From Childhood to Youth

From Childhood to Youth

(A Conversation with Zafar-ul-Hasan)

By Faiz Ahmad Faiz

Translated by Mohammad Gill, Detroit, Michigan

Our poets are fond of complaining perpetually that the world did not appreciate them. Failure of appreciation by the sons of the soil has been a persistent topic of our poetry. However, I have the reverse complaint. I have been so much showered with kindness and consideration by my friends, my acquaintances, and even by the people whom I do not know personally that I often feel embarrassed and believe that I have done so little to deserve all this admiration and adulation; I should have really contributed more.

It is not a momentary thing; I have experienced this feeling right from my childhood. When I went to school, I had similar situation with my school- fellows, who had accepted me as their mentor for no reason, even though I had no quality of leadership. To be a leader, one needs to be either a bully so that the others are overawed or one needs to be distinguished in one’s studies. I was okay in my studies and did participate in sports also but I had not excelled in any way to become the focus of attention.

When I think of my childhood, the thing that stands out distinctly in my memory is that there was a crowd of women in our household. Of us, the three brothers, my youngest brother, Inayat, and the oldest, Tufail, had left the company of the women rebelliously, to play all the time. This had both the up- and the down-sides for me. On the plus side, the female company made my life very prudent and modest. I never could utter any uncivilized or crude thing in those days; I don’t do it even now. Its downside was that I had developed a sense of deprivation because I did not indulge in the usual silly and inane childish itsy-bitsy things that most others did and enjoyed. For example, some one in the street was flying kite, some others played marbles and some were spinning tops while I would watch them in my loneliness. True to (Ghalib’s) “Hota haiy shab-o-roz tamasha meray aagay”, I used to watch only because I thought indulgence in these petty things was uncivilized.

The teachers were also kind to me. I do not know the present-day practice; in our times corporeal punishment was a norm. The teachers of our times were really ‘butchers’. However, none of them ever touched me, so much so that they made me monitor in every class and assigned me to punish the fellow-kids also whenever the occasion arose. This included, for example, slapping etc., which greatly bored me. Occasionally I would try slapping ever so gently that the victim thought it was no punishment. I would, for instance, pat the cheek gently instead of slapping or pull the ear mildly. Sometime when a teacher detected what I was doing, he would admonish me to slap harder.

Two of my impressions of those days are really deep. Firstly, the sense of deprivation to which I have already alluded; the sense of not being able to do the silly things which so much interest the children. Secondly, that I had received limitless kindness and unalloyed treatment from my peers and teachers. I am still receiving the same kind of attention from my contemporaries also.

I used to go to the mosque in the morning to say my fajar prayer with my father The daily schedule was something like this: I would wake up with the call for prayer (azaan) and go to the mosque with my father to say the prayer. After the prayer, I would listen to the Quranic lesson (Dars-e-Quran) from Maulvi Ibrahim Mir Sialkoti who was a distinguished scholar of his time, for a couple of hours. I would then go for a walk with my father for another couple of hours or so. Then I would go to school. My father would call me at night for writing letters because he had trouble writing them in those days. I used to be a sort of secretary to him. I used to read the newspapers to him also. These activities benefited me a great deal. Reading Urdu and English newspapers and writing those letters had increased my comprehension appreciably.

It has refreshed another memory in my mind also. There was a bookshop adjoining to our house from where one could rent the books. The rent for each book was two paisas. The shopkeeper was a man whom every one addressed as ‘Bhai Saheb’. Bhai Saheb’s shop had a treasure of Urdu literature. The kinds of books, which were current during the time of my sixth- seventh class days, are almost obsolete now. Those included Talasem-e-Hoshruba, Fasana-e-Azad, the novels by Abdul Halim Sharar, etc. I read all of them and later turned to poetry. I read Daagh, Mir, and Ghalib whose poetry I did not quite understand in those days. Even though I could only partially understand these works, they left a strange kind of imprint on my mind. This created an interest in poetry in me and I was hooked by the literature.
My father had a munshi who worked as a sort of manager also. Once I got into a disagreement with him on something and he threatened to report to my father that I was wasting time in reading novels and other worthless books instead of my school texts. I was scared and tried to dissuade him from complaining to my father but he did not relent. My father called me and asked if I indeed read novels. I said, yes. He said, if you must, then read English novels. He informed me that I could borrow them from the library near the city fort.

Thus I started with the English novels. I read Dickens, Hardy, and God knows who else. I could only half-understand these novels at that time but reading them helped me in improving my English comprehension. By the time I reached the tenth class I realized that some teachers made factual mistakes while teaching. I started correcting their English usage, which irritated them sometimes to an extent that they would admonish, “If your English comprehension is so good, why do you take lessons from us?” But they never punished me physically as they would the other kids.

In those days, I used to be overwhelmed occasionally by a certain peculiar kind of mental state. I would feel as if the color of the sky had changed suddenly; some of the things would appear to have receded far away; the hue of the sunlight turned red. The things would appear to me very different from what they actually were. The whereabouts would look like a picture screen. I had such a feeling afterwards too, but it does not happen now.

The mushairas were also held. There was a building adjoining to our house where the mushairas were held. Pundit Raj Narayan Arman used to organize these mushairas in Sialkot. One elder, the late Munshi Siraj Din, who was Iqbal’s friend and Mir Munshi (the First Secretary) of Maharaja Kashmir, used to preside over these mushairas. When I was in tenth class, I also started fabricating verses and recited them in a couple of mushairas too. Munshi Siraj Din suggested politely to me, “Mian, it’s true that you compose your verses with a devoted ‘search’ but you should leave it alone. Now is the time for you to attend to your studies. You can practise the art of poetry after gaining maturity of mind and brain. It is waste of time now.” I abandoned the efforts at versifying on his advice.

When I entered Murray College, I met Professor Yusuf Salim Chishti who taught Urdu there. He is an interpreter of Iqbal and his works. He started mushairas at Murray College. These mushairas were organized on tarah. He asked me to write verses in tarah; I wrote them as advised and recited them in the mushairas also. My poetry was very much appreciated and Chishti Sahib advised me contrary to what Munshi Siraj Din had suggested. He said, “You should attend to this art immediately. You might become a poet some day.”

In Government College, Lahore, I was fortunate to have the company of extremely kind and scholarly teachers. There was Pitrus Bukhari there and Dr. Tasir was in Islamia College. Sufi Tabassum came shortly afterwards. In addition to these luminaries, I came to know all the city’s great literati including Imtiaz Ali Taj, Chiragh Hassan Hasrat, Hafeez Jullundri, and Akhtar Shirani. In those days, there was a friendly camaraderie between the teachers and the students. Probably, I did not learn as much in the classroom as in the company of these distinguished elders and from their love and affection.

I learned a lot from my friends also. After writing my verses, I would read them to my special friends first. If they appreciated them, only then would I read them in the mushairas. If I didn’t like a particular verse or my friends advised me to delete it, I would readily do so. By the time I reached my M.A. class, I started writing poetry regularly.

I have a friend, Khwaja Khurshid Anwar, who got me interested in music. Khurshid Anwar was a terrorist in the beginning; he belonged to Bhagat Singh’s group. He was sentenced also which was later remitted. Having left terrorism, he had inclined towards music. I used to go to the college during the day and in the evening, I listened to the music of great maestros in Khwaja Firoz Ud-Din’s drawing room, who was Khurshid Anwar’s father. Every great maestro of that time would come there including Ustad Tawwakul Hussain Khan, Ustad Abdul Waheed Khan, Ustad Ashiq Ali Khan, and Chhote Ghulam Ali Khan. I also socialized with the contemporary of these maestros and my friend, the late Rafiq Ghazanvi. Rafiq was a student at Law College. Student he was only in the name, he had taken the admission there only as a formality. Most of his time was spent with Khurshid Anwar and me. In this way, I got a valuable opportunity of appreciating this fine art also.

When my father died, I discovered that we were indigent and were not left with much wherewithal. I just roamed around for several years with nothing much to eat. I sort of enjoyed this condition also because I got the opportunity of watching the behavior of the rich people (tamasha-e-ahle karam dekhtay hain). I became part of a small group of friends in the college. There were two of my friends, Ehtasham-Ud-Din and Sheikh Ahmad Hussain, from Quetta. Dr. Hameed-Ud-Din was also part of the group. I socialized with him in the evening. The other incidents, which happen in the youthful days with every one, also happened to me.

During the summer vacations, I occasionally went to Sri Nagar with Khurshid Anwar and my brother, Tufail, and sometime to my sister in Lyalpur. I met with Bari Alig and others in his group in Lyalpur. Occasionally, I would go to my oldest sister in Dharam Sala where I used to enjoy the natural scenery, which left a special kind of pleasant effect on my mind. However, the kind of attachment I have with people, I never had with the natural scenery and beauty. I realized in those days that the city streets also had a peculiar kind of attraction, which is in no way less than that of a river, a valley, a mountain, or trees. However, to appreciate the beauty of streets, one needs different kind of looks.

I remember that we lived inside Masti Gate. Our house was on a raised deck under which a drain flowed. It had a small garden of its own and was surrounded by other gardens from all around. On a moonlit night, moonlight would shine on the drain and the nearby dirt pile. The moonlight and the shadows would create strange and exotic scenery. The moonlight somehow hid the ugliness of the scene and there was a strange kind of beauty there, which I tried to describe in my poetry also. At times, there seemed to pervade such a panorama in the city streets at noon and even during the evenings, that they seemed part of a fairyland. The ideas of neem shab (midnight), chaand (moon), khud framoshi (self-forgetfullness), bam-o-dar khamushi kay bojh sey choor (the roof and doors sunken beneath the burden of silence), etc. belong to that period of my life.

When I reached my M.A., sometimes I would go to the classroom and at other times, I wouldn’t if I didn’t feel like it. I gave more time to reading the books, which were not prescribed in the syllabus. This was the reason that I didn’t score too well in the examinations. I had a feeling however that I knew much more than those who scored first or second in the exams. My teachers such as Professor Dickinson or Professor Harish Chandar Katapalaya, also knew it. Whenever they didn’t feel like giving the lectures, I was asked to fill in. Professor Bukhari however was of a different genre, he never acted like that. Professor Dickinson was assigned to lecture on the literature of the nineteenth century in which he was not interested at all. He would ask me and a couple of other students each, to prepare a few lectures for him. If we needed guidance regarding which books to consult, we would consult him. Consequently, I had become half a teacher already in those days.
In the beginning of my poetic ventures, I had never thought that I would become a poet. Politics had not even entered my mind yet, although the contemporary activities such as the Congress movement, the Khilafat movement, or the terrorist movement of Bhagat Singh had left their imprints on my mind. I personally did not participate in any of them.

Because I was fond of Cricket right from my childhood, I did think of becoming a serious cricketer. Then I thought of becoming a teacher in view of my interest in research. I neither became a cricketer, nor a critic or a researcher; I however became a teacher and went over to Amritsar to teach.

The most pleasant time of my life was that of Amritsar due to several reasons. Firstly, I really enjoyed teaching for the first time; I enjoyed the camaraderie with my students. Daily socialization with them was pleasing. I liked teaching them and at the same time, learning from them also. I am still friends with them. Secondly, I had started writing poetry seriously. Thirdly, I gained some insights into politics from my friends and colleagues there, such as Mahmood-ul-Zafar and Dr. Rashid Jahan. Afterwards, Dr. Tasir also came there. This proved to be a new world to me. I worked with the Labor Organizations and in the Civil Liberties also when it came into being. When the Tarraqui Pasand (Progressive) movement started, I worked in its organization also. All of these activities provided an entirely new kind of mental satisfaction.

I participated in the debates of the Progressive literati. I worked as Editor of Adab-e-Latif for a couple of years when the offer was made to me. There were two prominent groups of creative writers at that time. One of them devoted its attention to ‘literature for literature’ and the second group was that of the Progressive Writers. They continued debating with each other for several years, which occupied most of my time.

This in itself was a new and exciting kind of experience for me. In due time, the radio programs began in the subcontinent. I had friends at the Radio Station, one of whom was Syed Rashid Ahmad who became Director General of Radio Pakistan, and the other, Somnath Chupp, who is the Head of the Tourism Department in India these days. Both of them became the Station Director in Lahore, in turn. I together with a few other friends from the city such as Dr. Tasir, Hasrat, Sufi Sahib, and Hari Chand Akhtar, etc. started going to the Radio Station. The Director of Programs did not frame the radio program in those days; we used to do it. We used to think of new and innovative things, which we would introduce in the radio program. I wrote dramas, features, and a few stories in those days. This became a constant engagement. When Rashid went to Delhi, we also started going there and met new people. I came to know of the writers from Delhi and Lucknow. I met Majaz, Sardar Jafri, Jaan Nisar Akhtar, Jazbi, and the late Makhdum through radio, from whom I gained deep insights and intellectualism. All this time was the time of engagement and also of carefree activities.

(Unfinished)