AKHTAR Payami is known not only as a progressive poet but also as an extraordinary journalist with vast political knowledge. Born in 1931 in the Indian state of Bihar, he experienced the agony of partition and dislocation twice, first when he migrated to East Pakistan in the 1950s and again when he moved to Karachi in 1972.

Associated with progressive student movements in his early days, Payami later became a member of the Communist Party. He belonged to a group of people who believed in humanity and dreamt of a world where human misery is reduced to the bare minimum.

Payami started composing poems at the age of seven, never recorded his verses on paper and memorised his creative writings. This amazing quality resulted in impediments in compiling his writings especially when the poet himself was also reluctant to publish his works. Aiyna Khaanae has been published on the insistence of his friends and family. Payami Sahib’s admirers were consulted and old literary magazines searched to find long-lost poems and make this collection possible.

Belonging to an educated family, Payami was a free soul in a slave society. He was influenced by the revolutionary fervour of his times and admired the Marxist ideology of the Progressive Writers’ Movement in Urdu literature. This contradiction between his nature and his environment led him to express his feelings in a passionate tone. The medium he chose was Urdu nazm that was representative of progress, liberty and social concern instead of the traditional form of Urdu ghazal that was synonymous with subjective experience and bound by fixed rules.

Payami was well aware of the evolution of political economy in human societies and the kind of impact it has on social conditions. He closely observed the havoc played by colonial powers with the colonised world and condemned the way they carved out new states for their material benefits, completely ignoring the socio-cultural relations among people of a particular region. He describes this phenomenon in the following words:

In his poem ‘Amreki Jholi Mein,’ Payami highlights the traitors of this land who not only helped the colonial powers plunder the material treasures of this country but also sold their culture, art and religion. His passionate words to describe it are:

Through his poems Payami inspires us to strive for a better future. He does not lose hope in humanity in general and the common man in particular. There is a feeling of romanticism present in his poems that bars the reader from despairing. This is one of the reasons that make him a great poet. Despite following the progressive tradition of ‘literature for life,’ his literary creations do not reduce to mere sloganeering; rather they have such novelty of thought and fine craft that Payami stands as a towering literary figure. In his poem ‘Mujrim’ he writes:

Payami is also a feminist. He raises the issue of female subjugation in several of his poems and relates it to the patriarchal values that are a result of feudal societies. He connects the problem of female deprivation with poverty and sees its solution in the socialist ideology. His poem ‘Bint-i-Mariyam,’ talks of such themes.

Payami had composed a monumental long poem, tamseeli nazm, ‘Tareekh’. Other famous tamseeli nazmein in Urdu are Saahir Ludhianvi’s ‘Parchhaiyan,’ and Ali Sardar Jafri’s ‘Nai Duniya Ko Salaam.’ Payami’s poem is a short history of humanity and the evolution of human civilisation as observed by Adam and Eve on coming down from heaven to earth across times and spaces. It describes the ills of the society in detail, yet the poem ends with an optimistic note.

After reading Payami’s poems, one can safely say that the progressive school of thought in Urdu literature will survive the test of time. Striving for a better future is progressivism; therefore, it will carry on for all times to come. Payami’s poetry is even relevant to our problems of today. In ‘Rehbaron Kay Naam’, he writes:

If I have to say a one-liner about Payami’s poetry, I will present this verse of his: