Ghalib
Listen (to Begum Akhtar sing) [1]
aah ko chaahiye ik umr asar hone tak
kaun jiitaa hai tirii zulf ke sar hone tak
daam-e har mauj mein hai halqah-e sad kaam-e nihang
dekhein kyaa guzre hai qatre pah guhar hone tak
aashiqii sabr-talab aur tamannaa betaab
dil kaa kyaa rang karuun khun-e jigar hone tak
ham ne maanaa kih tagaaful na karoge lekin
khaak ho jaaeinge ham tum ko khabar hone tak
partav-e khur se hai shabnam ko fanaa ki taaliim
main bhii huun ek inaayat kii nazar hone tak
yak nazar besh nahiin fursat-e hastii gaafil
garmii-e bazm hai ik raqs-e sharar hone tak
gam-e hastii kaa asad kis se ho juz marg ilaaj
shamma har rang mein jaltii hai sahar hone tak
Translation (by Sarvat Rahman):
The sighs of love a life-time need, their object to attain,
Who lives long enough for your dark mysteries to attain?
In the net of each ocean-wave open a hundred dragon mouths,
To be a pearl, a water-drop what ordeals must sustain!
True love calls for patience, desire’s of impatience made,
Till suffering consumes me quite, how should my heart remain?
You will not be indifferent, I know, but nevertheless,
Dead and in the dust I’ll be when news of me you obtain.
The morning sun’s ardent rays spell death to each dew-drop,
I, too, exist only until, to glance at me you deign.
A single glance, no more, is the space of life, unaware!
For no longer than the spark’s dance does the gathering’s warmth remain.
The suffering that is life, ASAD, knows no cure but death,
All through the night must the candle burn, no matter what its pain.
Translation (mine) :
It takes a lifetime for a sigh to take effect
Who lives to see your hair perfectly arranged?
A hundred mouths whisper the net of every wave
Look what the speck endures till it becomes a pearl.
Love demands patience, desire is restless
What color shall I paint the heart, until you savage it?
You shan’t ignore me when the time comes, I know, but
I may turn to dust before the news reaches you.
Each drop of dew learns death from the rays of the sun
I too await release at a glance from you.
One glance, no more, fills the span of my life
The dance of a single spark that keeps the company warm.
Life is suffering, Asad, and has no cure but death
The flame burns in every color until the dawn.
The problem with posting Ghalib is a problem of translation. So compressed is Ghalib’s imagery, so rich in sound and nuance his language, that it is almost impossible to render his ghazals in English without mauling them beyond recognition. I admire Sarvat Rahman’s courage in taking on the entire Diwan-e-Ghalib – translating all 234 ghazals while retaining their form – but I have to say that the results, as with the translation above, make me cringe. I’ve tried to provide my own rendition, but even that doesn’t come close to the original. How does one begin to translate a line as brilliant as “dil ka kya rang karoon, khoon-e-jigar hone tak”? How does one convey the richness of its color (the word incarnadined springs to mind), the quality of the sentiment, the sense of quasi-paradox – all without losing the shortness, the simplicity of Ghalib’s original?
Trying to translate Ghalib, I am always reminded of these lines from Byron:
“To such as see thee not my words were weak;
To those who gaze on thee what language could they speak?”
Still, here it is. For those of you who speak Urdu, this ghazal should require no introduction, and its gloriousness should sing from every line. For those who don’t know the language, hopefully there’s enough in these butchered translations of ours to convey the exquisite intelligence that moves through this poem, the sheer lyricism of a master whose every couplet stands as a poem in its own right, and whose words, a century and a half after they were written, continue to be quoted by millions.
[falstaff]
[1] Begum Akhtar only sings couplets 1,3,4 and 7. Another, perhaps more familiar version of the same couplets as sung by Jasjit Singh can be found (also on YouTube) here.
Rang pairahan ka, khushboo zulf lehrane kaa naam
Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Rang pairahan ka, khushboo zulf lehrane kaa naam
Mousam-e-gul hai tumhare baam par aane ka naam
Doston us chasm-o-lab ki kuch kaho, jiske bagair
Gulistaan ki baat rangeen hai, na mehkhane ka naam
Phir nazar mein phool mehke, dil mein phir shamayen jali
Phir tasavvur ne liya us bazm mein jane ka naam
Dilbari thehra zabaan-e-khalk khulwane ka naam
Ab nahin lete pari-roo zulf bikhrane ka naam
Ab kisi laila ko bhi ikraar-e-mehboobi nahin
In dinon badnaam hai har ek deewane ka naam
Muhatsib ki khair, uncha hai usi ke faiz se
Rind ka, saaki ka,may ka, khum ka, paimane ka naam.
Hum se kehte hain chaman vale, gareebane chaman
Tum koi accha sa rakh lo apne veerane ka naam
Faiz unko hai takazaa-e-vafa humse jinhe
Aashna ke naam se pyaara hai begaane ka naam.
English Translation (mine):
Colour is a dress, fragrance is a name for your flowing tresses.
Your appearance at the window gives the Spring its name.
Say something about this sight, my friends, without which
neither the garden would have colour, nor the tavern have a name.
Again the eye fills with the scent of flowers, again the heart is lit with a leaping flame;
Imagination exults, and hesitating no longer, rejoins this happy company again.
Romance is a trick to set the tongues of the world wagging,
now even those with angel faces must keep their tresses tamed.
No beloved will now declare her desire openly
for where is the lover who is not defamed?
Praise to the naysayers! for by their grace
the drunkard, bartender, wine, cask and shotglass have their fame.
Those with the gardens say to us, “You, out there,
why don’t you give your wilderness a pretty name?”
Faiz, they demand faith from us now, who
would rather be outsiders than bear a lover’s name.
Not Faiz’s greatest ghazal, perhaps, but one I’m fond of, if only for those two glorious couplets at the end. I’ve tried to emulate the pattern of end rhymes (though without a refrain), though obviously this has meant taking some luxuries with the text.
[falstaff]
Kuch kahti hai har raah har ek raahguzar se
Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Phir lauta hai khurshid-e-jahaantaab safar se
Phir noor-e-sahar dast-o-garebaan hai sahar se.
Phir aag bharakne lagi har saaz-e-tarab mein
Phir sholay lapakne lage har deeda-e-tar se.
Phir niklaa deewana koi phoonk ke ghar ko
Kuch kahti hai har raah har ek raahguzar se.
Vo rang hai imsaal gulistaan ki fazaa ka
Ojhal hui deewar-e-kaphas hadd-e-nazar se
Saagar to khanakte hain sharaab aaye na aaye
Baadal to garajte hain ghata barse na barse.
Paaposh ki kya fikr hai, dastaar samhaalo
Paayab hai jo mouj guzar jayegi sar se.
English Translation (mine):
Again the sun returns, bathing the world in its journey,
Again the morning light goes hand in glove with the sky.
Again the fire roars in every merry song,
Again the flames leap from every weeping eye.
Again a madman leaves, having set fire to his house
And every path says something to every passer by.
That colour is implicated in the garden’s very air,
Obscured the prison walls from the limits of the eye.
The glasses will rattle, whether the liquor flows or not
The clouds will thunder, whether it rains or stays dry.
Don’t worry about shoes now, better look to your turban
This wave that laps at your feet will soon be head high.
It’s been a while since we ran any Faiz so I figured it was time. This isn’t really one of Faiz’s finest ghazals, but it’s one that I personally am rather fond of. It starts off slowly – the first two couplets are nice but hardly spectacular, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, you get ‘phir nikla hai deewana phoonk ke ghar ko’. It’s a stunning line, its explosive impact doubled by the fact that Faiz lulls you into a sense of predictability with his repetition of the ‘phir’ (again) starting, and by the casual way Faiz tosses the image in, as though a madman setting fire to his house were a daily occurence (which, in Faiz’s imagery it is, of course). It’s as though Faiz had tossed a grenade into the poem and then timidly shut the door.
From there on the poem just gets better and better. The fourth couplet is glorious and the fifth ends with one of the cleverest rhymes I’ve ever seen done in a ghazal (and which no translation can ever hope to duplicate), the ‘ar se’ sound flowing so naturally in at the end that I always find myself forced to do a double take just to make sure that he did actually have a rhyme there. This ghazal is so much fun, that by the time you get to that swinging last couplet you can almost feel the exhilaration of it sweeping over you, just like the wave that Faiz ends by warning you about.
[falstaff]
P.S. A note on the translation – I’ve taken a few more liberties with the text than I usually like to do, mostly because I wanted to write the translation as a ghazal (the first line doesn’t really rhyme with the second, but it’s close enough). Frankly, no translation was going to do justice to this poem anyway.
Nazm Uljhi Hui Hai Seene Mein
Gulzar
nazm uljhi hui hai seene mein
misare atke hue hain hothon par
udate phirte hain titaliyon ki tarah
lafz kaagaz pe baithate hi nahin
kab se baithaa hun main jaanam
saade kaagaz pe likh ke naam tera
bas tera naam hi mukammal hai
is se behtar bhi nazm kyaa hogi
We haven’t run any urdu poems in a while, so here is a wonderful nazm by Gulzar. And a new guest contributor, Vivek, who does a great reading of the same.
Vivek writes, So simple and yet so beautiful….Such a fabulous way of expressing what simply boils down to ” My love, to me your name is the most beautiful and the very best verse that I can possibly write. And so whenever i sit down to write something I cant go beyond putting down your name on a blank sheet.” I absolutely love this one and so I chose this nazm.
Gulzar is among the most popular lyricists in Bollywood and an acclaimed and sensitive film-maker.
And translation (Thx Falstaff)
A poem is trapped inside me.
Metaphors catch at my lips,
words hover like butterflies
never settling on paper.
I have sat for hours writing
your name on a blank page.
Only your name is beautiful.
What other poem is there?
[blackmamba]
Khuubsurat moR
Sahir Ludhianvi
chalo ek baar phir se ajnabii ban jaayeN ham donoN
na maiN tum se ko’ii ummiid rakhuuN dil navaazii kii
na tum merii taraf dekho Ghalat andaaz nazroN se
na mere dil kii dhaRkan laRkhaRaaye merii baatoN meN
na zaahir ho tumhaarii kash-ma-kash kaa raaz nazroN se
chalo ek baar phir se ajnabii ban jaayeN ham donoN
tumheN bhii ko’ii uljhan roktii hai pesh-kadmii se
mujhe bhii log kahte haiN ke ye jalve paraaye haiN
mere ham-raah bhii rusavaaiyaaN haiN mere maazii kii
tumhaare saath bhii guzrii hu’ii raatoN ke saaye haiN
ta’arruf rog ho jaaye to us ko bhuulnaa behtar
ta’alluq bojh ban jaaye to us ko toRnaa achchaa
vo afsaanaa jise ajnaam tak laanaa na ho mumkin
use ek Khuubsuurat moR dekar chhoRnaa achchaa
chalo ek baar phir se ajnabii ban jaayeN ham donoN
And a translation by Falstaff,
Come, let us be strangers again, you and I.
I shall no longer hope for any favours from you
Nor shall you look upon me with eyes askance.
And my words shall tremble no more with my heartbeat
Nor the secret of your struggle be betrayed in a glance.
Come, let us be strangers again, you and I.
You too have hesitated to give yourself completely
I too wear disguises, or so I am told
The disgraces of my past are my constant companions
And you too are possessed by the nights of old.
When involvement becomes illness it is best forgotten
When a relationship oppresses it is best to break it
When the adventure you are embarked on cannot be completed
One must find a beautiful way out, and take it.
Come, let us be strangers again, you and I.
Some years back, I had someone explain to me – the art of making a good presentation. Tell the audience what you are going to talk about. State your theory (- let us become strangers again) – and what that would mean. Then, explain the setting(, the memories and emotions you both carry with you). Finally explain your solution (- let us become strangers again). And all that in just 3 slides :)
What a simple solution to so many troubles life throws at you! Take a beautiful way out :) As they say, the simplest and the most elegant solutions are the ones that are hardest to arrive at.
Lovely poem, lovely theme.
And on Aligarians, a reading of this nazm by Sahir himself.
[blackmamba]
Meherban hoke bulalo mujhe
Ghalib
Meherbaan hoke bulalo mujhe chaho jis vaqt
Main gaya vaqt nahin hoon ki phir aa bhi na sakoon.
Zauf mein taanah-e agyaar ka shikvah kya hai
Baat koi sar to nahin hai ki utha bhi na sakoon.
Zahar mujhko milta hi nahin sitamgar varna
Kya kasam hai tere milne ki ki kha bhi na sakoon.
Empson writes: "Thus a word may have several distinct meanings; several meanings connected with one another; several meanings which need one another to complete their meaning; or several meanings which unite together so that the word means one relation or one process." (William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity). He might as well be talking about Ghalib.
This is a poem so full of multiple meanings and subtle resonances that I won't even try to translate it. Even if I could convey the overall sense of the poem (and that in itself is difficult, because words do not have the same multiple meanings in one language as they do in another), I couldn't even begin to capture the sound of Ghalib's verses – the fact that all that verbal brilliance comes packaged in lines that have the authentic simplicity of the speaking voice.
Charles Simic, in his review of Gluck's Averno in the current issue of the New York Review of Books [1], quotes some forgotten source as saying that to read a poem you need to know at least two languages: the language the poet is writing in and the language of poetry itself. The trouble with Ghalib is that he's not just writing in a different language, even the language of his poetry is a different dialect. You either speak it, or you don't.
At any rate, this is one of my favourite Ghalib pieces – not least because it's short enough and simple enough for even someone with my limited Urdu to get it. But it's that compression, and that simplicity, that make this poem miraculous as well. One of the incredible things about Ghalib is that each couplet of his can stand as a poem by itself, and these three couplets are a wonderful illustration of that.
You can find the rest of Ghalib's poems here.
[falstaff]
[1] A review notable chiefly for the fact that it spends at least as much time quoting Gluck's poems as it does talking about them. Simic says almost nothing about the book he's supposedly reviewing, and very little of value about Gluck more generally, but at least he has the decency to let her poems talk for themselves.
Intisaab
Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Aaj ke naam
Aur
Aaj ke gam ke naam
Aaj ka gam ke hai zindagi ke bhare gulistan se khafa
Zard patton ka ban
Zard patton ka ban jo mera des hai
Dard ki anjuman jo mera des hai
Kilarkon ki aphsurda janon ke naam
Kirmkhurda dilon aur zabanon ke naam
Postmanon ke naam
Tangevalon ke naam
Railbanon ke naam
Karkhanon ke bhole jiyalon ke naam
Badshaah-e-jahan, Vaali-e-maseeva, Naybullah-e-fil-arz, dehkan ke naam
Jiske dhoron ko zaalim hanka le gaye
Jiski beti ko daakoo utha le gaye
Haath bhar khet se ek angusht patwar ne kaat li hai
Dusri maliye ke bahane se sarkar ne kaat li hai
Jiski pag zor valon ki paon tale
Dhajjiyan ho gai hai
Un dukhi maaon ke naam
Raat mein jinke bacche bilakhte hain aur
Neend ki maar khae hue bazooaun se sambhalte nahin
Dukh batate nahin
Minnaton zariyon se bahalte nahin
Un hasinaon ke naam
Jinki aankhon ke gul
Chilmanon aur dareechon ki belon pe bekaar khilkhil ke
Murjha gaye hain
Un byahtaon ke naam
Jinke badan
Be-muhabbat riyakaar sejon pe saj-saj ke ukta gaye hain
Bevaon ke naam
Katriyon aur galiyon, muhallon ke naam
Jinki napaak khashaak se chand raaton
Ko aa-aa ke karta hai aksar vazu
Jinke saayon se karti hai aah-o-bukaa
Aanchalon ki hina
Churiyon ki khanak
Kakulon ki mahak
Aarzoomand seenon ki apne paseene mein jalne ki boo.
Talibilmon ke naam
Vo jo asahab-e-tabl-o-alam
Ke daron par kitaab aur kalam
Ka takazaa liye, hath phaileye
Pahuchen, magar lautkar ghar na aaye
Vo masoom jo bholpan mein
Vahan apne nanhe chragon mein lau ki lagan
Le ke pahuchen, jahan
Bant rahe the ghatatop, beant raaton ke saaye.
Un aseeron ke naam
Jinke seenon mein pharda ke shabtab gouhar
Jailkhanon ki shoreeda raaton ki sarsar mein
Jal jal ke anjum-numa ho gaye hain
Aane vaale dinon ke safiron ke naam
Vo jo khushboo-e-gul ki tarah
Apne paigam par khud phida ho gaye hain
My (extremely inept) translation:
Dedication
In the name of this day
And
In the name of this day’s sorrow:
Sorrow that stands, disdaining the blossoming garden of Life,
Like a forest of dying leaves
A forest of dying leaves that is my country
An assembly of pain that is my country
In the name of the sad lives of clerks,
In the name of the worm-eaten hearts and the worm-eaten tongues
In the name of the postmen
In the name of the coachmen
In the name of the railway workers
In the name of the workers in the factories
In the name of him who is Emperor of the Universe, Lord of All Things,
Representative of God on Earth,
The farmer
Whose livestock has been stolen by tyrants,
Whose daughter has been abducted by bandits
Who has lost, from his hand’s breadth of land,
One finger to the record keeper
And another to the government as tax,
And whose very feet have been trampled to shreds
Under the footsteps of the powerful.
In the name of those sad mothers
Whose children cry out in the night
And will not be silenced by the defeated arms of sleep,
Who will not say what saddens them
Or be consoled by tears or entreaties.
In the name of those beauties
The flowers of whose eyes
Blossomed from every curtain and balcony
And withered away in waiting.
In the name of those wives
Whose unloved bodies
Have grown tired of the treachery of beds
In the name of the widows
In the name of neighbourhoods
Whose scattered garbage the moon
Blesses every night,
And from whose shadows cries out
The fragrance of veils
The tinkling of bangles
The scent of loosened hair
The smell of passionate bodies burning in their own sweat.
In the name of students
Who went to the masters of drums and banners
Prostrating themselves on doorsteps
With their books and pens
Praying, with open arms, to be heard,
But never returned.
Those innocents, who, in their naivete
Took their tiny lamps,
Their candle flames of hope, to where
The shadows of endless nights were being given out.
In the name of those prisoners
In whose breasts the shining gem of the future
Burns, polished by the noise of the jailer’s night,
To a star like radiance.
In the name of those harbingers of the days to come
Who, like the flower with its scent,
Have become enamoured of their own message.
There are some poems that have an anthem-like, declamatory quality. Poems that demand not so much to be read aloud as to be shouted into microphones, fed line by hungry line to some roaring mob that raises its fists high in support after every stanza. Poems that seem addressed, not to a single person, but to the People. Ginsberg’s Howl is like that. Gil Scott-Heron’s The Revolution will not be televised is like that.
And then there’s Faiz’s Intisaab. This is a marching, singing paean of a poem, at once heroic and sorrowful, at once incantatory and delicate. There are some unforgettable lines here (Zard patton ka ban jo mera des hai / Dard ki anjuman jo mera des hai) and some beautiful images (Jinki napaak khashaak se chaand raaton / Ko aa-aa kar karta hai aksar vazu) but the overall effect is of being swept up in the urgency of a historical moment, in the tidal wave of an entire people and their determination to stand firm against suffering, stand firm against oppression. This is a poem whose every line screams Revolution.
Politics and poetry do not, in general, go well together. Which is not to say that there aren’t good, even great, political poems; only that the rawness and stridency that makes for good politics doesn’t always fit comfortably with more poetic aims. There are exceptions, of course, but poems with a ‘message’ often end up sacrificing poetic merit for political momentum, so that they remain memorable not so much for their poetry per se but for the protest they contain. This is emphatically not true of Intisaab. This is a poem that is as political as you can get, that fairly overflows with attitude, and yet is also a sophisticated and stunningly visual lyrical work.
The poet I’m always reminded of, reading this, is Whitman. Think of the long enumerations from Song of Myself. Think of all the other songs – The Song of Occupations, the Song of Joys, The Song of the Open Road, Salute Au Monde!, I sing the Body Electric. There is the same rhythm of repetition, the same grandness of vision, the same deceptive simplicity. Faiz, like Whitman, writes from a well-spring of humanism, from a desire to celebrate the common people. Faiz, like Whitman, understands in his deeply democratic heart that it is here that true power lies, in the suffering of ordinary men and women, in the uncomplaining courage with which they bear whatever History thrusts upon them. Faiz, like Whitman, is a poet of his people. That is why he matters. That is why he will survive.
Notes:
As should be obvious, my translation doesn’t do anywhere near justice to the poem. Frankly, there are things I just cannot translate. In the stanza about students, for instance, Faiz says “kitab aur kalam / ka takaaza liye, haath phailaye / pahuchen” which I translate as “Prostrating themselves on doorsteps / with books and pens/ praying, with open arms, to be heard”. That doesn’t begin to do justice to the metaphor. Sanderson Beck writes:
“In takaza a man may restrain an equal or inferior from leaving his house or eating or compel him to sit in the sun until he makes some accommodation. If the debtor is a superior, the creditor may supplicate and lay on his doorstep, appealing to his honor and shame.”
That’s just one example.
pō\'ĭ-trē 
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