A dear friend and I recently exchanged messages about a Sufi parable. A Sufi fakir, Junaid was very attached to his son and lost him suddenly in an accident. Everyone thought he would be devastated. So, when his wife and others wondered why he was not grieving and asked Junaid, he responded, “For a moment …
Beguiling eyes
“Eyes” have remained the subject for my past two blogs and I have shared a few of my favorite Bollywood songs and other poetry on this theme. I now conclude with these two compositions. The first song is from the hit 1970 movie Safar (The Journey). It was picturized on the (first) “Superstar" of Bollywood, …
Enrapturing eyes
Last week I had commented on a nazm (poem) by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, extolling the beauty of eyes. A friend wrote to inquire if the nazm was in fact, not a love poem but a protest lyric since its latter verses continue along the lines that: … Aur bhi dukh hai zamaane mein muhabbat ke …
Hum Dekhenge … We Shall See
Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1911 – 1984) was a Pakistani poet par-excellence. A staunch Marxist, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and awarded the Lenin Peace Prize. His strong opposition to illiberal political and religious ideologies resulted in frequent jail sentences and forced or self-imposed exile in England and Lebanon. In 1990, Pakistan …
