Rekha Bharadwaj to sing Faiz’s poetry

After directing 7 Khoon Maaf, filmmaker and musician Vishal Bharadwaj is collaborating with his wife Rekha Bharadwaj on a poetic project.

After directing 7 Khoon Maaf, filmmaker and musician Vishal Bharadwaj is collaborating with his wife Rekha Bharadwaj on a poetic project.

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He has set to music poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, a liberal and secular Pakistani poet, and his wife will sing them today at a performance in Prithvi Theatre called Gulon Mein Rang Bharo (Colour the flowers), the title of one of Faiz’s poems.

Theatre director Salim Arif and actor Lubna Salim will also read out letters that Faiz wrote to his British wife Alys when he spent five years in jail in the early 1950s.

“Like Binayak Sen, Faiz was jailed on sedition charges,” said Arif. “He wrote some of his most important poems during this time.”

The presentation is part of a week-long festival marking the 10th anniversary of theatre group Essay Communications, which has included tributes to both Faiz on his 100th birth anniversary and Rabindranath Tagore’s 150th.

“These two poets’ work represented a synthesis of modernity and classic ism,” said Arif. “This is an opportunity for the young generation to get to know them.”

In one letter, Faiz tells his wife that her loneliness might be worse than his even though she is free because he derives courage from his convictions and wonders whether he is putting his family through too much hardship.

In another, he describes the colours of sky he sees from his jail window. In yet another, he jokes that he may have trouble adjusting to life outside jail after getting used to its rigours.