Echoes of Faiz Ahmad Faiz: A Night of Melodious Poetry

 

Andāz-e-Bayān Aur (AeBA) Events delighted Lucknow with an enchanting evening on 13 September, presenting a musical portrait through the ghazals and nazms of Faiz Ahmad Faiz, in collaboration with FAH Super Specialty Hospital, at Hotel Hometel, Alambagh.

The evening commenced with a warm and engaging introduction by Shazia Kidwai and Rehan Siddiqui of Andāz-e-Bayān Aur, an organisation celebrated for curating prestigious cultural events in India and internationally.

What unfolded was far more than a musical recital. It was an evocative odyssey into the inner landscapes of Faiz Ahmad Faiz, tracing the delicate interplay of passion, pain and revolution that shaped his poetry, and illuminating the quiet genius with which he transformed it into something at once intimate and universal.

The star of the evening was Dr Prabha Srivastava, whose mellifluous voice captivated the hall from the very first note. Her performance opened on a wave of tender nostalgia with Aap kī yaad aatī rahī raat bhar, its familiar and haunting strains casting an immediate spell over the audience.

From there, I became the anchoring voice of the narrative, delivering what I hope was reasonably measured narration alongside the soulful rendering of Faiz’s ghazals and nazms. Adding further richness to the performance was an accomplished ensemble that accompanied Dr Prabha with admirable finesse: Niteesh Bharti on tabla, Zeeshan Abbas on sarangi, Rinku Raj on synthesizer, and Deepak on percussion. Each contributed richly to the evening's exquisite musical tapestry.

Faiz's poetry stretched from mohabbat (love) to inqilab (revolution), and far beyond. He was one of the great suns of twentieth-century Urdu poetry, who began his journey in the romantic world of beauty and love, and then made the pain and sorrow of his times the very fabric of his poetry. The freedom of his homeland, the voice of the oppressed, the anguish of Partition and the hope of humanity gradually found their way into his verses. 

Faiz is not always easy to understand, yet his style makes his poetry accessible to all. He was neither merely a poet of love nor merely a poet of revolution. In his poetry, there is the beloved as well as the homeland; solitude as well as society; flowers as well as chains.

Faiz's poetry had almost imperceptibly transitioned from romanticism to a portrayal of society and its deep-seated ills. Faiz himself regarded this movement from romantic poetry towards socially conscious and purposeful poetry as an important turning point in his literary journey. Reflecting this transition, the performance moved to his signature masterpiece, Mujhse pahli sī mohabbat, mere mehboob, na māng. What followed was a deeply moving sequence of renderings featuring timeless classics such as Aaye kuch abr kuch sharāb aaye, Gulon meñ rang bhare bād-e-naubahār chale, Āj bāzār meñ pā-ba-jolāñ chalo, and Hum par tumhārī chāh kā ilzām hī to hai.

And then came Ham Dekhenge. The evening reached its grand climax with this evergreen and universal anthem of protest. Before the rendition, I attempted to contextualise the poem and explain the fascinating synthesis of Marxist thought and Sufi philosophy that informs it, a nuanced combination that is sometimes viewed through an unnecessarily narrow sectarian lens, with its metaphors interpreted literally rather than in their broader philosophical context. I made the point that the poem is not directed against any particular faith, but against political tyranny, authoritarian power and religious bigotry. In the lines “Jab arz-e-Khudā ke Ka'be se sab but uthvāe jāeñge”, the but (idol or false image) can be understood not as the gods or deities of a particular religion, but as the false symbols of power, tyranny and oppression that have assumed an almost divine authority. Similarly, “Bas nām rahegā Allāh kā” need not be read as an assertion of religious supremacy, but as an affirmation of that ultimate truth and justice which survives the fall of oppressive regimes. And then there is the extraordinary line, “Uthegā Anā'l-Haq kā nāra, jo maiñ bhī hūñ aur tum bhī ho.” Anā'l-Haq, the famous mystical utterance associated with Mansur al-Hallaj, becomes in Faiz's hands an assertion of the dignity and power of the ordinary human being, the khalq-e-Khudā. The distance between the individual and the divine, between maiñ and tum, seems to dissolve.

There was, of course, a dramatic history behind the poem's later life. A little over a year after Faiz's death, in February 1986, the legendary Pakistani singer Iqbal Bano performed Ham Dekhenge in Lahore during the Zia-ul-Haq era. Dressed in a black sāri, in defiance of restrictions on the garment, she sang before a vast audience, the gathering reportedly swelling to more than 50,000 people and erupting into cries of Inqilāb Zindābād. The song subsequently acquired a life far beyond the stage, becoming an enduring voice of resistance across the subcontinent. This, in itself, is telling: a poem written and sung in protest against a bigoted Islamist regime is today, rather ironically, being interpreted by some as an assertion of Islam.

When the final piece was delivered, the effect in the hall was palpable. The audience rose to its feet, giving the performers spontaneous applause and a sustained standing ovation. For those few minutes, it seemed that Faiz's words had travelled across decades and borders to arrive exactly where they belonged: among people listening, feeling and responding together.

Under Gopal Sinha’s assured direction, the production unfolded with grace and coherence. Dr Prabha Srivastava, through her nuanced and responsive vocal expression, reaffirmed her stature as one of Lucknow's foremost exponents of the ghazal. I would like to believe that I was able to adhere to the chaste diction demanded by Faiz and lend depth and dignity to the narrative. I did receive feedback, however, that the narration was a little longer than ideal, a flaw I hope to correct when we perform it next. The script, crafted by Anupama Mani, bore the imprint of careful research and a deep engagement with the life and times of Faiz Ahmad Faiz.

A musical evening ends when the last note fades. A good performance, however, leaves something behind. Jashn-e-Faiz left behind a mood, a memory and, perhaps, a little of Faiz himself. There was mohabbat in the softness of the music, dard (pain) in the silences between the words, tanhā'ī (solitude) in the poetry, and inqilāb waiting patiently for its moment. And when Ham Dekhenge finally rose from the stage, it was no longer merely a poem being sung to an audience. For a brief, unforgettable moment, the audience itself seemed to become part of the poem. The applause, the standing ovation and the faces illuminated by emotion were perhaps the most fitting tribute to a poet who believed that words, when invested with truth and humanity, can outlive prisons, regimes, borders and even the poet himself. That night in Lucknow, Faiz did not merely visit us. He stayed.

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