LAHORE: The 29th death anniversary of Faiz Ahmad Faiz, a revolutionary Urdu poet, was observed with traditional zeal and fervor on Wednesday.
Faiz was born in Sialkot on February 13, 1911. He was one of the most prolific poets of the 20th century. Dubbed the ‘voice of a revolution’, he extended an asylum of sorts to the masses in a period where freedom of speech was crushed to a bare minimum.
In the 1930s Faiz Ahmed Faiz married Alys Faiz, a British woman. They had two daughters. Alys Faiz’s influence on Faiz’s life and poetry is reputed to have been great.
He started a branch of Anjuman Tarraqi Pasand Mussanafin e Hind in Punjab in 1936. Also he was a Member and Secretary of this branch.
Faiz was also Editor of Mahanama Adab e Lateef (1938 1942 AD). He became a lecturer in English at MAO College‚ Amritsar in 1935 and then at Hailey College of Commerce‚ Lahore.
He briefly joined the British Indian Army and was promoted to the rank of Lieut. Colonel in 1944.
He resigned from the Army in 1947 and returned to Lahore to become the first editor in chief of the Pakistan Times‚ a paper started by Mian Iftikharuddin under Jinnah’s patronage.–Staff Reporter