LAHORE: Renowned Urdu poet Ahmad Faraz was remembered across the country on Tuesday on his 18th death anniversary, with literary circles, universities and readers marking the passing of a writer whose ghazals remain among the most widely recited in the language.
Born on January 12, 1931, in Kohat, Faraz emerged as one of the most celebrated poets of the modern era. He began his professional life as a scriptwriter for Radio Pakistan Peshawar and later joined Peshawar University as a lecturer — a path that placed him at the intersection of broadcast, classroom and literary gathering at a moment when all three were shaping the direction of post-Partition Urdu poetry.
His acclaimed literary works include Janaan Janaan, Tanha Tanha, Ghazal Bahana Karun and Shab-e-Khoon. He was also associated with the Progressive Writers Movement, the current that pushed Urdu literature towards social engagement and away from purely ornamental convention.
What distinguished Faraz was the way he refused to let those two registers stay separate. He was read, and is still read, primarily as a poet of love and longing — accessible, direct, singable, and for that reason carried far beyond literary journals into films, television and the repertoires of singers on both sides of the border.
But the same voice that made his romantic verse so plain-spoken also made his political verse unusually difficult for authorities to ignore. He wrote openly against military rule during the Zia-ul-Haq era, and the consequences followed: detention, and then several years of self-imposed exile in Britain, Canada and Europe before he returned home.
That combination is the reason his work has aged the way it has. A reader can arrive through a love ghazal heard in a song and find, a few pages later, poems addressed squarely to power.
In recognition of his contributions to Urdu literature, Faraz was decorated with prestigious national awards including the Sitara-e-Imtiaz and the Hilal-e-Imtiaz.
He later returned the Hilal-e-Imtiaz in protest against the policies of the government of the day, saying his conscience would not permit him to keep a state honour under those circumstances — a gesture that has since become one of the most frequently cited episodes of his public life, and one that sits uneasily alongside the official ceremonies now held in his memory.
He also held senior positions in the country’s cultural institutions, including the Pakistan Academy of Letters and the National Book Foundation.
Ahmad Faraz passed away on August 25, 2008, in Islamabad, leaving behind a literary legacy that continues to inspire readers and writers alike.
Eighteen years on, his standing rests less on prizes than on circulation. His couplets are quoted at mushairas and protests, set to music by singers across generations, and shared online by readers who often encounter him first through a two-line fragment rather than a collection. Few modern Urdu poets have travelled that far outside the seminar room.
For Lahore’s literary community — where his work has long been a fixture of gatherings at Alhamra, Pak Tea House and the city’s university departments — the anniversary is an occasion less of mourning than of recitation.
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