Growing Up Red

Re: # 32

Ali Yaar, Faiz Ji said:

Maikhana salaamat hai to hum surkhi-e-mai se
Tazzain-e-Dar o Baame Haram Karte Rahen Gay

Thanks Ali - excellent writing!

Kya ``Aap bhi Shaairi kartay hain``? :)

Ali Hashmi Sahib, can I ask you a personal question? Your Nana is a national heritage of the people of the Indian Sub-Continent (not to take away your own bond with him by any means) therefore I think, as a Pakistani, I am entitled to ask this question. My question is two-fold, (1) How did he Phasa (courted) a white women when it was not that common – it was extremely rare? And (2) “Mujh se Pehli se Mohabbat Meray Mahboob na Maang”…. Did this Nazm reflect his personal struggle with your Nani (if there was any) or did it reflect his switching styles from more like going from Ghalib to Karl Marx (or switching from romance to socialistic humanism). Or was it a little bit of both?

I will greatly appreciate your views on that.

ali_1:
you can take comfort in the fact that i`ll die as a hardcore dehrya. :-) there is indeed no hope for me, my heart and soul is sealed and posted for Hell`s second-most deadly compartment. The single most deadly compartment as you may well know is reserved for selective-followrs, munafiqeens and progressive types. :-)

oh and by the way i have read molana ilyas` famous manifesto for tableeghis from cover to cover all 800+ pages of them. (it is alright nothing special)

see you around, then?. :-)
peace.

ali: ``Pakistani Dehrias are 2 number........``

i agree with that. that is indeed a rule. the whole sinusoidal loop and back to from where they started. 360 degrees. period. a zero degree output on the look back. :-)

Kulharee(aka axe), you seem to be chopping people with your Shairs!....and its highly improper to ask Ali how his nana jaan phunsa his nani. They might have fallen in love. Poets have a very romantic gene in them, u know. And besides in those days a lot of men who went abroad brought back a mem bride.

I specially liked the para concluding with “Choro bhai, theek hai``.Reminded me of something Jordan Zevon said about his Dad.Very heartfelt writing.
To All the ``dehrias`` ( 1 number, 2 number, aadhay, paunay) ,>>Stop messing with urstruly! Show some compassion for Shaitan`s sake!

very nicely written piece. Enjoyed it thoroughly.
I have not read much of his poetry except few pieces here and there available in Gurmukhi. I love his `vey pardesiya, teriaN kithray na paindeyaN dassaN`..sung by NFAK. I did not know it was Faiz`s poem until much later. khair he is much respected in India at least in East Punjab where we are also proud of him for another reason - that he started writing in Punjabi in his later days. We wish he had started earlier and given some more memorable work to Punjabi language. At the same time it is somewhat disappointing too that Iqbal and Faiz both were brought up in Punjab and Punjabi was there first language and Had they contributed to Punjabi even half of what they did in urdu, our literature would have been richer...they could have easily rubbed shoulders with Bulleh Shah and Waris Shah in Punjabi psychie.

Do you know that a Punjabi/English poetess from Canada has transliterated some of Faiz`s poetry to Punjabi last year and published it? though I have not got my hands on the book yet.

Ali has a point...fear of death..end of this life and then what? is so ingrained in our subconsicous minds that people fall for the trick called God when they face death or unknown.
religion has been taking advantage of humans for this very reason since beginning of time...and still does. but what you call a man who strarts worrying about death in his 20`s? fanatic? no, an idiot.

If it was not God and religion invented to deal with this issue, something else equally insane would have been invented by man for same reasons.

Ali

Oh, dear Hashmi your article above reminded me of my boyhood when I was also a medical student in KE Medical College. I went to see your Nana when he resided in a flat near Shimla Pahari in 1949, perhaps. We were greeted by your nani, Mrs. Faiz. She looked so graceful clad in shalwaar qameez and, surprizingly, welcomed us in such a chaste Urdu that I never heard afterwards. And then long afterwards, I also saw the janaaza of your great nana, like which I saw never again. It was not carried on shoulders as done usually but on hands by people standing on both sides of the long pathway to the burial ground in Model Town.

Kahiin to ho ga shabe sust mouj ka saahil
kahiin to ja ke ruke ga safiinaae ghame dil

How wonderful were those days as in the words of your nana:

Janoon mein jo bhi guzri bakaar guzri he
Garchih dil pih kharaabi hazaar guzri he

As regards the so called `Pindi Consipircy` it was actually a conspiracy not against the Liaqat Ali government but against the communist party of Pakistan.

teshah sir ji, tusi te baRhe ee purane niklay O. tuhade naal diaN buildingaN choN vi ittaN khiskan lagg paiyeaN te tusi ajjay vi internet highway te dauRangay laa rahe O. jeenday rahvo!

Dear Ali Hashmi:
You have all reasons to be proud of your family legacy, or in particular Faiz, the poet.
I have heard my elders telling me about him, who happened to know him personally. I have read his poetry, no doubt, he was one of his kind. the beauty of his legacy as a poet is that he still is one of his kind. somehow, always, when we talk of him, I can see the shine in the eyes of most present there, which has sorrow for not having him around in person, and has pride for having him there for always.

Pride of family legacy brings responsiblities along. I hope you and ur sons and the rest of your family will be able to carry that with them.

but one thing I would like to mention. I happend to see a copy of a dewan of Faiz, gold crafted, signed by him on every copy, worth of more than 5000 Pounds. when I heard of it, I couldnt believe Faiz could sign such a copy, when I saw, I believed. it no doubt is a worthy gift, however, I wonder ever it was thought, for who would exactly buy such an expensive collection? only those who can afford it, and those who afford it, will never read it, will never understand it, will never believe in it and in Faiz himself as a legendary person, but will put it in ther study room or their ``library`` as a decuration piece. I believe that is the worst treatment any art/intellectual piece of work can ever get, that too of an immenent poet and of a revolutionary like Faiz!

Dear Ali Hashmi...

Welcome to Chowk:

Your article was amazing. BTW recently the word ``Dehria`` was in the press... Ch. Shujaat Hussain promised the Mullahs that he will expel all ``Dehrias`` from the Muslim League.

... on another note are you Muneeza Hashmi`s son?

Sincerely

Yasser Hamdani

Re: # 45

Ok maybe welcoming you was not on the dot... since you`ve been on Chowk for atleast 6 years...

sorry about that slight.

Re: Faiz and Teshah #42

We have it on record, from no less an august revolutionary than Tariq Ali, that the Communist Party of Pakistan had a (presumably long) list of people that it was going to kill as soon as the coup was carried out; no trial, no hearing, just executions. This was standard communist practise since, after all, if Stalin can kill a few million people, how hard can it be for his followers to kill a few dozen or a few hundred?

Just curious, Mr. Hashmi, how much input did Faiz have in preparing this list? Did he contribute a few names? Veto some? Or did he prefer not to know which eggs were going to be broken in order to make the glorious revolutionary omelette he craved?

I`ve never understood the fascination some people have for a pathetic man who slavishly followed every order his masters gave him. When Britain was allied with the USSR, he followed their orders and joined the British Indian Army (Lt. Col. Faiz A. Faiz--no one remembers that, even if it was just ISPR. But isn`t that worse? Prostituting your intellect for the Party?). Did he, like Khruschev, at some point repent his past? Did he apologize to the ghosts of the millions killed by his fellow Communists? Did he return his Lenin Prize? Considering that it was awarded to him in 1962, he clearly spent a long time knowing of Stalin`s crimes and not criticizing him, or his beloved Party.

When Faiz was working for Arafat, was he uncomfortable at the thought that millions of Palestinians were living in such abysmal squalor while Arafat was, even then, worth millions? Or did he not believe in criticizing fellow revolutionaries, lest this aid and comfort the reactionaries?

We all know that Zia and Co. were lying hypocrites of the worst sort. We all know that members of the JUI/JI/LeT/HuM/etc are deluded dupes at best and homicidal psycopaths at worst. What are members of the Communist Party? Why not just admit that, at best, Faiz was modern day Bahadur Shah Zafar: someone whose poetic gifts do not excuse all his failings. While the children are not responsible for the sins of the fathers, neither should they glory in them.

Re: # 47

Have you been following Algerian politics lately? Has Khomeini or his regime apologized to the moderates and leftists that were imprisoned, tortured, raped and killed? I could go on, but these examples drain me.