The subcontinent, both pre and post partition, has never been without the public’s political discontent as can be made evident by a look through its history of mutinies, martial law, and disobedience movements. Discontent, moreover, is a phenomena easily romanticized, especially with its enticing allure upon the subordinate as well as the adolescent segments of a society. Poetry, therefore, principally that which has political subtexts, has never found itself wanting of inspiration in this part of the world. The fame of poets including Nazeer Akbarabadi, Khwaja Mir Dard, Bahadur Shah Zafar, and of those more contemporary including Habib Jalib and Faiz Ahmed Faiz is indicative of this perpetual inspiration.
Ben Learner, in his book, “The Hatred of Poetry”, portrays “contempt” as inseparable from the success of poetry. However, he does not attribute to poetry the potential to aggravate change. Similarly, many would argue that the form is merely a peripheral influencer of the consensus, an apolitical concept, and the importance given to it is reflective of both elitist sentiments and naïve intuition.
The writings of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, an Indo-Pakistani leftist poet however, stand for exactly what this critique of poetry denies. As an answer to Zia’s repressive usurpation of power, the poet created one of his most powerful works, ‘Hum Dekhain Gey”. With Faiz imprisoned, bootleg cassette tapes with recordings of a performance of this work by Iqbal Bano in her controversial black sari were smuggled throughout the country. A particular interpretation of his verses attributes to Zia, the great sin of associating himself with God, and hence his words aim to awake the consciences of the suppressed classes and do away with the prevalent mirage of amity.
It is a theory that the intimacy associated with a scrutinized reading of poetry is a materialization of the elitism it inherently emerges from. It suggests that as a poet must discover his audience, the reader must also identify a poet that he or she resonates with the most. To put it bluntly, poetry has its own niche, not suited to the masses, rather to a distinct type of individual who retrieves from the poetry a mutuality of ‘frequency’. As it happens, the distinct type referred to often alludes to the affluent.
Habib Jalib, however, another Indo-Pakistani poet, born in East Punjab, may indeed be, in the words of the aforementioned Faiz, “ the poet of the masses”. He wrote in a straightforward language, encompassing the plights of the working class. When Bhutto’s policies diverged from the essentially socialist manifesto of the PPP, Jalib took notice and spoke against the government in support of the Pakistanis who suffered at the hands of this divergence. He was jailed for what was not his first term in prison at the hands of a ruler uncompromising and unwilling to face opposition.
Passivity and apathy describe the level of animation of the Pakistani citizenry and are extremely uncharacteristic adjectives for Iqbal’s poetry, verses to which we owe the inspiration of the Pakistan Movement. If poetry is really food for the soul then it is poetry which must extend the promise of revolution to Pakistanis that must become hungry for their liberation. After 71 long years of coups, corruption charges, and media blackouts, poets such as Jalib and Faiz should be recognized for their tenacity and resolve when it came to sketching for the public, the moral destination that Pakistan has to progress to. They created visionary works accessible to more than just the crème de la crème of Pakistan, works unstained by naivety.
Come, gather your possessions,
O people with injured hearts.
Come, O Friends,
Let us go and get killed.
The greatest moment of happiness was when I got my LUMS acceptance letter, instantly Facebook and WhatsApp groups were made where people talked about joys of Oweek and horrors of enrollment. Everyone was happy wondering about life at LUMS especially about hostel-life. On my check-in day, I was a little scared about living away from home. I can still feel the excitement and fear in my heart which I sensed when I entered LUMS. First night was a bit troubling as I was new to this place and knew nothing. I felt like an outsider to this ‘bubble’ of LUMS but I was able to make it. I met a few Facebook friends and we talked about practices and places at LUMS and about courses while sitting at Khokha. Next day was our orientation day and from then on a whole orientation week kicked off. Orientation day was great. Speeches delivered by the Dean of HSS and Law were the best ones. My mother also came to orientation and I had to meet her. When I left to meet her after orientation, the scene of hall changed. I was in middle of a talk when I saw coaches lifting banners and shouting their group numbers and slogans. I soon had to leave my mom because I didn’t want to miss the fun. I found my group in the flood of students. A few of my group members were already there. We all started shouting our group name and slogan. It felt like battle of slogans; all trying to shout louder and louder and struggling to win the battle. We then left to sit in a ground and had icebreaking session. We had different activities during the whole week which helped me in getting comfortable with the environment of LUMS and understanding how it functions. I learnt a lot, met amazing people and coaches, and gained confidence. I am grateful to especially those people who guided and advised me about the life at LUMS and they are still there to help. We freshmen enjoyed O’week a lot but didn’t know this was the silence before storm: the Enrollment. Our breaths were hooked up on the day of Enrollment. We all were advised to go to respective labs at least two hours earlier. I had enrollment at 12:00 pm and I was at the lab at 8:30 am just to be on the safe side. I was not alone. Many students were at the door of lab. We waited and waited but didn’t move from the lab entrance because we were told you won’t get seats. At last, clock ticked 12:00; the students who were already in there came out and we rushed in. We were given an introductory session about how to enroll, what to do, and how to deal with Zambeel. We had to place our courses in shopping cart between 12:30-12:59 pm and enroll them at sharp 1:00. The whole period was numbing. I could feel a mantle clock ticking in my brain. It felt like a ticking bomb, ready to explode at any time. The clock struck 1:00 and everyone started clicking on enroll button holding their breaths. Lab was in utter silence. As for me, I could feel blood rushing in my cheeks, my palms getting sweaty and heartbeat getting fast. I was reciting all the duas I could remember in my mind. I clicked on “Enroll”, and waited and prayed while starring at the rotating circle on the top of screen. Moments later, another screen appeared with green circles in front of each course. After passing one difficult stage of enrolment, there was another waiting ahead: “Finish Enrolling”. One dungeon after another! At least it felt like a dungeon at that time. I swiftly clicked “Finish Enrolling”. Again, the same rotating circle and I starring at it! A soft scream came out of my mouth “Alhamdulilah!” I got all my courses with all the instructors I wanted (Alhamdulilah!). I was on the seventh sky. But then I heard little shouts behind me: ‘Shit!’, ‘I didn’t get my course’, ‘I didn’t get my instructor’ and so on. I saw lab attendants rushing for their help. It was heart breaking for me, though I was happy for myself but still I had feelings for them too. The severe stress I got was on second enrollment i.e. enrollment for second semester. It was held at 7pm and all labs were full by 11:30am Luckily, I got one last corner seat at the end of IST lab 4 but unluckily no friend around. All the labs were assigned 15 minutes policy that is after 15 minutes computer would log out and anyone can sit at your computer. I didn’t have a laptop so it was necessary for me to be glued at my place. I also had to skip my class for that. I had light breakfast and had to skip lunch just to save my seat and because of that I got stomachache. I had to leave for prayer and asked the girl sitting next to me to take care of my seat and assured her I will be back in 15 minutes but she refused. There was a class-fellow of mine in the same lab. I asked her and she sat on my seat leaving hers (May Allah bless her!). I prayed and came back. Now the next problem was hunger. I tried to divert myself till 4:30pm but after that I couldn’t resist more so I decided to text my roommate. She was in E-lab. She immediately agreed to bring me food (I am really thankful to her for this favor. May Allah bless her too! ) Finally comes the enrollment time and I got the course I wanted (By the way, all this trouble was to get one course and there was Phase II waiting ahead). On that day I realized how people can be both mean and kind. Where I experienced unhelpful behavior, I also experienced kindness and love. It does not matter what life gives you, what you focus on matters and I decided to focus on the love of people that I received. In Phase II, I got my courses but they were dropped because of some issue. In re-Phase II enrollment, I got only one course but it is the way life is: “Kabhi khushi, kabi gham”. I have completed my first year now and Thanks to Allah it went really well, not much of mental stress. I experienced real life during this year; I met snakes, I met pigeons, I met hawks and it is just one year. I hope to learn and experience much more in the coming years.