Faiz Ahmed Faiz's birthday celebrations were commemorated in a befitting manner last week. Truly Faiz Ahmed Faiz is one of those poets who are lovingly remembered by their fans. Idara-i-Zehn-i-Jadeed, Karachi, did well to pay homage to Faiz.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz remained accessible to his friends, never refused to oblige any literary organization which requested for his time. I have had a fairly long association with him and attended quite a few literary events with him overseas. It was on his bidding that I went on a marathon coast to coast lecture tour of Canada as a CASA scholar in 1984. Faiz Ahmed Faiz was himself a CASA scholar. It was his privilege to nominate the next speaker from Pakistan. He chose Dr. Muhammad Ajmal and it was on his refusal to be available, that I was chosen by CASA to deliver lecture on Pakistani media, culture and literature.
It is because of my being privileged to have an access to the great man that I came to experience that his stature as a poet was no less than his stature as a human being. He was never seen losing his cool or talk about anyone to suggest that he was not favourably disposed to the person he was talking about. He was kind to a fault. There is quite a good number of laudatory 'flaps' from his pen for small fries. He thought that no one should be 'critical' of a 'Doolah' (bridegroom) in public. He once said that why it is likely for the reading public to dismiss 'Taqriz' writings. After all Ghalib wrote so highly of Rajah Ali Beg Suroor's Fasana-i-Ajaib that one could never think of his going for a simple, lucid style in his Urdu letters. Wasn't it going diametrically opposite to what he wrote about Raja Ali Beg Suroor?
The latest about Faiz Ahmed Faiz is his translation of Allama Iqbal's Payam-i-Mashrique, a collection of poems in Persian. My goodness! What an exhibition of craft! I wish that Faiz's translation should serve as a model work in any translation workshop. The way he has translated Allama Iqbal's Persian poetry into Urdu, proves that Faiz Ahmed Faiz should be rated as an ideal translator. It also proves that Iqbal's Persian poetry could best be translated into Urdu by retaining as many original poetic images of Persian in Urdu provided they were compatible with the peculiar temperament of Urdu. Languages, like individuals, have specific temperaments - that is the peculiar way of employing them to adapt foreign vocabulary to phonetic scheme. The Portuguese word Almirah, for instance, becomes Almari in Urdu and Hospital becomes Aspatal after relieving it of the sound of 'te'. Examples could be quoted and infinitum. Every educated Urdu speaking person could marshal dozens, even hundreds of examples of words which have been Urduised on Urdu's own terms and conditions. Very few foreign words have been accepted by Urdu without necessary phonetic changes.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz's translation of Payam-i-Mashriq goes on to form that the condition of Persian - Urdu compatibility was an important precondition for retaining Persian vocabulary in Urdu. It means that even some Persian words cannot be accepted by Urdu if they flout Urdu's inimitable phonetic system.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz was a scholar - poet. Having a rich background of Arabic and Persian, he knew how to extract sweetness out of Persian vocabulary to match Urdu's peculiar brand of sweetness.
I believe that this aspect of Faiz was hidden, so far, from his lovers of Urdu poetry. He emerges in his translation of Payam-i-Mashriq as some one who could easily elicit appreciation from Iqbal. Rather Iqbal couldn't, possibly, restrain himself from hailing Faiz's translation, as worthy of Iqbal's own seal of approval.
The only lament, if there could be any, is that Faiz's translation is incomplete. Death didn't allow him to complete the project but quite a substantial part of Iqbal's collection has been translated.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz held Iqbal in high esteem as an artist. What a compliment Time is destined to pay to Faiz Ahmed Faiz: "Faiz is a wonderful craftsman as a translator who has proved himself to be no less an artist.
Whether Munshi Prem Chand is the first Urdu short story writer or Rashid-ul-Khairi, is an important issue to be resolved by academics. Yet it remains an undisputed fact that Munshi Prem Chand's short stories and novels opened a window on the rural India where more than 50% of the rural population, according to Sir Charles Eliot, former Governor of Bangal, did not have their hunger satisfied once in their lives.
The situation remains more or less the same for a sizeable population below the poverty line. And hence the inexorable influx of laudless or small holdings peasants into the cities in 19th century. The abnormal increase in urban population was mainly due to the mismanagement of the rural economy. The situation is not any different today, albeit for different reasons.
Munshi Prem Chand devoted his attention to a topic which had gone unnoticed in Urdu Daastan or Novel. Ever since the revenue collectors were turned into proprietors of the lands by Lord Cornwallis in 1793 under the Regulations of Permanent Settlement, the farmers of small holdings found themselves at the mercy of Zamindars, patwaris and money-lenders. The spectre of poverty loomed large. The abolition of tariff wall for the British goods destroyed Indian Industry and the Urban population had no other alternative but migrate to the villages. Famines and epidemics. Hundreds of thousands of people died of hunger in those familites.
Munshi Prem Chand's first novel, Asrar-i-Maabid, was the first Urdu novel to depict this aspect of rural India in 1902. Gaodan and Kafan are the creations of the 30s. Munshi Prem Chand frequently returned to the depiction of rural India and he became a trend-setter fiction writer.
Much of Urdu writings on rural Pakistan - particularly those of Ahmed Nadeem Qasimi - have also attracted our attention to the sad flight of our peasants. Poverty in the rural areas breeds so many social evils which could be done away with only through an equitable package of land tenancy reforms.