Customer Reviews

The Rebel's Silhouette: Selected Poems

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Only a rebel can say words as deep and meaningful as
Aaaj Ka Naam Aur Aaaj Ka Gham Ka Naam
Zard patton ka Gham jo mera Dees hai
Zard ki Anjoman jo mera dees hai

Faiz is a poet of beauty and love. His message is the reign of beauty and love in the country. The passion for enjoying the beauty of life, his deep attachment to love of self and the agony of the world, his love of humanity, his patriotism, his passion for revolution, his sense of justice, are all metaphors of the agony of love. That agony of love which is the soul of his imagination and feeling, on account of which he illuminates the beauty of both worlds with the desolation of his heart. For Faiz, the testing power of beauty is in its creativity. Beauty is not mere artistic value, it is also a social and moral value:
The candle of a look, the star of imagination, All these illuminations have come from your gathering.
Whichever be the source of pain, we ascribe it to you,
Whatever complaints we have, are on account of you.

If it be the agony of the world, if it is the beloved's face or the hand of the rival,
We responded towards all of these with love.
Faiz wrote a sad revolutionary battle-song, the like of which is not be found in any language of the world:

For the love of your flower-like lips,
We were sacrificed on the dry branches of the noose,
For the desire of the candles of your hands
We were killed on half-dark paths.
And with revolutionary dignity:
On our lips the words of the ghazal,
And the torch of misery in our hands,
Gather our banners from the place of murder,
Caravans of other lovers will emerge,
For whose path our feet have shortened the distances of pain.

In the Lenin Peace Prize speech he had said:
I believe that humanity which has never been defeated by its enemies will, after all, be successful; even now and at long last, instead of wars, hatred and cruelty, the foundation will rest on the message of Hafiz, an old Persian poet: "Every foundation you see is defective, except the foundation of love, which is faultless.
And Faiz Sahib prays:

Let us too lift our hands,
We who do not remember the customary prayer,
We who do not remember any idol or God except love.

This agony of love is not only a part of the human condition but it is a relationship which extends from one end of the world to another. Faiz Sahib's love for humanity is free from the prejudices of race, colour or nationality. The new literature of protest suggests a radical change and, in the words of Faiz, it confers on us the power of "forcefully spurning the hand of the killer". It does not accept defeat because it is convinced that darkness should and must end.
When personal sorrow drank the elixir of world-sorrow, the lovers' love became doubly strong:

My heart repents neither this love nor the other,
My heart is spotted with every kind of sorrow,
Except the mark of repentance.

Faif Ahmed Faiz was born in Punjab (now a province in Pakistan) in the early 20th century. He was brought up in a literary environment and was mentored by some of the most liberal minds of that time. Early in his professional career, he became famous for his poetry in Urdu and Punjabi. In the 60s he was involved with the communist movement and conspired with Russia and India to bring about communism in Pakistan. Not only was he unsuccessful in his conspiracy, but was also imprisoned for many years by the government of Pakistan. Some of his best works were conceived during those times of confinement. His collection of poems reflect his philosophy and inclination toward communistic way of living, but his poetic eloquence is convincing to even the most anti-communist of us. Such is the power of his words. Agha Shahid had translated the verses well, but the original flavor of Urdu is lost and so have the extreme passion and agony. I would recommend it to readers who are mature enough to distinguish illusions and fantasies from reality and practicality. There are some poems in the collection which are my favorite in their original Urdu form.

Faiz, the eternal. Faiz, the beloved. Sweet little collection of the Giants work. Had my favourite misra in it.

' Chand ko gul karein tau janein '

I dont mind paying 15 bucks for that. Heavy on the prison evenings though.

The Rebel's Silhouette is a collection of poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, one of the most famous Urdu poets, translated by Agha Shahid Ali, many of them written while Mr. Faiz was in prison.

The word "Beloved" is often used in poetry and ghazals to refer to either a lover or to God. What the brilliant Mr. Faiz does (ably translated by Mr. Ali, fabulous poet himself) is weave in the idea of revolution - the Rebel becomes another incarnation of the Beloved.

What comes of it is a series of beautiful lamentations about the treacheries of love and war, and the desolations ensuing.

"Each road,
each street seems viciously trapped, a prisoner
with no milestone, no destination,
and no occasion for fidelity."
- The City from Here

Mr. Ali writes a fascinating introduction about translation, first languages versus mother tongues (he distinguishes these), and what poetry and song mean to each other, and to art and civilisation.

For his translations, he chooses a free form structure in English (the Urdu is present on the facing page), but there is yet rhythm and rhyme in every stanza, and so much beauty.

"And be careful, they said, take care of the heart.
It still has to break
open into a thousand different wounds.
It still has to know knife after knife after knife."
- Wash the Blood Off Your Feet

And this is my favourite poem from the volume:

Before You Came

Before you came,
things were as they should be:
the sky was the dead-end of sight,
the road was merely a road, wine merely wine.

Now everything is like my heart,
a colour at the edge of blood:
the grey of your absence, the colour of poison, of thorns,
the gold when we meet, the season ablaze,
the yellow of autumn, the red of flowers, of flames,
and the black when you cover the earth
with the coal of dead fires.

And the sky, the road, the glass of wine?
The sky is a shirt wet with tears,
the road a vein about to break,
and the glass of wine a mirror in which
the sky, the road, the world keep changing.

Don't leave now that you're here-
Stay. So the world may become like itself again:
so the sky may be the sky,
the road a road,
and the glass of wine not a mirror, just a glass of wine.

faiz was one of the modern best poets of the world, though his most poems are about the labour class but at the same time he touches the heart of the humans by his sensitive words. after reading him one can very easily say , he is the best.