Noted critic Ashfaq Bokhari has earned for him a unique distinction. He has chosen for himself the assignment of former Lyallpur's chronicler. His Lyallpur Kahani's sixth book is about Faiz Ahmed Faiz's engagements in the city of Lyallpur where his close relatives and his 'sweet heart' lived. It is difficult to say that the Lyallpur's Afghan-origin girl was Faiz's only love.
There were quite a few. Infact Karachi, Hyderabad, Multan, Lahore and Islamabad could be mentioned as cities where Faiz enjoyed emotional hiccups with some ladies of the upper crust of society. A poet like Faiz who was undoubtedly a charming person with high accomplishments of being a poet only next to Allama Iqbal on the scale of international ranking for the portal of Urdu poetry.
I have been with him in some countries of the world and hence I can say that he was the most agreeable face of Pakistan for intellectuals across the globe. Rather, he was, in a nutshell, the image of an effective cultural ambassador of Pakistan.
Hence Ashfaq Bokhari's series 'Lyallpur Khanis' new book "Fiaz Ahmed Faiz: Chand Nai Daryaftain" has to be an interesting book. One should acknowledge the footprints which a celebrity of Faiz's stature has to leave behind. Every one has this footprints on the soil one treads on but the researchers make efforts to trace them and invert them with some meaning only when one moves to the limelight zone of popularity.
Having read Ashfaq Bukhari's one or two other books on Lyallpur I think that every town should have a gifted chronicler like Bokhari to help the future social scientists - in particular historians, to know which particular person or event connected with the city under discussion has to be taken into account for filling up the essential features of the area under discussion.
Lyallpur, now Faisalabad, enjoyed and still enjoys the distinction of having a long list of important figures in every walk of life who deserve to be seen as residents of the city before rising to be national and international figures. I congratulate Ashfaq Bokhari for writing some thing which sets a good example for others to follow. He has shown the world what makes Lyallpur- the third biggest city of Pakistan and the centre of its textile industry, to know how important it is to know a city's past and present for the nation as a whole.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz's father had served Afghanistan in the capacity of British India's ambassador to Kabul. He had also served Afghanistan's ruler, Amir Abdul Rahman and had written his biography entitled 'Life of Abdur Rahman Amir of Afghanistan'. He was educated in England and Dr Lilian Anna Hamilton (1858-1925), court physician to Ameer Abdur Rehman, had penned a novel entitled 'A Vizier's Daughter: A Tale of Hazra War', has discussed Faiz's father's ordeal in Kabul which made him leave Kabul immediately and save his life. Quite a few intestifying aspects of Sultan Muhammed Khan, Faiz's Father, came to our knowledge through this novel.
Very few people know that Faiz in a interview had claimed his ancestry from Raja Sen Pal of Saharanpur, now in Uttar Pradesh, India. His ancestor had moved to Punjab and settled in Sialkot. This is quite an interesting incident, not recalled before. Ashfaq Bokhari's book focuses on some obscure aspects of Faiz's life. They should interest all readers who want to know more and more about Faiz Ahmed Faiz who seldom talked about himself, regarding it as something characteristic indiscreet, rather foolish persons.
Knowing Faiz Ahmed Faiz as I do and having passed memorable moments with him in this country and also in his days of his exile in London and Toronto as well, I can vouchsafe that he was basically an introvert and shy person. I have seen him speaking on literary, religious and political issues with dispassion. I have seen him defending religion as well when some persons would be talking about it irresponsibly. He was a progressive writer to the core and had represented Pakistan labour at the ILO moots in Geneva.
Faiz was a teacher, a labour leader and the founder editor-in-chief of the Pakistan Times. On top of it all, he was a trend setting poet who excelled in using ghazal's, lyrical diction to express his revolutionary ideas, a fact never accomplished before as successfully as Faiz did. And hence his importance as a poet next to Iqbal and some critics have gone to the extent of regarding him the best poet of the 20th century - even at the expense of Allama Iqbal I conclude this column on Alys Faiz's poem on Faiz's death entitled 'Word for Faiz'.
It reads as under:
I will sing of you later,
When the treads of a thousand feet,
The unending roll of sorrow,
The breath of rose unfolding,
The eulogies, the warranted praise
The drawn out memories of others
The grief of recalling, the total
acceptance of death are over
Then will I sing, not to tread,
Of a thousand feet, now to the roll of sorrow,
Nor will I lift the roses
Nor echo praise
Nor recall, nor accept.
My song neither begins nor ends,
It is eternity. (ends)
What a tribute !