June 11th, 2011

2 Poems of Faiz Ahmed Faiz sung by Mehdi Hassan and Mala from anti-colonialist film Farangi (1964) with English Translations

Ghazal

So flowers fill with colors, and the breeze of the new spring blows,

Come soon, so that the garden in its work of beauty grows.

Sad is our prison, friends, let us say something to the breeze,

Today, somewhere, must take place the Remembrance of the Rose

From the corner of your lips let but once the dawn awake,

The tips of your tresses, musk-scented night disclose !

What if this heart is humble, pain’s bond is highly placed,

For your name’s sake will come along consolers of my woes.

O night of separation, how to tell what we endured,

But our tears a fitting end, for you will propose

The account of my madness was required in the loved one’s court,

I took with me, tied in a knot, the shreds of my clothes.

Faiz, no spot appealed to us anywhere on the way,

When we left the loved one’s street, we turned to the gallows.

Montgomery Jail

29th January 1954

Prison Letters

(Translated by Sarvat Rahman)

The above mentioned was sung by Mehdi Hassan for Film Farangi (1964), music by Rashid Attre. It was picturized on Allaudin. The film was based on the theme of anti-colonialism

Nazm

(Poem written after reading the letters of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg)

For the love of the flowers of your fresh lips

The dry tree of agony we were made to array.

Still longing for the lights of your shining hands

We were killed in semi-obscure pathways.

Far from our desire, as we hung upon the cross,

The redness of your lips went on throbbing,

Headiness from your tresses went on streaming.

The silver of your hands went on gleaming.

When your ways opened into oppression’s night

We walked on as far as our feet carried us,

A poem on our lips, our hearts with pain alight,

Pain that was to your beauty witness.

Know that we were steadfast in our testimony

We who were killed in obscure pathways.

If failure was preordained as our destiny,

The love we bore you was chosen freely.

Who complains if the ways of your passion all led

To parting in the fields of the martyr’d dead.

Picking up our banners from these fields of death

Many other lovers will set out on the quest,

Whose road of suffering, by our foot-steps

Was shortened, and for whom, laying down our lives,

Of your beauty we made universal the sway,

We, who were killed in obscure pathways.

Montgomery Jail,

15th May 1954

Prison Letters

(Translated by Sarvat Rahman)

The above mentioned poem was sung by Mala for Farangi (1964), music by Rashid Attre. It was picturized on Shamim Ara.

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