PESHAWAR, Aug 16: Farid Gul will launch his maiden collection of English poetry, Paris Hilton – the poor poet and other poems, at Area Study Centre of University of Peshawar today (Saturday).
Born and bred in Peshawar city, the 30-year-old from Momand tribe is a graduate of criminology and social work.
He has long worked for youths at risk and vulnerable children in the United Kingdom.
Embellished with beautiful images through 117 poems, the poetry collection is spread over 119 pages reflecting the miserable plight of the Pashtun region plagued by extremism and militancy for the last few decades.
This has been the first collection of English poetry by a Pashtun since 9/11 which sheds light on the cultural death of Pashtun identity.
During his stay in England back in 2007, Farid Gul used to write lyrics in English for a local music band ‘Fire’ at Middlesex University, London.
He had earlier launched his poetic career at high school in Pashto and Urdu simultaneously but he was made fun of.
Mr Gul found his audience unappreciative of his raw talent.
“I needed a space and privacy to express my teenage feelings. The English language provided me both. But looking back at the horrible situation of my Pashtun brethren, I began using my poetic talent in English to versify the brutal killing of my people and culture to get heard at large scale,” he told Dawn.
Mr Kalim, a graduate in English and poetry lover, said during Afghan conflict, a culture of violence was promoted through some Pashto poetasters to fan the war and to radicalise the Afghan youth but as they were not genuine poets so it could not become part of the genuine Pashto bulk of literature.
“Young poets like Farid Gul should come forward to let the world know what devastating situation our country is going through and composing feelings in English is most welcomed at this critical hour when we are in dire need to get heard,” he said.Professor Rajwali Shah Khattak, noted poet and research scholar, said Mr Gul’s poetic expression could rightly be ranked as a true spirit of the age and could justifiably be called the poetry of resistance.
“For me, it was no less than a moment of great joy to know that in 2012, out of more than 1000 published titles of Pashto in Peshawar, not a single one was found even implicitly giving vent to glorify the ongoing militancy as jihad,” he said.
He said Pashtun poets, artistes, singers and intellectuals had rejected to inject or instill violence into the minds of people and rather, they had determined to fight back the menace of militancy through their inborn talent to save their cultural identity, which was the strength of the nation.
“However, one very important fact which is being debated by our political pundits is the Pashtun cultural narrative which at times inherently glorifies gun and the gunner, even in our folk tales and tribal traditions some outdated so-called rituals like swara and ghag have to be discouraged,” he said.
Mohammad Rome, a resident of Swat and head of the Pakhtunkhwa Cultural Foundation (PCF), Peshawar, said his organisation had collected hundreds of peace poems contributed by over 200 Pashto poets hailing from Fata and another 100 poets from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and also had them rendered into English verse while professional Pashto singers had sung some 300 inspiring poems out of the large bulk of peace poetry specifically focused on peace themes.
“The project took us two long years. The English version of peace poetry will spread over five volumes if published. Also a separate peace songs album in Pashto will be released for which we are looking for sponsors, a foreign organisation has agreed to help us execute our ambitious project in near future,” he said.
