'Aaj ek harf ko phir dhoondtaa phirtaa hai khayaal’
‘Today an image seeks, once again, a word’
– Faiz Ahmed ‘Faiz’

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), considered by many to be the most important writer in the German language, said: “Say what you will of its inadequacy, translation remains one of the most important, worthwhile concerns in the totality of world affairs”. The “inadequacy” that Goethe is referring to is especially apparent when it comes to translating poetry from one language to another. This is doubly true if the languages are as far removed in their origin, culture, and form as Urdu and English.

It was another important thinker and poet of the East, Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, who wrote: “They come into the mind, these themes, from the ‘hidden’”. While we refuse to accept today that a poet’s inspiration descends on him from the heavens, we have to admit that rendering a delicate art like poetry into another language is a difficult task. For the best poets, like Ghalib, understanding him, even in his native language, is a challenge. A great poet attempts to render his feelings and images into words that he or she then transmits to his readers or listeners. The readers then have to render those words back into images or feelings, all the while trying to hear the same music that the poet hears. If one adds another layer, that of translation, especially translation into an alien language, it is inevitable that some of the poetry’s essence will be lost. However, as Faiz would say, it is imperative to try. It can also be argued that a translator, especially of poetry, should have an intimate, preferably a native familiarity with the original language to appreciate the cultural and linguistic nuances of the poetry and to render those into a foreign language in a way that would make the imagery accessible to a non-native speaker.

Another caution has been pointed out by the American scholar and Urdu enthusiast Frances Pritchett at Columbia University in New York (see http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00fwp/). Pritchett says in her outstanding paper, “The Sky, the Road, the Glass of Wine: On Translating Faiz” (available at http://www.urdustudies.com/pdf/15/07pritchett.pdf): “(the translator should not be) interested in making technically accurate translations that sound awful in English and/or do no real justice to the original. Nor (should they) produce free “transcreations” that use the Urdu originals merely as jumping-off points for new English poems”. She goes on to say that among modern poets “the inescapable, indispensable one is Faiz. He is generally perceived as the hinge between the classical and modern ghazal; he is widely known, loved, and even revered.” Faiz has been translated numerous times and new translations appear regularly. The most recent one is “A Song for This Day: 52 Poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz”, by Faiz’s son-in-law, noted teacher, actor and media personality Shoaib Hashmi, published by Sang-e-Meel publications.

One of Faiz’s longer poems is ‘Sheeshon Kaa Maseeha’ and dates from 1952. In October 1951, Pakistan’s first Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was assassinated at a public gathering in Rawalpindi. This event triggered a period of general instability and political uncertainty that ultimately culminated in Pakistan’s first Martial Law in 1958. Faiz watched most of these developments from behind bars. He was arrested and imprisoned in the infamous ‘Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case’ when a coterie of left-leaning generals and politicians plotted to overthrow the government of Liaquat Ali Khan. They attempted to enlist the support of the fledgling Communist Party of Pakistan; Faiz, though sympathetic to the Communist cause, was never a member of the Party. Even though the ‘plot’ never went beyond a few meetings at people’s homes and Faiz and the Communist Party declined to participate in it (they thought it was unlikely to have popular support), many members of the Party and its sympathizers were arrested and jailed. It is perhaps not coincidental that this was happening while in the USA, the House Un-American Activities Committee of the US Congress under the leadership of the arch-conservative Senator Joseph McCarthy was leading a vicious witch hunt against any and all progressives and ‘left’ sympathizers in the arts and media including great artists such as Charlie Chaplin who was hounded out of the USA altogether.

Faiz also had to deal with personal traumas in his life during these times. His older brother Tufail, the main support of Faiz’s mother after his father’s death, died of a sudden heart attack while visiting Faiz in prison. One of his dearest friends and a driving force behind the formation of the All India (later All Pakistan) Progressive Writers’ Association, Dr. Rasheed Jahan, also died during this time. Maulana Hasrat Mohani, an accomplished Romantic Urdu poet, journalist, parliamentarian and freedom fighter and a political mentor and friend of Faiz also died in 1951. Faiz, as was his habit, molded his grief into poetry. One of his celebrated poems from this era is ‘Irani tulabaa kay naam’ (‘To the Iranian Students’) which became hugely popular. Faiz himself is on record as having acknowledged that this was one of his favorite poems. ‘Sheeshon kaa Maseeha’ belongs to the same period and was written some time later. As with all great poetry, the poem does not belong to any one era. It contains Faiz’s typical mixture of lyricism and protest and, in the end, forcefully rejects, once again, the notion of “Art for Arts’ sake”, the idea that Art should confine itself to beauty and observation alone and should not critique the existing conditions in society. In the last verse, the poet says unequivocally that in the fight between good and evil, justice and injustice, oppression and liberation, staying ‘neutral’ is not an option. Those who would excuse themselves from the fight, says Faiz, are assisting those who exploit, those who oppress, those who want things to stay the way they are. The poet asks all of us “idle hands” to join in the fight between good and evil. In the end, we all have to take sides if we are to remain human.

“Sheeshon ka Maseeha”
Messiah of Crystals
Pearl, crystal, goblet
Once broken is broken
Tears cannot mend it,
It’s lost if broken.
You gather the shards
Save them for naught
There is no Messiah of Crystals,
What good is your hope?
Perhaps these fragments hold
The chalice of your heart
That haughty angel’s perch
The nectar of life’s sweet agony
The world snatched your chalice away
Smashed it,
Scattered that nectar into dust
Cleaved the angel’s wing
These colorful shards are perhaps
Fragments of those dazzling dreams
With whose brilliance you decorated
Your bed-chamber in ebullient youth
Beggary, toil, hunger, pain
Kept smashing at those dreams
Brutal was the rain of stones
What could these crystal skeletons do
Or perhaps, in these fragments
Is the jewel of your honor and your humility
The envy
Of the high-statured ones
The jewel was craved by many
Traders, robbers
In this land of thieves, the poor
Can save either life or honor
These goblets, crystals, these jewels
If whole, carry some value,
Broken, they merely
Prick, cut, evoke blood-tears
You gather the shards,
Save them for naught
There is no Messiah of Crystals,
What good is your hope?
On mended collars of memory
The heart does not linger
Unmasking, masking truths
How can life be spent like this?
In the workplace of Being
These goblets and crystals are forged
Everything is replaceable,
All wants can be fulfilled
Every hand that reaches is a helper
Every eye that looks, fortunate
There is no end to riches here
No matter the robbers who lie in wait
Looting, robbing cannot empty
The coffers of Being
Diamonds on every mountain
Pearls in every ocean
Some,
Wish to cordon off this wealth
Auction
Every mountain and ocean
Others fight
Break down those walls
Foil the schemes
Of the thieves of Being
They grapple, fight
In every village and vale
In every happy home
On every lane
There are those who blacken all around them
Others who light candles
Those who set fires and
Those who put them out
Every goblet, crystal, jewel
Is enjoined in the fight
Arise, all idle hands
Are summoned to the fight.

(This essay first appeared on TFT, Lahore)

The author is a Psychiatrist practicing in Arkansas, USA. Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it                                                        .