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Ahmed Faraz (January 14,
1931 in Nowshera - Pakistan) is considered one of the greatest modern
Urdu poets of the last century and greatest living Urdu poet of present
times. Faraz is his 'takhallus', whereas his real name is Syed Ahmed
Shah.
Faraz, who has been compared with Mohammad Iqbal and Faiz Ahmed Faiz,
holds a unique position as one of the best poets of current times, with a
fine but simplistic style of writing, even common people can easily
understand and identify with. Ethnically a Pashto-speaking Pashtun,
Ahmed Faraz learned and studied Persian and Urdu at the Peshawar
University where he taught these subjects later.
In an interview with
Rediff he recalls how his father, a teacher, once bought clothes for him
on Eid. He didn't like the clothes meant for him, but preferred the
ones meant for his elder brother. This lead him to write his first
couplet:
Layen hain sab ke liye kapde sale se (He brought clothes for everybody from the sale)
Layen hain hamare liye kambal jail se (For me he brought a blanket from jail)
He was told by his parents once to learn mathematics from a female class
fellow during the summer vacation. "I was weak in mathematics and
geography. I still don't remember maps and roads".
Instead of learning
mathematics he played bait-bazi with her, a game in which one person
recites a couplet and the other one recites another couplet starting
from the last letter of the previous one. He always lost, even though he
memorized hundreds of couplets for her, but when he started
manufacturing his own couplets she couldn't catch him anymore. Coming
from a respectable family of Syeds, descendents of ''Haji Bahadar" a
famous saint of Kohat, he moved to Peshawar with entire family. Studied
in famous Edwards College Peshawar and then did his Masters in Urdu and
Persian. Initially Syed Ahmad Shah Faraz thus became Ahmed Faraz.
During his college time,
Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Ali Sardar Jafri were the best progressive poets,
who impressed him and became his role models. He initially worked as a
script writer at radio Pakistan Peshawar and then moved on to teach Urdu
at Peshawar University. In 1976 he became the founding Director General
(Later Chairman) of Academy of Letters.
Outspoken about politics, he went into self-imposed exile during the
Zia-ul-Haq era after he was arrested for reciting certain poems at a
mushaira criticizing the military rule. He stayed for three years in
Britain, Canada and Europe before returning to Pakistan, where he was
initially appointed Chairman Academy of Letters and later chairperson of
the Islamabad-based National Book Foundation for several years. He has
been awarded with numerous national and international awards.
He was awarded the Hilal-e-Imtiaz in 2004, in recognition of his
literary achievements. He returned the award in 2006 after becoming
disenchanted with the government and its policies.
"My conscious will not forgive me if I remained a silent spectator of
the sad happenings around us. The least I can do is to let the
dictatorship know where it stands in the eyes of the concerned citizens
whose fundamental rights have been usurped. I am doing this by returning
the Hilal-e-Imtiaz (civil) forthwith and refuse to associate myself in
any way with the regime..." a statement issued by the poet.
Ahmed Faraz Meeting Pakistan FM.
About his current writings he says: "I now only write when I am forced to from the inside."[citation needed]
Maintaining a tradition established by his mentor, the revolutionary
Faiz Ahmed Faiz, he wrote some of his best poetry during those days in
exile. Famous amongst poetry of resistance has been "Mahasara"[citation
needed]
One amongst his great ghazals is the famous Ranjish Hi Sahi. He has so
far written 13 books and all put together comes as "Shehr e Sukhn
aarasta hai" his latest publication so far.
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