LAHORE, PAKISTAN — Cut off from the world, even in parts of his own home, Aitzaz Ahsan did what many of his compatriots do in times of personal and political crisis: He wrote a poem.
Months of house arrest had left the celebrated lawyer enraged over his isolation and the autocratic, military-backed regime that ordered it. His hopes of a just and tolerant nation appeared to lie in ruins, and his disillusionment bled onto the page.
We walked together singing the song of freedom
A new dawn of freedom was about to break
One push was required to demolish the old edifice
But in fact we were straying apart and losing our dreams
The poem was a private "cry against the system," Ahsan said, one man's lament on "the loneliness of being a dreamer in a world full of pragmatists and time-watchers and opportunists."
But his words soon reached the ears of millions of Pakistanis. When restrictions on Ahsan's freedom were finally eased last month, television crews besieged him in his study and, one after another, beseeched him to recite his verse for their eager viewers.
It was yet another demonstration of how seriously this land takes its poetry.
Pakistan may be home to Islamic terrorists. It boasts a nuclear arsenal and an omnipotent military. But it is also a place where lyrical expression still holds great power to inform, inspire and even mobilize the masses, as it has in recent months, to the government's dismay.
That power derives from the fact that poetry is woven into the fabric of everyday life here in a way seldom found in the West.
Drivers of three-wheeled taxis paint their own witty ditties on the backs of their vehicles. Families of newlyweds commission special odes to the bride and groom. Ordinary Pakistanis drop original or well-known couplets into general conversation.
On her return from exile last year, slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto visited Lahore, Pakistan's cultural hub, where one of her first acts was to pay respects at the tomb of the revered poet Mohammed Iqbal. His birthday is a national holiday. (Imagine a U.S. holiday for Robert Frost or Emily Dickinson.)
"Our people are very fond of poetry. If you talk on any subject for one hour, if you start your speech with verses, then the people appreciate it and start stepping in," said Ahmed Faraz, one of the best-known poets in Pakistan today. "It's very powerful."
