The crowd was injected with adrenaline, which is the norm at festivals in Lahore. Although the site was flooded with water, Lahore is still a lively city. The food court was a hornet’s nest with sweet and spicy aromas, but Lahoris live for food. The Alhambra produced a rainbow of sounds and sights, but at the same time spring had arrived.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz – a people’s poet, a populist, an ideologue, a romantic, an irredeemable rebel in the eyes of some, a recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize, a man who stalks and stalks his land endlessly. When he died in 1984, his very name remained. He wore a shroud.
It was around this time that Iqbal Bano braved the wrath of an unjust law by singing the poet’s iconic ‘Hum Dekain Gaye’ to an excited audience. It does not end with the state’s condemnation. When he was young, one of Faiz’s grandchildren came home and asked his mother what his grandfather had done. Because his classmates turned their noses up when he talked about Faiz.
Fast forward to February 2024, and it’s a different story, a different country, and the brand name Faiz has been reborn as a resonant mantra. Poet Faiz has been riding a wave of praise, but it is the festival that bears his name that has raised questions and left a deep mark on our collective conscience. After all, what is the secret behind the unprecedented surge of public enthusiasm to celebrate his creativity so gayly?
After 11 years, why does Lahore’s Faiz Festival continue to attract more and more people?
After all, the festival is still about family, friends, and fans. Slowly and steadily for the first few years, it rose like a sphinx and emerged as a spatial and seasonal landmark. It is the new reality of Lahore, the literary, social and cathartic centerpiece of a city already bursting with spate of festivities. Can Lahore get more festive?
Lahore’s public spaces are booked up in quick succession in February, but did we really need another festival? A festival celebrating everything from spring to the world and its wives in an already crowded season Was there enough space to do so? Although his fan base is significant, do people have the energy to care about Faiz given that his events are entirely curated by his family?
The Faiz brand has a presence at home and abroad, but what is the secret behind the explosive popularity of Lahore’s festival? Zooming from 2011 to 2024, there is a vague post-Faiz 100th anniversary celebration. The idea has become a home for almost everyone who is someone or, more importantly, no one. Is it a case of mysticism, magic, or the indomitable Lahori spirit whose trademark is the opportunity to question ourselves and others and find catharsis?
“Faiz Festival was never designed to deify a man. He is an ideology and the festival needed to demonstrate that ideology and inclusivity,” said Adeel Hashmi, executive director of Faiz Foundation. To tell.
The festival’s content ranged from entertainment to intellectual discussions to gourmet food, and this year Faiz’s photo was featured prominently on posters around the city.
However, in some sections of society, Faiz is considered to enjoy a social cult-like popularity, and even those who do not understand his poetic value at all are elitist in talking about Faiz. You just want to connect with him because it’s trendy and fashionable. he. They believe the festival is a drama cooked up by his family and friends to make a name for themselves. They say the festival isn’t worth all the hype.
But it was the demographic group that emerged after Faiz’s death that really gave the event its tingle and turned the revelry into a phenomenon. Young people read Faiz and were drawn to attend festivals attributed to him in the age of AI. [artificial intelligence] about it. Faiz Festival brings charisma to a new generation of her under-25s who were born, raised and educated in a far less claustrophobic and repressive environment than their parents.
They started asking panelists open-ended questions because, like Faiz, the festival gave them the right to ask questions and often get answers. With Faiz incorporated into the school syllabus, he became the panacea to their dilemma.
Another segment of the crush crowd’s participants were the upper middle class, who simply came from frustration. They experienced broken dreams, harsh realities, and realized they needed a space to vent their frustrations. They realized their bubble had burst and came hoping to meet others who had been hurt as well.
They melted into Awaam, which was elicited from the audience by Faiz’s masterful inte sub. This class was once again forced to walk in chains of unjust burdens. Of course, the seniors, as always, came in wheelchairs and walking aids to pay tribute to Faiz’s creativity, as they were among the few remaining from Faiz’s time.
The finale was a festival that brought together family, friends, and fans. Stripped of politics, officeholders, VIP culture and reserved seats, the event was a complete Awaami delight.
Managing comprehensive refinement on such a large scale was perhaps the greater challenge for the festival’s designers. If they prioritized only literature, book readings and presentations, debates and dialogue, there was little chance that Faiz’s true fan base would feel at home at Alhamra.
But the addition of dance and music, fun activities and street entertainment, and the show of actually inviting people to write letters to Faiz is a clarion call addressed to Awaam, who arrives in droves and dances. I made a statement about this. To the beat of the drum.
This year’s Faiz competition was a showcase for dialogue between national and international panelists, maintaining a logical and intellectual balance between the literary and entertainment categories. It resulted in a package of informed discussions and dialogues focused on relevant topics from the remnants of partition to the joy of Urdu in a multilingual world.
Spiritual catharsis came through mushairas and qawwali. Outdoor drum circles evoked abandonment. Children’s readings, tableaus, work on Palestine, and cross-border connections provided spiritual engagement.
Faiz’s 100th birth anniversary in 2011 was a page-turner. Because on that day, when friends and family came to pay their respects in public, perhaps for the first time since his death, a vague idea, its origins rather haphazard, came to mind: This is because it has become a problem for humans. They had random conversations. One was a family member and the other was a fan. And so Faiz Festival was born.
The logistics, economics, and direness of the festival’s program would have discouraged a lesser soul, but not his family. Outlandish plans, such as selling off family jewelry to raise money for the festival, were voted in and out of favor, but word spread and sponsors began to trickle in. “But the first year he wasn’t able to repay the event manager for 12 months,” he says. Moniza Hashmi, Director and Chief Organizer of Faiz Festival;
However, the harsh reality remains that every festival requires significant cash flow. All events remained free, as per tradition, with the exception of a few events. But detractors would have you believe that the Faiz brand is being cashed in and exploited.
But as Faiz said, “Chalo phir se muskurayein” [Let’s smile again]. By the way, it was always the festival’s official theme song.
The author is a freelance journalist, translator, and creative content writer.
She has taught in the LUMS Lifetime Program.
X: @daudnyla
EOS, published at dawn on March 3, 2024