A musical tribute to Faiz Ahmed Faiz by
Shubha Mudgal
NMML Auditorium 19 November 2009
NMML, in association with Sahmat, presented a musical tribute to Faiz Ahmed Faiz by Shubha Mudgal. It began with a brief talk on Faiz by S.R. Kidwai, professor, Centre for Indian Languages, JNU, on the eve of the prolific Urdu poet’s 25th death anniversary. Faiz Ahmed Faiz was born in 1911 in Sialkot, then a part of pre-partition India. He died on 20 November 1984. S.R. Kidwai described Faiz as a poet who pioneered the use of imagery and metaphor in Urdu poetry, and said ‘Faiz was a major force in taking Urdu poetry ahead of its classical traditions, and in imbibing new forms of expression adopted from Western traditions’. He is arguably one of the best Urdu poets who succeeded the subcontinent’s poetic legends Ghalib and Iqbal, he said.
Noted singer Shubha Mudgal, who excels in Hindustani classical music forms like Khayal and Thumri, charmed an audience of Urdu poetry lovers by lending her voice and classical singing style to the verses of the poet. Expressing her admiration for Faiz, Shubha Mudgal confessed that she was not very well-versed in the art of ghazal singing, and that this experimentation was to pay tribute to the poet, whom she admired a lot. ‘Though I am not trained in ghazal singing, I am attempting to sing Faiz’s works as this is in the memory of the poet I consider myself a disciple of,’ she said before enthralling a large audience with her rendition of ‘tumko kitno ka lahoo chahiye ae reze watan’, ‘Is waqt to yun hi lagta hai’ and ‘hum dekhenge’ among other poems.
