By Fazal Amin Beg(based on a telephonic interview in 2015)
Faiz Rahim son of Faiz Ali was born on May 3, 1975 in Murkhun village of Upper Hunza. He has a son, two brothers and two sisters. He belongs to the Posh lineage group of Bobo Sufi clan of Avgarch valley.
Faiz Rahim received his elementary and middle level education from the Diamond Jubilee School of the Aga Khan Education Service, Pakistan situated in his village. He did his matriculation in 1996 from the Government Boys School in Sost (more or less 10 km away). For his higher secondary level education, Faiz Rahim went to Gilgit and studied in the Government Degree College. He got his F.A. (Faculty of Art) certificate in 1998. Afterwards, Faiz Rahim could not continue his education as he came across an accident, fallen down in Piryar (a beautiful pastureland in Avgarch valley ) while crossing over an avalanche site during hunting.
Instead of going for further education, Faiz Rahim prefered to enter in the field of business. Since 2000, he has been pursuing various types of business. Currently, he and his partner’s do their trans-border business on the Sino-Pak route.
The background related with Faiz Rahim’s poetry and singing is interesting. He has got inspiration from her maternal grandmother, Nazar Bigim, who has been a poetess and singer of lus (laments) in Wakhi, who also would sing Persian songs (devotional and others).
Faiz Rahim initially started singing Urdu national and other songs when he was in 5th or 6th class in the first half of 1990. With the course of time, when he grew up, he also began singing Wakhi songs composed by the earlier poets, especially of Nazir Ahmad Bulbul.
By storming his brain in order to compose his own creativity, Faiz Rahim successfully composed his own poem in 1994. He was hesitant to bring his poetry before the people in the gathering. He therefore put it before some of his friends; and Faiz Rahim got incredible appreciations from them. More particularly, Fazal Rahman Shirin Sado (a renowned Wakhi singer) highly encouraged Faiz Rahim to present those poems in the grand gatherings. Faiz Rahim was shying away and Fazal Rahman thus selected top eight songs and brought them in public through his own voice in 2002.
Faiz Rahim’s poetry circles around devotional, national and lyrical topics. By now, he has composed over 100 poems. One of his poems which Faiz Rahim sung himself became very famous was a national song that he produced after the Kargil war between Pakistan and India in 1998 that took many soldiers lives from upper Hunzaas well. Faiz Rahim very cleverly articulated his ideas in this Wakhi poem pertaining to these lost human lives as he had taken their names with their gallantry deeds. Consequently, this song stood soothing to the bereaved families and liked by huge audience.
The poetry composition style of Faiz Rahim is very interesting. Normally, the ideas he conceives either during his travel or when he stays in isolation. He always takes with him a pen and a drafting pad in order to capture the ideas he will have. Some poems of Faiz Rahim get completed within an hour but there are some poems, he adds, that takes a year or more to get completed. Sometimes, Faiz Rahim would create melodies for them before the poetry composition and sometimes he will have his poetry first and melodies later.
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