Subh-e-Zulmat (Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s Subh-e-Azaadi)
Faiz Ahmed Faiz wrote in ‘Subh-e-Azaadi’ (The Dawn of Freedom), “Yeh daagh daagh ujaalaa, yeh shab gazidaa seher Woh intezaar tha jiska, yeh woh seher to nahin” (This stained, pitted first-light, this day-break, battered by night, this dawn that we all ached for, this is not that one.) and I know he wrote of partition and Hindustan but all I can think of is how he just wrote a lament of an abandoned heart in the morning. He wrote of quiet realisation that pretends to be bereft of desperation He wrote of desperation that met his (my) eyes in dawn’s first sun He wrote of disappointment—in the self—for not having seen the truth before it settled He wrote in eulogy of the partition that seemed our own (my own) but was orchestrated in the garbs of concealed consent (Am I allowed to say no if I do not have what yes takes? Am I allowed choice when my choice was made for me before I even knew that the British were not my friends?) This dawn was not supposed to be this way, to come this way, to...
