Delhi, Lahore and Faiz - of days past

This week's column was intended to be a diatribe against the circumstances that are choking the denizens of Delhi and Lahore, and a reflection on the absurdity of the inevitably doomed Conference of the Parties (COP29) in a country determined to thrive on its oil exports.

- MAHIR ALI

But then, a sorrowful memory intervened. I was still a relative novice in the newsroom of this newspaper 40 years ago today when Ghazi Salahuddin, Dawn's energetic news editor, informed me that the nation's foremost poet was on his deathbed in a Lahore hospital.

Shortly afterwards, Ghazi confirmed the inevitable—and persuaded me to write a tribute. I was out of my depth, given my perfunctory knowledge of Urdu literature. I had known him as 'Faiz chacha' since my childhood as a friend of my parents, although I was better acquainted with his warm-hearted partner, Aunty Alys. It wasn't until my mid-teens that I began to appreciate Faiz as an exquisite poet.

My only one-to-one with him occurred in an antechamber at Moscow's Metropol hotel in 1977. I was at the cusp of a fruitless journey to earn a medical degree at the People's Friendship University, and only vaguely aware of the disaster that was unfolding in Pakistan. I can't recall the month, but it was after the March elections and before the July coup.

Faiz summoned me out of his crowded living-room salon into a dining room where he offered me one of his Kent cigarettes (and was mildly surprised when I gratefully accepted) before launching into a broad overview of what was transpiring in our homeland.