Orchestration

for flute (dbl. bass flute), clarinet (dbl. bass clarinet), soprano voice, violin, and percussion
 

Duration

13 minutes

 

Commissioned by/Premiere

Premiered by TAK ensemble (Laura Cocks - flutes / Madison Greenstone - clarinets / Leah Asher - violin / Charlotte Mundy - voice / Ellery Trafford - percussion) on February 20, 2026. Written for Columbia Composers' 2025/26 season.

​

Note

I first heard the poem Tum Mere Paas Raho (Stay By My Side) on the radio several years ago, sung by Pakistani singer Nayyara Noor. It quickly became a favorite of mine, beautifully weaving themes of love, attachment, and separation, all of which are common motifs in classical Urdu poetry. Over time this poem would disappear and return in my life, drifting in and out of memory, then finding me again on the radio after a while. At first I wasn’t so familiar with the work of poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, but as I learned more about his life as a writer and political activist, the poem began to reveal new layers of meaning upon every return.

 

Born in Punjab in the early 20th century, Faiz was a writer, labor organizer, and leftist revolutionary who turned to poetry to document the turmoil and violence that paralyzed the Indian Subcontinent during the Partition in 1947. He adapted romantic ideas of separation and loss, common across Punjabi literature, to condemn the oppressive structures that rose out of the newly independent Subcontinent, and to call for unity among the people against them.

 

Thus I return to Tum Mere Paas Raho with new context that transforms my understanding of it. I hear it as a poem of unity and solidarity across people in the face of oppressive regimes, urging us to see past the veils of mistrust and hatred such regimes cultivate as a means of control. The poem is still a love poem, not just about romantic love but also about a love for all people.

 

This piece becomes a meditation on the process of uncovering new truths from the same material. I find myself returning to lines that constantly shift in meaning, even as the words remain themselves all the same. As such this piece isn’t a setting of the text, but a setting of my changing relationship to it, and of what might become revealed through this cyclical manner of return.

 

Full poem:

تم مرے پاس رہو

stay by my side

مرے قاتل، مرے دل دار مرے پاس رہو

my tormenter, my beloved, stay by my side

 

جس گھڑی رات چلے

the moment night comes

 

آسمانوں کا لہو پی کے سیہ رات چلے

Drinking the blood of the sky, the dark night comes

مرہم مشک لیے، نشتر الماس لیے

It carries with it a salve of musk and a diamond lancet,

بین کرتی ہوئی ہنستی ہوئی، گاتی نکلے

wailing, laughing, singing

درد کے کاسنی پازیب بجاتی نکلے

dancing, tinkling its lilac anklets of pain.

 

جس گھڑی سینوں میں ڈوبے ہوئے دل

The moment our hearts sink within our breasts

آستینوں میں نہاں ہاتھوں کی رہ تکنے لگے

and our hands remain concealed within our sleeves

آس لیے

hoping

 

اور بچوں کے بلکنے کی طرح قلقل مے

And when the pouring of liquor drips like the tears of children

بہر نا سودگی مچلے تو منائے نہ منے

as we lose ourselves, drowning in an ocean of restlessness and uncertainty

جب کوئی بات بنائے نہ بنے

when progress can no longer be made

جب نہ کوئی بات چلے

and when we get stuck in our ways

جس گھڑی رات چلے

 

when the night comes

جس گھڑی ماتمی سنسان سیہ رات چلے

when that mournful, desolate, wicked night comes

تم مرے پاس رہو

stay by my side

مرے قاتل، مرے دل دار مرے پاس رہو

my tormenter, my beloved, stay by my side

​

-Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Translation by Arjan Singh Dogra

​

Performances

February 2026 - TAK ensemble, The Church of St. Luke & St. Matthew, Brooklyn, NY

​

​

Score