Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz is renowned for his progressive and revolutionary writings and rightly so. The great poet also wrote on love — the universal theme that attracts all. And wrote extensively on it.
Faiz was a subtle poet who relied heavily on idioms, metaphors, and similes for effect and had a flair for imagery and symbolism.
However, he always used them in novel ways. Many consider Faiz’s love poems to be invested in elements of subversion and revolution. This is largely because Faiz — being a master craftsman of language — played with words and phrases, often imbuing them with meanings and nuances not thought of before.
Faiz had realised that conventional Urdu poetry had a lot of potential to articulate romantic ideas, but in a new vein. |
And they are open for interpretation in different ways, often going with the thoughts in the minds of the readers. Well, that is what great poetry is all about.
Sample few of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s couplets, famous for their beauty and poignancy:
Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s technical superiority in Urdu and Persian grammar placed him in league with the best in the world. A wonderful example of how he engages rhyme without losing the essence of his longing:
Faiz had realised that conventional Urdu poetry had a lot of potential to articulate romantic ideas, but in a new vein. He used expressions and words that had always been a part of the traditional vocabulary, yet filled them with new meaning.
Words such as qafas (cage), saba (morning breeze), raqeeb (adversary), laila, majnoon, and hawas (lust or greed) became his tools for romance as well as revolution.
Faiz’s love poems borrowed elements from another famous poet Mir Taqi Mir, who too wrote on love and longing.
Faiz, in another century, found inspiration in Mir's ideas and went on to articulate love, hope, peace, and beauty for generations.