Dedicated to the gloomy lives of clerks
Moth eaten hearts and words.
Dedicated to the postmen
Dedicated to the coachmen
Dedicated to the railway workers
Dedicated to the innocent beings in the factories.

O Emperor of the World, Master and God’s representative on this Earth,
this is dedicated to the farmer
whose herds were run off by the wicked men
and whose daughter was carried off by the dacoits.
One finger of whose handful of land was cut by the bureaucrats
and another finger by the government, in the name of taxation.
Whose pride is destroyed under the feet of the men with power.

Dedicated to the sad mothers
whose children sob at night.
Sleepless, who are not steadied by an embrace.
Don’t share what ails them,
and are not consoled by entreaties or tears.

Dedicated to the beautiful girls,
the beauty of whose eyes
on every balcony, behind every curtain,
blossomed in vain and withered away.

Dedicated to those wives
whose bodies have grown tired of trying to look beautiful on loveless beds
…-dedicated to the widows.

Dedicated to the lanes in the slums and colonies
Whose scattered garbage and refuse the moon often contemplates and sanctifies
In the night.
From amongst whose shadows emanates
The hennaed hair under the veils
The clink of bangles
The scent of loosened tresses.
The stench of impassioned bodies burning in their own sweat.

Dedicated to the students
Those who arrived at the gates of the officials
Petitioning with open arms for pen and paper.
But never came back.
Those innocents who, in their idealism,
took the fire of dedicated learning in their young hearts
and reached where
Were being promiscuously distributed the shadows of endless nights.

Dedicated to those prisoners
in whose hearts the future shone like a pearl
But was burnt in the troubled nights of the prison
and diminished into a tiny flicker.

Dedicated to the heralders of the days to come
Those, who, like the scent of a rose, are
Enraptured by their own message.
——————————————

has been translated as

“And whose very feet have been trampled to shreds
Under the footsteps of the powerful.”

Therefore, the word ‘pag’ has been translated as ‘feet’.

However, considering the Punjabi origins of Faiz, could the word ‘pag’ in the original poem actually stand for ‘turban’? I think the lines from the original poem would still make perfect sense or perhaps even better sense than the translation, since the turban also represents honour.

I enjoyed the point about Faiz and Walt Whitman having this voice of the people and the unabashed love for the common man. Another thing that I have always appreciated in Faiz, is that there is no repetition of thought across the entire body of work. Even this poem. Go through every line and each one is a memorable line. My favourite being

Badshaah-e-jahan, Vaali-e-masiva, Nayabullah-e-fil-arz, dehqaan ke naam

Lovely thought that captures the essence of Faiz and his love for the common man

And being reminded of this on a day in which I was inundated with selfish that is the hallmark of our corporate culture. So thank you Raza bhai for making my day

Now I have to search for that Nayyara-Faiz tape :}