Faiz Ahmed Faiz's lines echo around in one's mind these days, witnessing the upheavals in large parts of middle-east under oppressive political elites for long, for far too long...
Faiz's choice of words is haunting for several reasons: it is at once inspiring, hopeful, suggests a state of current oppression, and most importantly, predictive. He almost seems to be predicting that this indeed will happen, and "indeed, we too will witness..." - and the predictions at first glance are quite extreme, almost incredible. Yet, it is all happening...
Hum dekhenge
Laazim hai ke hum bhi dekhenge...
Jab zulm-o-sitam ke kooh-e-garaan
Rooi ki tarah ur jaaenge...
Sab taaj uchhaale jaaenge
Sab takht giraae jaaenge...
I rarely translate Faiz, as it has been done by so many others quite well. One blogger's version is here.
Iqbal Bano's version remains the definitive one in terms of singing these lines...
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5 comments:
Good to remember this during moments when thoughts that poetry is separate from real life come to the mind.
Interesting point, vibhav. For poets such as Faiz, it seems life and poetry were one in many ways...
Just stumbled upon your blog and found it really interesting. Congratulations on being able to do what you're doing. I too am a big fan of urdu poetry and wish my non urdu speaking friends could understand and appreciate it too. Thanks to you I made them read the few poems that you have so beautifully translated. Though its a fact that any poetry when translated into any other language loses its real effect but you manage to keep it as close to the original as possible. Well done!
I wish your blog had more information about you and had a bit more of a personal touch. I am sure more people would be able to connect to it.
Nice lines....
And what a thought Vibhav.
Anonymous:
Thank you for the generous comment. Glad you liked it. And perhaps one day I'll share more...
Tapasya:
Thanks. And yes, Vibhav is observant as ever.
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