Pehli si mohabbat پہلی سی مُحبت (like the first love) is a multi channel video installation work (in process). Born and raised around imaginary illusions of romance and as a gay closeted man, my love life was almost non existing until four and half years ago when I fell in love with a musician during my art residency in Switzerland in 2019. I was 36 years old and was experiencing the love I ideally should have encountered at the age of 16. It was my first ever relationship and I imagined it to be my, last. The background sound was created by my lover on viola da gamba on my request to him to bring his feelings into the music, expressing how he felt when he met for the first time. I listened to it again and again in the loop for countless time and and came with the narrative of knotting red threads around our bodies. Red knots in my culture are associated with magic for manifestation for our prayers, particularly related to love life and matrimonial relationships. In Pakistan (and indian subcontinent) muslims who believe in spiritualism tend to tie knots at the shrines of sufi's when we visit these sacred places for our prayers to be fulfilled through them and to come through universe. Since it was my very first adulthood relationship, there was so much passion and flame inside me but also a strange kind of fear of losing him, as finding him so away from my homeland, when i wasnt even looking for love - i found love. It felt too good to be true. For me; the metaphors of red threat and stitching needle against two naked bodies echoed chronicles of longing and belonging with unfamiliar doubts and pangs of the world which isn’t acquiescent to a love so pure. So the work was like a prayer to me. Originally, the moving visual was in-synced only with the sound of voila but after my lover broke up a two years old relationship with me during the covid times through just an email, i went to in sheer depression. During the times of grief i I merged the original sound with the humming of the urdu nazm (poem) Mujh Se Pehli Si Mohabbat Mere Mehboob Na Maang" (translated as "My love, don’t ask me for the love I once gave you"), which is one of my all time avourite poem. I literally grew up reading and hearing this poem but never understood it until i found and lost my first love. 

 

The title of this work has been taken from same Urdu nazm by Faiz Ahmad Faiz.[1] The song is popular through its rendition by singer Noor Jehan and has been notably performed by many others. According to Faiz, the nazm also marks his transition from romantic work of his earlier years to mature works of his later years. The poem appeared in his first collection of poetry Naqsh-e-Fariyadi, published in 1943.[2][3]  "Mujhe Se Pehli Si Mohabbat Mere Mehboob Na Maang" marks his transition from ‘traditional Urdu poetry, to poetry with purpose’.[4] The poet entreats his beloved not to ask of him the love that he once had for the lover because he has witnessed oppression, violence and death.[5] He tells the lover that while he/she/they still enchants him, he can no longer love them with the same intensity as he cannot turn his gaze away from the brutal realities of society built on inequality and injustice.[6][7] The poem contrasts and maintains a tension between the disembodied love of beauty and the ugly reality of social disparity and oppression.[8] I relate to it in context of constant hiding and oppression of sexual orientation in pakistani society. However, it has been noted that the poetic subject remains a reluctant revolutionary who merely views the scenes of social oppression, immobilized by his beloved’s gaze.[9] The poem signals Faiz’s evolution from romantic poetry towards poems that deal with social concerns and has been compared to W. B. Yeats’ poem "Sailing to Byzantium".[10] Faiz himself described it as 'the boundary' between his early romantic work and the mature works of his later years.[11] Ironically i relate it with my real life lived encounter of the most romantice relationship and the seperation from it. The nazm was originally set to music and sung by Noor Jehan, the most renowned late Pakistani singer. I chose an online available unplugged very old recital by her and slowed it down to give it an ambiguous feel. By synchronizing the recital of this particular nazm with the voila da gamba it constructs multiple layers of personal and political reference. As the footage is very extensive, my intentions are to re-form a multi-channel video installation with separating music, recital and may be text in different channels for the future's install. 

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References

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1. ^ Salam, Ziya Us (26 April 2013). "A renaissance of sorts". The Hindu. Retrieved 30 May 2022.

2. ^ "Three Modern Urdu Poets: Faiz, Rashid, Miraji". www.columbia.edu. Retrieved 30 May 2022.

3. ^ "Surekha Sikri's recital of Faiz's 'Mujhse Pahli Si Mohabbat' poem resurfaces online". The Indian Express. 16 July 2021. Retrieved 30 May 2022.

4. ^ "Faiz Ahmad Faiz: The years that preceded Hum Dekhenge". ThePrint. 13 February 2020. Retrieved 30 May 2022.

5. ^ "Faiz Ahmed Faiz: the voice of dissent - ProQuest". Kashmir Monitor. 26 May 2013. ProQuest 1355303737. Retrieved 30 May 2022.

6. ^ "Journey from Ghalib to Faiz - ProQuest". www.proquest.com. The Nation. ProQuest 1507244636. Retrieved 30 May 2022.

7. ^ Ayoob, Mohammed (5 January 2020). "Theatre of the absurd". The Hindu. Retrieved 30 May 2022.

8. ^ "Review: 'Transgressions' Celebrates the Timelessness of Faiz's Poetry". The Wire. Retrieved 30 May 2022.

9. ^ "Progressive gendering & the heroine of Urdu - ProQuest". www.proquest.com. Kashmir Monitor. ProQuest 927047757. Retrieved 30 May 2022.

10. ^ Jabbar, Abdul (1991). "NAOMI LAZARD'S "The True Subject: Selected Poems of Faiz Ahmed Faiz"". Journal of South Asian Literature. 26 (1/2): 156–170. ISSN 0091-5637. JSTOR 40873227. Retrieved 30 May 2022.

11. ^ "'He is still haunting unjust rulers from beyond the grave'". The Indian Express. 7 January 2020. Retrieved 30 May 2022.