NEW YORK: Distinguished poet Ahmed Faraz, who is under intensive treatment at a hospital in the US, is in a critical but stable condition, a doctor attending to him said, dismissing the media reports about his death.
Talking to this scribe, Doctor Murtaza Arain said a team of eight doctors, including him, was treating Ahmad Faraz since July 7. Due to his complicated health problems, he is in intensive care unit of the hospital.
However, Surgeon Murtaza Arain said, "The poet is not out of danger". He said Faraz`s son Shibli, who arrived here from Pakistan on Wednesday night, was attending him.
Reacting to the news about his death, the doctor said when he heard the news about his death, he was shocked as he would have been the first to be informed. So, when he called the hospital to verify the news, he was happy to know that Faraz was alive. Doctor Arain declined to divulge the details about Faraz`s illness and asked the people to pray for his recovery and life.
Mera qalam to amanat hai mere logon ki
Mera qalam to adalat mere zamir ki hai
Isiliye to jo likha tapak-e-jan se likha
Jabhi to loch kamaan ka zabaan tir ki hai
(My
pen is the trust of my people/ My pen is the court of my
conscience/
That is what makes me write with ardour and alacrity/And gives my
writing the spring of a bow and the keenness of an arrow.)
Romantic and visionary, a poet of protest and sensuality, the voice of liberty and angst,
AHMAD FARAZ
is a heady combination. Of him Faiz Ahmad Faiz had said, "He protests
against injustice as passionately as he professes his love." A living
legend and, in some ways, Pakistan's very first pin-up star long before
rock stars and the like became popular in campuses across Pakistan, he
enjoys a near cult status in the pantheon of revolutionary poets. In
India he is best known for his ghazals popularised by Ghulam
Ali, Mehdi Hasan, Runa Laila, Jagjit Singh and others. Regarded by many
as the foremost Urdu poet writing today, Faraz at 74 continues to wield
a powerful pen. In Delhi for the Jashn-e-Bahar mushaira he spoke to RAKSHANDA JALIL on poetry, politics and people.
IN Pakistan, poetry has survived the traumas of Partition, the
successive waves of repressive regimes, the muzzling of free speech
under martial law. Some would say it has flowered despite all attempts
to crush the poet's voice. Do you believe the instinct for poetry needs
instability and suppression in order to find expression? Does it
survive because of it or despite it?
All these factors contributed in making
Pakistani poetry a potent piece of literature. From the early days, our
political leaders had either lost their credibility or sold out for
small petty gains. Only some of the writers who were either jailed or
censored or banned on TV and radio or shunted from one province to the
other enjoyed some measure of credibility. While all martial laws were
severe on the poets, some were harsher than others. Zia's was the worst
because it was double-edged — on the one hand it promoted the
fundamentalists, on the other it punished the progressive thinkers.
That was the worst phase for our country's writers. Yet it also
provided ample food for thought for the poet and made protest poetry so
popular in Pakistan.
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NEW YORK: Distinguished poet Ahmed Faraz, who is under intensive treatment at a hospital in the US, is in a critical but stable condition, a doctor attending to him said, dismissing the media reports about his death.
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Views: 1291