Faiz...

I have always wondered why Faiz is my favourite poet…I have read only a few poems by the poet…apart from a worn out book in my granpa’s collection and a few that I hav read on net there is nothing that I hav read of Faiz…but Faiz still is a pleasure to be read any time…I could while away hours and hours thinking of Faiz poetry…
A beautiful rain is a treat when read with Faiz,a low breeze utters hundred secrets when read along with Faiz,his lines giv you company on a lonely afternoon,gardens rustle a melancholous tune when alongside Faiz…may be am over romanticized by Faiz ..but ther is a certain difference about his poetry…

I came across Faiz during my college days,when I had become extremely wary bout the course that I had taken up and the lecture hours were becoming very boring…I used to read and re read Faiz…I would say Faiz gave me company in my lonely days…
Faiz brilliantly celebrates pain whether it be of love ,war ,separation …
He would never heal your wounds but would poke it again and keep it alive…oblivion would never be allowed to sweep over the festering memories…you spiral up along a memoryline where there has been love ,loss,separation,pain…and you have Faiz for company…his words would intoxicate you…
He would prove by each and every word that pain is inevitable…life is life only when there is pain..
For a college going youngster like me Faiz was more than company ,he kept me sane at times ,
His “prison evening” is one poem which I keep close to my heart..


Each star a rung,
night comes down the spiral
staircase of the evening.
The breeze passes by so very close
as if someone just happened to speak of love.
In the courtyard,
the trees are absorbed refugees
embroidering maps of return on the sky.
On the roof,
the moon – lovingly, generously –
is turning the stars
into a dust of sheen.
From every corner, dark-green shadows,
in ripples, come towards me.
At any moment they may break over me,
like the waves of pain each time I remember
this separation from my lover.
This thought keeps consoling me:
though tyrants may command that lamps be smashed
in rooms where lovers are destined to meet,
they cannot snuff out the moon, so today,
nor tomorrow, no tyranny will succeed,
no poison of torture make me bitter,
if just one evening in prison
can be so strangely sweet,
if just one moment anywhere on this earth.

Another Faiz favourite is “don’t ask me for that love again”

I dunno why am writing this now but at certain junctures in your life you start feeling that its poetry that keeps you going…you derive hopes from poems….i dunno why its so..