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REFLECTIONS ON
FAIZ’S INTERVIEW WITH MIRZA ZAFAR-UL-HASSAN
Dear Ali, I am starting my journey of understanding Faiz’s personality, politics and poetry by his
interview with Mirza Zafar-ul-Hassan.
The reason I chose it as a starting point is that Faiz
focused on his childhood, adolescence and young adulthood in that
interview. As a psychiatrist you are well aware that childhood experiences
play a significant role in understanding the evolution of someone’s
personality. It becomes even more important when the person has a creative
personality and has the talent and potential to become a poet or a
philosopher, an artist or a mystic, a reformer or a revolutionary because
such experiences will shape future encounters with life.
Let me divide my reflections on Faiz’s
interview in four parts.
PART ONE…PERSONALITY
Faiz was always known as a shy
and reserved, gentle and humble person. In this interview he shared that as
a child he was surrounded by many women who loved and adored him. Women’s
company had a special effect on his character. It made him a respectful and
well behaved child. Faiz wondered whether it also
made him a bit inhibited. While his brothers took active part in sports, Faiz just passively watched as he thought that flying
kites and playing with marbles might be considered uncultured. As Faiz withdrew from sports he became more introspective.
The more he tuned himself out from the outside world, the more he tuned
into his inside world that connected him with his creative imagination.
Faiz also shared that in the school his leadership
skills were recognized by his teachers as well as other students. His
teachers made him the monitor of the class and asked him to punish other
students when they misbehaved. Faiz, being a kind
and gentle person, did not feel comfortable with the tradition of punishing
his classmates. His gentle nature had a positive effect on other students
who accepted him as their leader. His caring personality made him win many
hearts.
During
his school years, when he saw the behaviors of some of the controlling and
punitive teachers, he realized that teachers misused and abused their power
and authority. Rather than teaching by love, they ruled by fear. While Faiz was learning what to do in life, he was also
learning what not to do in his future. He learnt to relate with other
people with love and peace rather than anger and violence.
The
more Faiz associated with loving women at home
and distanced himself from punitive teachers in school, the more he
developed a kind, caring and compassionate personality. He identified with
nurturing of women rather than disciplining of men.
PART TWO---POLITICS
Faiz was sympathetic to the
struggles of poor men and struggling women who suffered all their lives. He
acknowledged in his interview that when his father died, the whole family
had to suffer and Faiz tasted the hardships for a
few years. Those experiences might have played a role in him becoming a
socialist and having a soft corner in his heart for the poor and the needy.
His own sufferings helped him empathize with the sufferings of others and
inspired him to become a poet, a philosopher and a political activist.
PART THREE…POETRY
Alongside autocratic teachers from early childhood, Faiz was also introduced to those wonderful teachers
who taught him Arabic, Persian and Urdu. When his father found out that he
loved novels, made a suggestion that he read English novels. Faiz was lucky to have the literary guidance to have a
solid base for languages and literature. Faiz
also attended many mushairas, the poetry
recitals. He was exposed to Eastern as well as Western literature. Such
creative experiences inspired him to start writing poetry as a teenager.
Although he wrote poetry in Urdu but he pursued his education in Arabic and
English and received his Masters.
Faiz’s interest in poetry and politics, language and
literature reached its climax when he joined the Progressive Writers’
Movement and became an editor of different newspapers, and literary
magazines. By taking that step be became part of the mainstream of Urdu
literature and socialist movement of India.
Like many poets, philosophers and political activists of his time, his goal
was to raise social consciousness so that people of India
could bring political changes and gain freedom.
PART FOUR…ALTERED STATE
In Faiz’s interview there was
a paragraph in which he shared an unusual experience. Let me try to
translate it. Faiz said, “
Those days I would experience an altered state of consciousness. The
colour of the sky would change. Some things
looked distant. Sunshine looked like hina. Some
objects altered their appearance. The world appeared as if I was seeing it
on a screen. I experienced that state for a while and then it stopped”
After reading that paragraph I wondered whether Faiz experienced any temporal lobe hyperactivity. They
were not epileptic seizures and there was no loss of consciousness but it
seems as if there was some hyperactivity of temporal lobes.
In my
article Psychology of Spiritual Encounters, (that I sent to you earlier) I
discussed how poets and philosophers, artists and mystics experience
hyperactivity and hypersensitivity of temporal lobes connected with their
creative encounters. Maybe Faiz had some of those
experiences.
I feel excited that I took my first step towards our
destination and wrote my first serious letter to you about Faiz. I will look forward to your comments. I hope you
feel free to criticize and share any suggestions to improve the process and
the project.
Affectionately, Sohail May 25th,
2009
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