आ रही हिमालय से पुकार
है उदधि गरजता बार बार
प्राची पश्चिम भू नभ अपार;
सब पूछ रहें हैं दिग-दिगन्त
वीरों का कैसा हो वसंत
फूली सरसों ने दिया रंग
मधु लेकर आ पहुंचा अनंग
वधु वसुधा पुलकित अंग अंग;
है वीर देश में किन्तु कंत
वीरों का कैसा हो वसंत
भर रही कोकिला इधर तान
मारू बाजे पर उधर गान
है रंग और रण का विधान;
मिलने को आए आदि अंत
वीरों का कैसा हो वसंत
गलबाहें हों या कृपाण
चलचितवन हो या धनुषबाण
हो रसविलास या दलितत्राण;
अब यही समस्या है दुरंत
वीरों का कैसा हो वसंत
कह दे अतीत अब मौन त्याग
लंके तुझमें क्यों लगी आग
ऐ कुरुक्षेत्र अब जाग जाग;
बतला अपने अनुभव अनंत
वीरों का कैसा हो वसंत
हल्दीघाटी के शिला खण्ड
ऐ दुर्ग सिंहगढ़ के प्रचंड
राणा ताना का कर घमंड;
दो जगा आज स्मृतियां ज्वलंत
वीरों का कैसा हो वसंत
भूषण अथवा कवि चंद नहीं
बिजली भर दे वह छन्द नहीं
है कलम बंधी स्वच्छंद नहीं;
फिर हमें बताए कौन हन्त
वीरों का कैसा हो वसंत

मन के अनुसंधान समझ, शब्दों के परिधान पहन...ये कौन आह जगी ?
शीतलता से उत्तप्त, सभी स्मृतियों से विगत, क्षितिज पे जागती जोत सी ....ये कौन आह जगी ?
बोध के वर्तुल से मुक्त, मात्र चैतन्य से युक्त, जलाती उष्णता में हल्की बयार सी.... ये कौन आह जगी ?
स्वत्व को विस्तीर्ण करती, अहम् जीर्ण जीर्ण करती, माँ की फटकार सी ....ये कौन आह जगी ?
स्थित अपनी नग्नता में, निश्चिन्त अपनी मग्नता में , शिशु की किलकार सी...ये कौन आह जगी ?

लौट के ना वहाँ से कोई इस पार आए,
पर इस दिवाली पे आप बार बार आए...
वो देरी से उठने पे मीठे उलाहने,
हर दस्तूर के हमको समझाना माने,
स्मृतियों की पालकी सपनों के कहार लाये,
इस दिवाली पे आप बार बार आए
वो मुहूरत में देरी पे जल्दी मचाना,
वो रूठे हुओं को मनाना हँसाना,
कितने भटके हुओं को उबार लाये
इस दिवाली पे आप बार बार आए।
वो बढ़ बढ़ के सबका पटाखे दिखाना
वो बहुओं का दिन भर यूँ खाने बनाना,
अब किसी को भी क्यूँ वो दुलार आए,
इस दिवाली पे आप बार बार आए।
वो भजनों की वाणी पे ध्यानस्थ होना,
वो डिंगल के दोहों का कंठस्थ होना,
कितनी बिगड़ी हुई बातें सुधार लाये,
इस दिवाली पे आप बार बार आए!

The inner silence
Is a fickle Overlord
Creator of all things
Yet so shy and retiring
So soft and still
Yet gentle and caring
That all motion,
Circumperambulation
Seems crude, uncouth
Almost an effront
Indeed, truly, a mockery
Of the infinite grace
That bestows me limbs and vigor
And I, oh so gross so ingrate
Cannot abide in this vast stillness
That suffuses and invades all
Carries and pervades all
For any longer than a mere breath
Which too, it breathes in me
Even this brick wall
That I sit facing
Has more respect in its erect repose
Than I in myriad genuflections
So I sit with bowed head
A grotesque monstrosity
A shameful caricature
Of that perfect perfection
That manifests through me
Arjuna,
Lift thy mighty gandeev
And shower your arrows upon me
Destroy all that is vain and dross and ugly
Pierce these eyes
That seek form outside
Destroy sight forever, return it inside
Yudhisthira,
Blow thy conch anantavijaya
Implode my eardrums
That reverberate to the cantankerous world
Let the inner silence be all,
Let it deafen the world outside
Eklavya,
Sew my lips shut
That no word escapes
Corrupting my innermost truth
In the silent cave of the heart
Expressed, no longer the Absolute Truth
Bheem,
Lift your mighty vrigodharan
Flatten this intellect with thy incessant blows
Rip apart the ego like you did Jarasandha
That only the ineffable self remains
Krishna,
I am now ready
Reveal thy divine beauty

In the grilled window overhead
Before ringing the bell
I see your face.
It is only love, nothing else.
You rush down the stairs
You hold my hand,
Your cheeks flushed with excitement.
It is only love, nothing else.
We sit on the lawn
In cushioned wicker chairs.
The night queen exudes its scent.
It is only love, nothing else.
You smile at me,
I lean over,
The world blurs out of focus again.
It is only love, nothing else.
At the sound of the car
We hastily disengage,
You rearrange your hair.
It is only love, nothing else.
* * *
Then, your parents suspect.
They inspect your mail,
They take counter measures.
It is only love, nothing else.
We meet elsewhere
Whispering in dingy cafes,
Under the waiter's suspicious gaze.
It is only love, nothing else.
Or else outside your college,
Or on a park bench,
Or in a shopping centre on a weekend.
It is only love, nothing else.
On your birthday, before the final exam,
You lie you're at a friend's place,
We meet in an expensive restaurant.
It is only love, nothing else.
In the dim light you say
We can't go on like this.
In silence I stare ahead.
It is only love, nothing else.
* * *
At last it is time to graduate.
You hold my last letter,
Now smudged, tightly to your chest.
It is only love, nothing else.
What will become of me, you wail,
My throat catches too,
The sari slips off your heaving breasts.
It is only love, nothing else.
In a flash, all the memories--
Letters, phone calls, innumerable meetings--
Dart by as we watch, helpless.
It is only love, nothing else.
You resist my caress, at first
But suddenly yield, with vehemence.
It is to be our last embrace.
It is only love, nothing else.
I leave town.
You settle down,
Marrying somebody else.
It is only love, nothing else.

Poem from "The Serene Flame"
Read More at www.makarand.com

Last night, your lost memories came to me
As spring steals into the wilderness
As the morning breeze skims the desert gently
As a patient finds solace without cause
These lines, among the peaks of Urdu poetry, are written by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, widely considered as one of the greatest poets from the Indian sub-continent. Born in Sialkot, British India, in 1911, he stayed on in Pakistan after independence. A classical poet to the core, he extended the traditional idiom of Urdu poetry. Where in the past Urdu poetry was restricted to the Saaqi, the wine, roses and nightingales, he changed the concept of the divine wine-bearer to mean the social and political revolution which would bring justice, freedom and equality to the oppressed. For him love for the Saaqi became a call to arms to create a new world order based on the principles of liberty and fraternity. It is perhaps these opinions that got him in trouble with the authorities. Arrested for subversive activities twice in Pakistan, he spent about 5 years in prison between 1951 and 1959. Yet, this did not blunt his desire to speak on behalf of the underprivileged in various capacities throughout his life.
Faiz was Chief Editor of Pakistan Times, and later, Editor of Lotus magazine published by Afro-Asian Reuters Association. He was awarded the prestigious Lenin award by U.S.S.R. in 1962. In his day he was deemed one of the worthiest nominees for the Nobel Prize. That he did not win it is one of the gravest omissions in the history of the award. Faiz passed away in 1985.
He remains one of the most romantic poets in world literature, comparable to Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth or Tagore. However, what makes his poetry unique is how it moves effortlessly between romanticism and reality. One of his most famous poems, typical of his style, starts off in this manner:
Do not ask for love as before, my dear!
I had thought that if you are, life is light,
If you are sad, what quarrel is worth the world’s sadness?
Your face is the reason for spring in the Universe.
What else is there in the cosmos if not your eyes?
But as the poet realizes the harsh realities of life, he is forced to confront them and sing a different tune:
Life has more torments than love alone
And greater solace than being with the loved one.
Do not ask for love as before, my dear!
Faiz does not jar the reader’s sensibility with startling juxtapositions or shock the brain with post-modern effects, merely for the sake of it. Each line is measured, deliberate, refined, quiet. Yet, when he makes a transition from one thought process to another, the results could not be more striking, in part due to their subdued texture underlining a sharp contrast. In the example given above, we find a clear contradiction between two visions and compelling movements. One is the pull of the beloved; the other, the suffering of his people. Faiz does not scream, he whispers; when he speaks softly, you pay attention because of what he has to say, not solely because of how he says it.
He does not break rhyme or rhythm like free-verse poets. His images are apt and not arbitrary like Lorca. His music rings with compassion, subtlety, wit and innovation in its neo-formalism. If Ghalib was the Father of Urdu Poetry, Faiz, to my mind, is the Father of Modern Urdu Poetry.
Faiz is old but new, traditional but contemporary. His feelings are true and deep. Whether it is in dealing with his beloved or the masses, his is not rhetoric or high-pitched falsetto. One feels the presence of a genuine emotion, an individual concern growing so deep that it becomes universal. Faiz cannot be classified only as a communist, even though he was associated closely with the socialist movement; his empathy makes him a true bearer of his religion even though he seems irreligious on the face of it. His compassion rings true and cannot be restricted to a movement or philosophy.
Faiz loved his people and his land deeply. But he was not blinded by his love. Being a true humanist, he showed his appreciation for all peoples and lands. He was able to overlook the cultural and religious baggage that well-meaning people carry, especially when it came to the rivalry between India and Pakistan. That he remained as popular in India as in Pakistan is testament to his reach beyond borders.
For any student of Modern Poetry, Faiz remains extremely significant. He needs to be studied until he becomes a part of one’s blood. Faiz ranks among the great poets of any language. He is as great a peak as Tagore, Yeats, Neruda, Rilke, Eliot or Sri Aurobindo.
Classics never die. They grow as you mature and mature as you grow. The poetry of Ghalib or Tagore or Shakespeare or Faiz is immortal and worthy of being read again and again till it changes us for the better. Even in suffering, it sings of joy and hope.
Be close to me…my assassin, my beloved, stay close to me…
When the night moves, the dark night, having drunk the red blood of skies…
Laughing, singing, ringing the epileptic anklet of pain…
When the night moves, funereal and empty…
Stay close to me…

हाँ कोकिला नहीं, काग हैं, शोर मचाते,
काले काले कीट, भ्रमर का भ्रम उपजाते।

कलियाँ भी अधखिली, मिली हैं कंटक-कुल से,
वे पौधे, व पुष्प शुष्क हैं अथवा झुलसे।
                                                   
परिमल-हीन पराग दाग सा ब

Into the Silence, into the Silence,
Arise, O Spirit immortal,
Away from the turning Wheel, breaking the magical Circle.
Ascend, single and deathless:
Care no more for the whispers and the shoutings in the darkness,
Pass from the sphere of the grey and the little,
Leaving the cry and the struggle,
Into the Silence forever.
Vast and immobile, formless and marvellous,
Higher than Heaven, wider than the universe,
In a pure glory of being,
In a bright stillness of self-seeing,
Communing with a boundlessness voiceless and intimate,
Make thy knowledge too high for thought, thy joy too deep for emotion;
At rest in the unchanging Light, mute with the wordless self-vision,
Spirit, pass out of thyself; Soul, escape from the clutch of Nature.
All thou hast seen cast from thee, O Witness.
Turn to the Alone and the Absolute, turn to the Eternal:
Be only eternity, peace and silence,
world-transcending nameless Oneness,
Spirit immortal.

Out from the Silence, out from the Silence,
Carrying with thee the ineffable Substance,
Carrying with thee the splendour and wideness,
Ascend, O Spirit immortal.
Assigning to Time its endless meaning,
Blissful enter into the clasp of the Timeless.
Awake in the living Eternal, taken to the bosom of love of the Infinite,
Live self-found in his endless completeness,
Thy heart close to the heart of the Godhead for ever.
Vast, God-possessing, embraced by the Wonderful,
Lifted by the All-Beautiful into his infinite beauty,
Love shall envelop thee endless and fathomless,
Joy unimaginable, Ecstasy illimitable,
Knowledge omnipotent, Might omniscient,
Light without darkness, Truth that is dateless.
One with the Transcendent, calm, universal,
Single and free, yet innumerably living,
All in thyself and thyself in all dwelling,
Act in the world with thy being beyond it.
Soul, exceed life’s boundaries; Spirit, surpass the universe.
Outclimbing the summits of Nature,
Transcending and uplifting the soul of the finite,
Rise with the world in thy bosom,
O Word gathered into the heart of the Ineffable.
One with the Eternal, live in his infinity,
Drowned in the Absolute, found in the Godhead,
Swan of the supreme and spaceless ether wandering winged through the universe,
Spirit immortal.