Birthdays used to be the day when Dad was at home and we were all together.
Saleema Hashmi, daughter of renowned Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, said this in an interview with ccr on the occasion of her father's 111th birthday.
"Most of the time they were not in Lahore.
He had spent a lot of time in jail. So birthdays would be the day when they were at home and we were all together, so it would be our birthday. '
Salima Hashmi, quoting her father's date of birth, said that her grandmother only remembered that it was cold and it was raining.
"We've been thinking for years that Dad's birthday is in January. Then there was a spy in our family. He went to Sialkot and searched the whole record. Then he went to the office of the Municipal Corporation and found out that his father's date of birth is 13th February 1911.
And then February 13 became the official and authoritative date.
Relationship of Begum Sarfraz Iqbal and Faiz Ahmed Faiz
While Faiz Ahmed Faiz's fans are all over the world, one of them was Begum Sarfraz Iqbal, a resident of Islamabad, who was very devoted to Faiz Ahmed Faiz and for whom he also compiled a book.
Begum Sarfraz Iqbal's daughter Dr. Samina, who lives in Australia, told the ccr in an interview that her mother had a devotional friendship with Faiz. "Whenever Uncle Faiz came to Islamabad from Rawalpindi, he would stay at our house."
Amy had such a deep friendship with Uncle and Uncle Faiz used to correspond with Amy wherever he went and Amy also used to write letters to him. All these memories of my mother are compiled in the form of a book in Daman Yusuf.
Dr. Samina said that my mother had told me that Faiz Sahib had written a poem for me which was for me and it is a part of this book. That poem was something like this-
What should I write about my relationship with you?
It is not written anywhere in the language of love
Hiding this special love from everyone
Gone are the days of embracing
Dr. Samina said that her house was a central place for fans of Urdu literature.
"People will not know but the road on which our house is located in Islamabad is called Begum Sarfraz Iqbal Road. Our mother did a lot of service to Urdu literature. There are many writers whose names people used to come to our house. Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Ahmad Faraz, Munir Niazi, Zameer Jafari, Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi, Bano Qudsia, Ashfaq Ahmad, Ibn Insha, Qudratullah Shehab, Mumtaz Mufti, there are many names. All of them had a very close relationship with our mother.
Friendship of Madam Noor Jahan and Faiz
.Salima Hashmi, while sharing her father's memories, said that he was in Lahore years ago when his friend Hameed Akhtar brought Madam Noor Jahan with him.
Saleema Hashmi says that they had just got married and on this occasion another friend of Faiz Raza Kazim was also present there who had brought with him a tape recorder which he had just bought.
We asked Madam Noorjahan to sing something. She sang songs and poems without instrument in which she also sang a famous song of Mundia Sialkotia and Faiz Sahib. It was good. '
The lyrics of this poem are as follows:
Then someone came to heart! No no
There will be a way, it will go somewhere else
Lock your sleepless doors
Now no one is here, no one will come
Always be with friends
Saleema Hashmi says that when Faiz was in jail, some of his friends used to send flowers and fruits.
"His friend took special care of my mother and both of us sisters so that we would not feel that if Abu was not with us, he would have forgotten them."
She says that people in other cities also started celebrating Faiz's birthday and a tradition was established that birthdays were celebrated in a more 'formal' way.
As children, we used to see that if Abu was at home, we would celebrate his birthday. If not, we would celebrate in absentia."
Saleema Hashmi said that Faiz Sahib's close friends with whom he had a close meeting included Peter Bukhari, Faiz's teacher Sufi Ghulam Mustafa Tabassum, Hameed Akhtar, Abdullah Malik and others.
Then there were teenagers Nahid among those younger than him and in London we saw Iftikhar Arif a lot. Among the friends he saw in his childhood were Maulana Chirag Hassan Hasrat and Badruddin Badr. Then the friends of journalism were different, Mazhar Ali Khan was, Hamid Nizami was.
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