{"id":342744,"date":"2023-04-01T03:28:26","date_gmt":"2023-04-01T08:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=342744"},"modified":"2023-03-31T03:41:09","modified_gmt":"2023-03-31T09:11:09","slug":"baba-farid-the-great-mystic-who-weaved-a-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/baba-farid-the-great-mystic-who-weaved-a-magic\/","title":{"rendered":"Baba Farid: The great mystic who weaved a magic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This recently published book on Baba Farid\u2019s verse titled Farid\u2019s Couplets, is remarkably well published where academic T.C Ghai has translated his verse into English. And also stands out the original text in Gurumukhi, Shahmukhi and\u00a0 Devanagari. The translated couplets manage to achieve intensity of original Farid. A book review by Humra Quraishi<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I hold this book in my hands to read sufi-mystic Baba Farid\u2019s couplets, emotions do hold sway, with nostalgia overpowering. My mother was always so fascinated by Baba Farid\u2019s verse that she\u2019d decided to name her first born son, Farid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My younger sister and I were  in the  junior school \u2013 St  Francis  Convent in Jhansi, and I recall how excitedly we\u2019d rush home from school to play with our baby brother named Farid by my parents. We\u2019d play with him till school homework took over. This went on for almost eleven months, till that fateful afternoon when Farid passed away. I still recall those details. That  particular afternoon when my  sister and I returned from school, we saw several family friends standing in and around the main living room, with my parents sitting  close to my brother\u2019s form, all too wrapped  up in  a white cotton sheet, readied for burial. He was born very feeble and extremely fragile, with the medical specialists not holding out much hope.  He couldn\u2019t go beyond those eleven months. Leaving memories and bruised emotions. Another offshoot, after my  brother\u2019s  passing away I  have been reading as many verses of  Baba  Farid  as I possibly could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This recently published book on Baba Farid\u2019s verse titled Farid\u2019s Couplets, is remarkably well published where  academic T.C Ghai has translated his verse into English. And also stands out the original text in Gurumukhi, Shahmukhi and  Devanagari. Together with this, much focus on this great mystic, who holds sway to this day. He is also known as Sheikh Farid Gunj -e- Shakar and also Sheikh  Farid or Farid-ud- din Masud ( the  name given to  him at his birth). He was born around 1179 at a village called  Kothewal, 10  kilometres from Multan in the Punjab region \u2013 undivided Punjab region, of what is now Pakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though Baba Farid\u2019s verse have been earlier too translated into English, but as Ghai writes in the Introduction to this book, \u201cI hope this translation achieves some  of  the  intensity of the  original Farid to convey his intense  awareness of  death, the  transience of life, the  existentialist pain of living, and the vanity of worldly ambition, in a  language shorn of superfluities, and using  sharply realized images from contemporary everyday life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also focus on the fact that Farid  Bani –  the 112 slokas \u2013that  are  translated and published  in this  book, are said  to  have  been  acquired by  Guru  Nanak ( 1469-1539) during his  visit to  Baba Farid\u2019s  shrine in  Jodhan  (now in Pakistan) nearly two and a half centuries after  Baba Farid\u2019s death. However they came to  light only when  Guru Arjan  Dev (1563- 1606), the fifth  Sikh  Guru, made it  part of the Sikh  scripture in 1604.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These verses of are immense significance in today\u2019s world and should reach out to as many as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Title of the book –  Farid  Couplets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translated by T. C Ghai. With original text in Gurumukhi, Shahmukhi and Devanagiri<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher- LG Publishers Distributors<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pages- 121<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Price \u2013 Ra 595<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This recently published book on Baba Farid\u2019s verse titled Farid\u2019s Couplets, is remarkably well published where academic T.C Ghai has translated his verse into English. And also stands out the original text in Gurumukhi, Shahmukhi and\u00a0 Devanagari. The translated couplets manage to achieve intensity of original Farid. A book review by Humra Quraishi As I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342745,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,2205],"tags":[16386,16385],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342744"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":342746,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342744\/revisions\/342746"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/342745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}