Faiz Ahmed Faiz has been sung by almost all the leading vocalists.
It has been a tradition to sing the poetry of the leading poets – particularly those who are practitioners of the form of ghazal. In Punjabi, the kaafi is so widely sung that many have been forced to draw a relationship between kaafi, the music mode, and kaafi, the poetic genre. The opinion is divided on whether kaafi is named after the poetic form or the poetic form was named after the modal scale.

The dastaans, kathas, qissas and the other longer poetical works have been sung over centuries, but it is impossible to tell with certainty when it all started. Probably, in ancient times, when it was found to that the two: poetry and music, have a conjoined existence.

In the Persian tradition, it was mostly the longer poems that were sung or recited, but in Urdu, the ghazal soon became the focus. It evolved, over time, into an autonomous music form as well. However, the singing of the nazm as it evolved after the brush with European poetry did not have a ready acceptance.

Many of the most valued poets became famous after they were sung by leading vocalists and the reason is not difficult to fathom. Ours is primarily an oral culture where the spoken word has more value and gets instant appreciation. The poetry too was recited or read out loud. There has been a valued tradition of the mushaira here as the words were literally plucked out of the mouth of the poets, in anticipation of rounding off the verse or a couplet and drowned in the cheers and acclamation of appreciation. The same words were sung as numbers by the leading vocalists and became the words or the lyrics as bols as asthais/antaras to reach a much wider audience. As most of the people were not literate, the spoken and the heard word was an effective and workable manner of communication. So the creation went from appreciation by a few initiated listeners/readers to a much wider populace with diverse and varying taste.

It must be said in the same breath that a clear distinction exists between the poets who were committed and those who were willing to make compromises by crossing over to lyricism thus advancing the cause of their words. This amphibian crossing-over was looked down upon by many in the high tradition of poetry and its populism decried and frowned upon. It was supposed to be peddled by those who placed poetry below the bandish and hence the sur. It was said with disdain that a good poet did not need the crutches of a singer or music to be appreciated, only a tukbund was in need of a vocalist, music composition or bandish to facilitate his cause.

At the same time, it must be said that musical expression, especially in its higher form considered the word as a hindrance to the full application of the sur (note). It was seen as creating a duality of emotive response, divided between the cast spelt by music and the emotional matrix generated by the poetry. In the higher classical tradition of music, the lyrics were specifically written for the bandish in a particular raga and then rendered keeping in view the unity of expression, rather than managing and juggling the duality all the time.

However, in times when music is judged by its content, the distinction between good poetry or an autonomous form of poetry and its lyrical version has got blurred. The same distinction has been carried over as the poets writing films songs are rarely considered serious poets, only peddlers negotiating the two major streams of human expression.

So it is like a contest between two opposites which may seem similar. The word and the sur do not snuggle easily into each other’s laps but militates against each other. Taking it for granted that they do is to be duped by a superficial similarity. Faiz was lucky in that he was sung by some of the leading vocalists of the era and they were able to make musical sense out of the lyrics. These were, otherwise, great vocalists and had the credentials before they sung Faiz. The result was that they could use his lyrics as raw material for their bandishes.

The three major numbers to have been sung have been mujh sey pehli si muhabbat meray mehboob na maang by Noor Jehan, probably composed by Rasheed Attre; gulon main rung bharay baade nau bahar chalay by Mehdi Hassan: probably composed by Mehdi Hasan himself; and dashte tanhai main aey jane jahan larzaan hain by Iqbal Bano: composed definitely by Mehdi Zaheer.

This is not to say that the other numbers sung by many other leading vocalists have not been good –some more sung by the three vocalists mentioned above have too been truly outstanding but the three mentioned have been groundbreaking in composition and rendition. Their success was probably also facilitated by the timing of their release.

Two of these also found their way into films which added to their popularity particularly among the masses and the people in the street started to hum these compositions. It is one of the advantages of mass media that its outreach is incredibly broad. It can address the unsuspecting wayside pickers of the word through the sur.

The writer is a culture critic based in Lahore