Dareechah-e-Nigaarish
Toronto, ON
Canada
talat
Fareed Javed (1927-1977)
A little known modern Urdu poet
It was a late afternoon in the mid-1980's and Lahore's summer was in full swing ... It was siesta time and I was resting and listening to my favorite "All India Radio" ... Suddenly, the door bell rang... I went downstairs to the ground floor entrance to our three storey flat on Temple Road near Regal Chowk and saw that it was my uncle, my chhotay maamoon jaan (Professor Irshad Ghalib) who had come from Rawalpindi for a visit. I was overjoyed to see him. He taught Geography in the government colleges run by the Punjab Education Department and had been stationed in various cities all over Punjab, Pakistan. At that time he was posted at Asghar Mall College in Rawalpindi.
Ghalib Maamoon was also my mentor of sorts for what literature to read, which Art films to view etc. He always had lots of literary anecdotes and behind the scenes info about Art films and I loved to listen to him for hours. So, I brought him upstairs to our living room and our "session" started once my Mom had spent sometime getting updated on family politics and had gone into our kitchen to prepare the evening tea.
That day, Ghalib Maamoon gave me a 1967 issue of "Behtareen Adab" (an annual literary publication that used to be published from Lahore regularly in the 1950's and 1960's) and directed me to read an essay on the poetry of a little known modern Urdu poet, Fareed Javed ... The article had been written by a Karachi-based Urdu critic Shameem Ahmed.
I was impressed by this essay detailing the life and the craft of Fareed Javed. The selections of Urdu ghazals included in the article moved me immensely. Ghalib Maamoon told me that Fareed Javed had served with him as Lecturer in Government Degree College, Rahim Yar Khan (southern Punjab), Pakistan in the 1960's. He had found Fareed Javed to be a bohemian who set his own rules for how to spend his life, was always in an energized creative state and would sometimes become so overcome with this creative energy and the rush of ideas vortexing in his mind that he would exclaim to my maamoon during a conversation "Yahaan Sajda jaa-ez hai!!" (Translation: "At this moment, it would be permitted to bow down in praise of Beauty")
I present some Fareed Javed ghazals here from that article by Shameem Ahmed .... I also request Dareechah visitors to write to me via the Contact Us page in Dareechah if they have Fareed Javed's collection of ghazals in their possession so that I can upload more gems from his pen here.
Dareechah-e-Nigaarish
Toronto, ON
Canada
talat