Mainstream Weekly

Does it Matter?

Faiz Ahmed Faiz — 2018-06-24T17:16:09Z

My tablet and my pen,My two cherished treasuresAre snatched from me,But does it matter?For I have dipped my fingersIn the blood of my heart;My tongue they sealedBut does it mater? For,I have placed a tongueIn every link of chain That fetters me.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz

- 2018

Does it Matter?

Faiz Ahmed Faiz — 2014-06-28T18:00:27Z

My tablet and my pen, My two cherished treasures Are snatched from me, But does it matter? For I have dipped my fingers In the blood of my heart; My tongue they sealed Bu does it mater? For, I have placed a tongue In every link of chain That fetters me.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz

- 2014

Lines on the Massacres in East Pakistan, March 1971

Faiz Ahmed Faiz — 2011-12-27T18:48:43Z

This is how my sorrow became visible: in dust, piling up for years in my heart, finally reached my eyes, the bitterness now so clear that I had to listen when my friends told me to wash my eyes with blood Everything at once was tangled in blood--- each face, each idol, red everywhere. Blood swept over the sun, washing away its gold. The moon erupted with blood, its silver extinguished. The sky promised a morning of blood, and the night wept only blood.... Let it flow. Should it be dammed (…)

- 2011

Struggle for Peace and Struggle for Independence are Indivisible

Faiz Ahmed Faiz — 2011-03-16T05:49:46Z

The following is the acceptance speech of Faiz Ahmed Faiz on receiving the Lenin Peace Prize in 1962.
Creating words and shaping them in an orderly form is the vocation of poets and men of letters. But there are occasions in life when one is left speechless. This is one such occasion for me: I don‘t have the words with which to adequately thank the Lenin Peace Prize Committee, as well as other Soviet institutions and friends, for the honour they have conferred upon me. The Peace Prize is (…)

- 2011

Does it Matter?

Faiz Ahmed Faiz — 2009-07-02T11:16:26Z

My tablet and my pen,
My two cherished treasures
Are snatched from me,
But does it matter?
For I have dipped my fingers
In the blood of my heart;
My tongue they sealed
Bu does it mater? For,
I have placed a tongue
In every link of chain
That fetters me.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz

- June 2009

A Few Days More

Faiz Ahmed Faiz — 2009-03-15T15:41:12Z

Only a few days, dear one, a few days more.
Under oppression's shadows condemned to breathe,
Still for a time we must bear them, and tears, and endure
What our forefathers, not our own faults, bequeath:
Fettered limbs, each impulse held on a chain,
Minds in bondage, our words all watched and set down
Courage still nerves us, or how should we still exist,
Now with existence only a beggar's gown,
Tattered, and patched every hour with new rags of pain?
Yes, but to tyranny not (…)

- March 2009