A magnanimous heart: Zehra Nigah recalls time spent with Faiz

Poet says Faiz’s magnanimous heart was the best thing about him

LAHORE: “Faiz Ahmed Faiz was incarcerated when I started frequenting mushairas but I was already acquainted with his work,” poet Zahra Nigah said on Saturday.

Nigah was in conversation with painter Salima Hashmi regarding her association with the celebrated poet on the third day of the Faiz International Festival. She said people used to refer to Faiz in a peculiar way back in those days. Nigah said they would say that he had been imprisoned in connection with some conspiracy.

She said she had learnt years later after getting to know Faiz that he had first heard her poetry in jail. “He later told me that when he and PWA founder Sajjad Zaheer had first heard my work they had concurred that someone else must have written it for me,” Nigah said. She said Faiz found her work quite mature.

“The time I spent with him was wonderful but I am always cautious when I speak about him,” she said. Nigah said she exercised caution as he was no longer around to defend himself. She said Faiz’s admirers went beyond people who appreciated him for his poetry. Narrating a light-hearted anecdote, Nigah said once a man armed with two bags laden with biscuits had approached her when Faiz was staying at her place. “He told me he had seen Faiz on television and he looked extremely weak therefore I should feed him better,” Nigah shared.

She said Faiz was someone who would never mind anything and his magnanimous heart was one of the best things about him. “People would often come and recite appalling poetry. But he would always listen and encourage them,” Nigah said. She said he never got angry. “Once I asked him if he really never got angry or merely posed,” Nigah said. She said he had told her he was not much of a poser but carried an anger switch within him that he had turned off.

The conversation also veered towards Faiz’s love of film and filmmaking. Hashmi said an unsuccessful attempt had been made to find the rushes of Dur Hai Such Ka Gaon, his last incomplete film. She said they were last heard of languishing at the Pakistan High Commission in London. Hashmi said the matter was sub judice.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 22^nd, 2015.