Prompted by the Faiz centennial year, Justice Markandey Katju of the Supreme Court of India sent an email to friends in Pakistan and India, reproduced here with his permission

In 1982, when I was a lawyer in Allahabad High Court, Faiz Saheb visited Allahabad. Since I was a fan of his, I decided to go to the function (jalsa) at the lawns of the Allahabad University organised in his honour. Firaq Gorakhpuri, Hindi poetess Mahadevi Verma, and other poets and literary figures were also there. It was a veritable galaxy of poetic stars in the firmament.

Firaq Saheb was then 86 years old, and had to be bodily carried by some students on to the dias.

My son Vikram was then seven years old, but I took him along to the function, as I thought that even if he does not understand anything, he would remember all his life that he had seen such eminent poets, and could tell his friends about it in later life.

One of the speakers at the function quoted Firaq’s sher:

“Aane waali naslein tumse rashq kareingi hum aasron
Jab woh jaaneingi ki tumne Firaq ko dekha hai”

(The coming generations will be envious of you, my contemporaries
When they come to know that you have seen Firaq)

He then said that he would like to give his own variation of that sher, which was:

“Aane waali naslein tumse rashq kareingi hum aasron,
Jab woh jaaneingi ki tumne Faiz, Firaq, aur Mahadevi ko dekha hai”

(The coming generations will be envious of you my contemporaries, when they come to know that you had seen Faiz, Firaq, and Mahadevi).

I still remember that in that function a group of Allahabad girls sang Faiz Saheb’s famous poem ‘Gulon mein rang bhare baade naubahaar chale’ beautifully. In fact I have never heard that poem sung so beautifully by anyone the way it was sung by those Allahabad girls, that evening though many have sung it.

I remember the speech Faiz Saheb gave on that occasion. He said that he was honoured to be in Allahabad, the city which had so many rishis and munis in the past (Rishi Bharadwaj had his ashram or hermitage in Allahabad, where Lord Ram came after his exile from Ayodhya). He spoke of his days in the Progressive Writers Association in undivided India. He then recited some of his verses.

Firaq Saheb, Mahadeviji, and others also read their kalaam. The memory of that evening is indelibly engraved in my mind.

— Justice Markandey Katju