بول کہ لب آزاد ہیں تیرے Bol Ke Lab Azaad Hain Tere — Speak, Your Lips Are Free

Faiz Ahmed Faiz

1911– 1984

Nazm

Faiz wrote this before Partition, and it has been sung at protests in both countries ever since, usually by people the government of the day would rather have kept quiet.

It is twelve lines long and it says one word five times. Speak. What is unusual is the reason it gives, because Faiz never claims that speaking will change anything. Every reason in the poem is about what you still happen to have, and about how long you are likely to keep it.

01 — bol ki lab aazad hain tere

بول کہ لب آزاد ہیں تیرے
بول زباں اب تک تیری ہے
تیرا ستواں جسم ہے تیرا
بول کہ جاں اب تک تیری ہے

बोल कि लब आज़ाद हैं तेरे
बोल ज़बाँ अब तक तेरी है
तेरा सुत्वाँ जिस्म है तेरा
बोल कि जाँ अब तक तेरी है

bol ki lab aazad hain tere
bol zaban ab tak teri hai
tera sutvan jism hai tera
bol ki jaan ab tak teri hai

Speak — your lips are free. Speak — your tongue is still your own. This straight-backed body of yours is yours. Speak — your life is still your own.

Four possessions, counted off: lips, tongue, body, life. And ab tak, still, up to now, is the whole warning. Nobody points out that a thing is still yours unless there is a plan for it. Sutvan means upright and well-made, so the body he names is one that has not been broken yet.

لب lab: lips
ستواں sutvan: straight, upright, well-proportioned
اب تک ab tak: still, up to now — and no promises after that

02 — dekh ki aahan-gar ki dukan men

دیکھ کہ آہن گر کی دکاں میں
تند ہیں شعلے سرخ ہے آہن
کھلنے لگے قفلوں کے دہانے
پھیلا ہر اک زنجیر کا دامن

देख कि आहन-गर की दुकाँ में
तुंद हैं शोले सुर्ख़ है आहन
खुलने लगे क़ुफ़्लों के दहाने
फैला हर इक ज़ंजीर का दामन

dekh ki aahan-gar ki dukan men
tund hain shole surkh hai aahan
khulne lage quflon ke dahane
phaila har ik zanjir ka daman

Look — in the blacksmith's shop the flames are fierce and the iron is glowing red. The mouths of the locks have started to open. The skirt of every chain has spread wide.

It reads like a jailbreak, and it may well be one. But a blacksmith's shop is also where chains are made, and iron that is red-hot is soft in both directions. You can open it or you can close it around someone. A chain spreading its daman, the hem of a garment, is either falling apart or opening its arms. Faiz refuses to say which, and the refusal is doing the work: this is the hour when things can go either way, which is exactly why speaking now counts.

آہن گر aahan-gar: a blacksmith, an iron-worker
تند tund: fierce, sharp, violent
قفل qufl: a lock, a padlock
دامن daman: the hem or skirt of a garment; the part you spread to gather things in

03 — bol ye thoda vaqt bahut hai

بول یہ تھوڑا وقت بہت ہے
جسم و زباں کی موت سے پہلے
بول کہ سچ زندہ ہے اب تک
بول جو کچھ کہنا ہے کہہ لے

बोल ये थोड़ा वक़्त बहुत है
जिस्म ओ ज़बाँ की मौत से पहले
बोल कि सच ज़िंदा है अब तक
बोल जो कुछ कहना है कह ले

bol ye thoda vaqt bahut hai
jism o zaban ki maut se pahle
bol ki sach zinda hai ab tak
bol jo kuchh kahna hai kah le

Speak — this little time is more than enough. Before the body and the tongue are dead. Speak, because the truth is still alive. Speak: whatever you have to say, say it.

He separates the death of the tongue from the death of the body, and names the tongue first. That is an accurate description of how silencing actually works, since the person is usually left standing. Then the reason to speak, and it is not that speaking will win. Only that the truth has not died yet. Same phrase as the first stanza, ab tak, now attached to the thing being said rather than the one saying it.

سچ sach: truth — the plain everyday word, not a lofty one

Reading it whole

This is not a hopeful poem and it is not trying to be. Nobody in it is promised a victory, or even an audience. What it offers instead is an inventory of things that are still yours for the moment, and an unmistakable warning that this will not go on. Read it that way and it stops being an anthem and turns into something a good deal more urgent.

Your lips. Your tongue. Your body. Your life. He counts them out in the first four lines like a man checking his pockets before the door closes. Nothing has been taken yet. Everything is still there. That is what turns the opening into a countdown rather than a list.

The middle stanza is where the poem stops promising and starts hesitating. The flames are fierce, the iron is red, the locks are opening, the chains are spreading their skirts wide. It could be the morning of a release. It could equally be the afternoon before the forgings. The poem will not say, and in that hanging moment the things that were still yours in the first stanza stop sounding like they will be for long.

Then the last stanza says what the poem has been holding back. This little time is plenty, he says, plenty for saying what you have to say before the body and the tongue are dead. Not before you are dead. And then the closing line everything has been building toward: speak, because the truth is still alive. Not because it will win, not because anybody is listening. Only that it is not dead yet.

Tina Sani sings it unhurried enough to let each instruction land on its own. Sneha Khanwalkar set it in 2018 for Manto, a film about a writer who was tried for obscenity six times.

Recordings

Tina Sani

Unhurried enough to let each instruction land on its own.
Sneha Khanwalkar, for the film Manto

A 2018 setting for a film about a writer who was tried for obscenity six times.

Text and rights

Devanagari text supplied and checked by a reader who knows the language. The Urdu script and the transliteration follow that reading.

The nazm is usually printed under the single-word title Bol, and belongs to Faiz's first collection, Naqsh-e-Faryadi.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz died in 1984, so this poem is still in copyright. It is quoted here as the subject of Harf's own criticism: the translation, the reading of each stanza and the essay around them are original work written for this page. If you hold the rights and would like something changed, tell us on Instagram.