books_sant singh sekhon on faiz ahmed faiz and his death 64

8/13/2019 Books_Sant Singh Sekhon on Faiz Ahmed Faiz and His Death 64

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Having completed seventy-six

years of my sojourn on this earth, loften fall to thinking of how much thecrowd of my contemporaries hasthinned out and last week when l was

pondering over Rajinder Singh Bedi'sdeath who was by seven years my

junior, suddenly, parhaps byassociation with Panjabi writers of Urdu, the name of Faiz Ahmed Faizcame into my mind. I wondered how

long he or I myself might be expectedto escape the process, for Faiz was my

junior by only three years. The verynext day I was dismayed and surprisedthat Faiz had been bowled out too. Tome the Span of life after seventy begins to cause anxiety, same as the life of a batsman in acricket match. But though the most anxious period of a batsman's life at the pitch are the lastthree decades of his score-and the anxiety goes on increasing with the completion of everydecade a larger percentage of batsmen to complete their century, than men or womengenerally do in life; very few men or women indeed complete a century of their life in this

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Faiz Ahmed Faiz



world. And the ripest years of the human that time published a collection of her shortcrop for the mover of death are the two stories,Angare (embers).After a little timeof

penultimate decades of the century, As for her stay in Amritsar she fell ill, I think withmyself I have completed three quarters of tuberculoris, and though she went to thea century, frankly speaking, rather against Soviet Union for a better treatment than wasmy expectations or I have been frail of available in India, she was not destined toconstitutionfromearlychildhood. live much longer. I had met her only a few

times in the meetings of the Society of Fiaz Ahmed Faiz looked quite progressive Writers formed in those days onstrong of body when we first met in life inthe initiative of Dr. Mohammed Din Tasir,the middle of the thirties, and he lookedand am often reminded of the Lucy poems of even more stout and strong when he wasWordsworh who also had known the younghere in India a couple of years ago. But

heroine of these poems only briefly.then I have beaten many of my stronger Sahibzada Muzafar, soon after this, left theand stouter contemporaries, and FaizM.A.O. college Amritsar to work, as far as IAhmed is so far the last of them to fall. Iremember as a Secretary to Jawahar Lalmay not be reprimanded for writing these

Nehru, who was then the rising star of thereminiscences in this rather light tone, for Indian National Congress. I do not remember a man's death, even a friend's at this ripeif I have met Sahibzada Muzafar since thoseage may not be considered a tragedy anddays.one may be excused for reviving only the

happier moments of the life of one's The society used generally to meet infriends, especially of they die after one of the porch-like buildings of the time of

winning laurls as Faiz has done. Maharaja Ranjit Singh around Amritsar'sfamous public gardens, known as Ram Bagh,I came to know Faiz when in 1936again a pleasant remnant of the greathecame toAmritsar as Lecturer in EnglishMaharaja's days. Mystay atAmritsar was cutat the M.A.O. College. Dr. Mohammedshort by some unpleasant events that took Din Tasir was then Principal. As if to

place in 1937 in Khalsa college, Amritsar.compete successfully with the well-Faiz was to stay there at the M.A.O. collegeestablished khalsa college atAmritsar, thefor someyears more, until he joined the armymanagement of the M.A.O. college hadas a commissioned officer in the publicitytaken care to recruit the best of men andsection, where he rose to the level of a

women teachers available then in the coloned after partition. I came to Lahore inMuslim community. Among other 1937 but kept my contacts with Dr.teachers at the M.A.O. college at that timeMohammed Din Tasir and Faiz Ahmed. Inwere Sahibzada Mahmood Muzaffar a1940 when I had returned to Khalsa college,young man of an aristocratic MuslimAmritsar, my friend and senior student Jiwanfamily of Aligarh or there about and hisSingh opened his Book Shop which he beautiful wife Rashid Jahan who was thenamed Lahore Book Shop and which hasdaughter of or Mohammed Abdulla, a

become since a major publishing house of renowned professor of the MuslimPanjabi books, running now in Ludhiana. IUniversity, Aligarh. Rashid Jahan, had by

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think it was in 1940 or 1941 when Faiz baled out by the management of the KhalsaAhmed gave me the first collection of his college, Amritsar, through the good officialUrdu poetry to get it published by the ofmyfriendWaryam Singh who died in1974Lahore Book Shop. But Jiwan Singh was at the age of sixty-eight to become another of concerned solely with publishing Panjabi my contemporaries and friends who haveliterature and politely declined to take up falledon the roadof life's journey. ThencameFaiz's book. These poems were later independenceand partition.

published by some other firm of Urdu Faiz quite naturally opted for publications as Naqash-Faryadi, which Pakistan, not only as an army officer but alsolaunched FaizAhmed on a brilliant career because he belonged by birth to a Sidhu Jatas a poet. By the way, Jiwan Singh has family from a Village near Lahore. I keptoften regretted his decision not to publish hearing for Faiz's successful career as a poet,

his book, though I think only on even when he fell foul of Government of sentimental grounds, for if Jiwan Singh Pakistan for being a communist and waswas to become a major publisher of arrested as a conspirator with General Akbar Panjabi books, Faiz book would have Khan,after the assassination of Liaqut Aliremaineda singleswallow. Khan, then prime Minister of Pakistanduring

Dr. Tsar had come to M.A.O. the presidency of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Hecollege, Amritsar, as its Principal-he had remained in jail, I Think for about four years

been for some time a professor at the after which he was set free and allowed to goIslamic Colleg, Lahore-straight from out of country. But some how after this termLondon University where he had taken a in jail, during which Period he published two

Ph.d. He had brought with him an English other collections of his poems, Zindanwife named Christable. A younger sister Namah and Dast I Saba he remained aof the lady,Alicehad cometostaywith the suspect in the eyes of the Government. It wasTasirs at Amritsar. I could detect a during these wandering abroad that he mettenderness between her and Faiz. Faiz me again at the Afro-Asian Writersactually married her some time later after Conference at Tashkant , capi tal of leaving Amritsar. Uzbekistan in the U.S.S.R But Faiz was there

only for a brief period and I do not remember I lost contact with Faiz when hehe took much of a part of the conference. Itwent into the army in about 1942 and Iwas at the end of the conference when we

went in1943toBaluchistan assecretary to were invited to Moscow by the union of a firm of contractors, and then after theSoviet Writers and then among about six or breakup of that firm on 1945 started on mySeven of the Indian Delegates, I wasown as a contractor and stayed inextended an invitation to stay a further twoBaluchistan for another year.Thisweeks in Moscow as a guest of the Afro-enterprise proved disastrous to meAsian Solidarity Organization and I had thefinancially, through my friends in theopportunity of renewing and even deepeningearlier firm launched me anew as amy association with Faiz at the Hotelcontractor in Buland Shahr and MeerutUkraine, Gulam Nabi Taban, Sujjad Jahir districts, where also I failed, only to be

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and Rajinder Singh Bedi were also celebrated contemporaries. one reasonmembers of our Leftist group. I perhaps was that Faiz Ahmed published only

particularly remember the night of poetry and that also not very voluminously, November 7 when after witnessing the only seven rather lean collections of the parade at the Red Square,Sajjad Zahir, poems are available in print beginning withFaiz and I spent the whole night drinking Naquash I Farvadi to and through.and gossiping as I was to leave for India Bad-i-saba and Zindan Name tovia Tashkent and Kabul the next morning. Dast-i-tehi sang. Howeveer, his totalI regret to say that though Faiz visited contribution to Urdu poetry is in generalIndia many times after 1958, I could not estimation equal to that of Ghalib who wrotefindanopportunity tomeethim here. even less and that of Sir Mohammed Iqbal

But I kept abreast of his writing as whohaswritten much more copiously.

I have done in the case of only a few of my

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books_sant singh sekhon on faiz ahmed faiz and his death 64

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