Faid Ahmad Faiz died long before 12 October 1999. God spared him from seeing another wrethed day in the history of a dejected people of a distressed land. He had had enough as you can see from his following poem (which I have tried to mess up by translating into Pinglish).
Imagine! Eight loooooooong years of misery and oblivious bliss of callousness. Musharraf and his partners in crime are busy power playing and spinning and distorting and bulldozing. Benazir is busy making deals and bargains and stooping to help hiding her blatant corruption behind shamefacedly flagrant, hastily issued mutually accommodating ordinances. Fazl ur Rahman is busy selling his father's good name and his own dark soul for leading the lambs of opposition parties en mass to the delayed, slow motioned slaughter like a Ghaddar layla (draft lamb). Qazi Hussain is busy throwing belated tantrums at his own foolishness or methodical madness and seeking forgiveness for his past crimes so that he has the clean slate to commit new blunders or heists. Judges are busy collecting pay checks and perks and filling space in august, majestic houses of justice and trying their best to avoid dispensing justice and doing utmost to stay clear of stepping on delicate toes.
Common people are too busy making just enough to feed their starving families who are barely clinging to what is called existence. Among them who commit crimes of being righteous, religious, or vigilant of their own or others' rights find themselves extraordinarily renditioned into black sites and go traceless leaving their loved ones behind beating their chests and banging on the doors of power and justice, in vain.
Who is there to remember and commemorate what befell the people of Pakistan today eight fateful years ago? Some crafty ones among polititians who are worried to stay relevant are showing token presence by making ritual, limpy statements of condemnations because they can't do more than that. They have run out of all steam.
What a pathetic bunch of motley fools!
No one asks who robbed the poor masses? Who has their blood on his hands? Who is there to mourn for 12 October, 1999?
KaheeN naheeN hai, kaheeN bhi naheeN lahoo ka suraagh
Nah dast-o naakhun-e qaatil nah aasteeN peh nishaaN
Nah surkhi-e lab-e khanjar nah rang-e nok-e sinaaN
Nah khaak par koi dhabbha nah baam par koi daagh
KaheeN naheeN hai, kaheeN bhi naheeN lahoo ka suragh
Nowhere, blood can't be traced anywhere!
It's not on murdrer's nail, hand or sleeve;
Dagger's edge reddened neither arrowhead;
No dust stained, no wall smudged;
Nowhere, no trace anywhere.
Nah sarf-e khidmat-e shaahaaN keh khoonbahaa daytay
Nah deeN ki nazr keh baiaana-e jazaa daytay
Nah razm gaah mayN barsa keh mu'tabar hota
Kisi 'alam peh raqam ho kay mushtahar hota
Pukaarta raha, bay asra, yateem lahoo
Kisi ko behr-e samaa'at nah waqt tha nah damaagh
Nah mudda'ee, nah shahaadat, hisaab paak huwa
Yeh khoon-e khaak nasheenaaN tha rizq-e khaak huwa.
Served to no king's purpose, so no applaud;
Not devoted to a faith, so no reward;
Flow'd not on a battlefield, not honor'd;
Brandished on a flag, nor bannered;
Kept calling, haplessly. Orphaned blood!
None paid mind to it, none time;
No plaintiff, no witness, no case.
T'was blood 'f squalids, left no trace.
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