Ahmad Faraz
One of the most popular Urdu poets of the modern era, celebrated for romantic ghazals of rare tenderness and for his political defiance.
Sitara-i-Imtiaz · Hilal-e-Imtiaz (2004, returned 2006) · 'Ranjish hi sahi'
Born Syed Ahmad Shah into a Pashtun Syed family in Nowshera, Faraz took his master's in Urdu and Persian at Peshawar University and went on to lead Pakistan's literary institutions — founding director-general of the Pakistan Academy of Letters and head of the National Book Foundation. His takhallus means 'height', and his early fame rested on love-ghazals of unusual tenderness and melody.
Then came his collision with power. Under General Zia-ul-Haq he was arrested for poems critical of military rule and went into a self-imposed exile of some three years across Britain, Canada and Europe. In 2006 he returned the Hilal-e-Imtiaz, one of Pakistan's highest civil honours, in protest at the government of the day — a poet handing back the state's medal rather than his conscience.
He is often ranked just behind Faiz among the modern poets of resistance, while remaining far more the romantic of the two. His ghazal 'Ranjish hi sahi' — 'let it be heartache, then, but come' — became immortal in Mehdi Hassan's voice, the meeting point of literary verse and the sung repertoire that is the natural home of so much on this shelf.
ghazal bahana karun aur gungunaun use
“Let me not remember her — but how am I to forget her? Let me make a ghazal my pretext, and hum her under my breath.”
aa phir se mujhe chhod ke jaane ke liye aa
“Let it be resentment, even so — come, if only to wound this heart; come once more, even if only to leave me again.”
jis tarah sukhe hue phool kitabon mein milen
“If we part this time, perhaps we shall meet only in dreams — the way dried flowers are found pressed between the pages of books.”
so us ke shahr mein kuchh din thahar ke dekhte hain
“They say people gaze at her till their eyes are full — so let me too linger a few days in her city, and see.”
main kab ka ja chuka hun sadaen mujhe na do
“I was a flame, now burnt out — do not offer me the winds; I left long ago — do not call out to me now.”
dost hota nahin har haath milane wala
“You mistake mere courtesy for sincerity, Faraz — not everyone who shakes your hand is a friend.”
ki tu nahin tha tire saath ek duniya thi
“Only after parting from you did I come to know — it was not you alone; with you there was an entire world.”
varna itne to marasim the ki aate jaate
“As she left, she broke off every tie between us — yet our bond was such that she might at least have kept passing by.”
jis ke hote hue hote the zamane mere
“Today another year has passed without her — the one whose presence once made the whole age mine.”
koi tujh sa ho to phir naam bhi tujh sa rakkhe
“It pleases me not that anyone should share your name — let one bear a name like yours only if they are like you.”
koi hamari tarah umr bhar safar mein raha
“Some found their destination the moment they stepped from home; others, like us, spent a whole lifetime still on the road.”
'faraz' ab zara lahja badal ke dekhte hain
“Let us yet witness a few more wonders the ghazal can work — Faraz, let us now change our tone and see what comes.”
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