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Monday July 14, 2025

Touching presentation of correspondence between Faiz and Alys

June 27, 2014
Karachi
How even the most peaceful of home life can be turned into something traumatic just because of intolerance and free expression of one’s views was demonstrated on Thursday through a reading of the letters exchanged between one of the greatest gifts to the socialist cause, the revolutionary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, and his wife Alys while the former was in jail having been indicted in the Rawalpindi Conspiracy case of 1951.
The function held at T2F was arranged by Zambeel Dramatic Readings. Titled ‘Dhal Gaya Hijr Ka Din’, it featured noted personalities of the theatrical world, Khalid Ahmed and Nimra Bucha, reading Faiz and Alys, respectively.
The letters reflected years of hardship, struggle and loneliness during Faiz’s detention, so poignantly portrayed through the masterly presentation of the two, the most poetic and profound of narration and perfect intonation. The letters begin with Faiz’s arrival in jail in 1951. Despite the frightening thing the very thought of a jail is, Faiz’s letters seem to be tinged with satire and humour.
Alys’s letters, however, are more sombre and thought-provoking. Reflective of the devotion of a loving wife, she says in one of her letters: “Things that meant so much now seem to mean so little.” Then there’s Faiz’s equally reassuring reply: “Cheer up. You still have a long time to live.”
The letters also bring out the socialist and egalitarian mindset of the couple. Alys says in one of her letters: “Lahore has become a city of crime and murder. We dare not venture out late in the night. There’s no wheat flour. It is all in the houses of the ministers. The poor are being left to their fate.”
Of course, there are very touching moments too, especially when Alys, in one of her letters, quotes their daughter Cheemi (Salima), who, longing to see her father, says: “Abbu kab aayengay? (When will father return?)”
This shows how intolerance and ideological squabbles in society can

inflict sentimental injuries on the lives of being as endearing, innocent, blameless and beautiful as children.
Faiz, a revolutionary poet, never made a secret of his staunch socialist ideals. He was a humanist and, as such, a great upholder of social justice and egalitarianism. He was averse to capitalist and feudal exploitation and the gaping economic disparity.