16 October 2004	Saturday	01 Ramazan 1425

KARACHI, Oct 15: It was a lively evening at 'Adbi Mehfil' (literary meeting), sponsored by Mohtasib Secretariat Sindh. The Mehfil was enlivened with poetry from Ahmad Faraz and intellectual discourse from Ahmad Maqsood Hamidi and Sarwar Javed. Yusuf Jamal was the host and generous as ever in introducing the guests.

As per schedule, Sarwer Javed described the Urdu's literary scene as found in Pakistan today. He presented a dismal scene, saying, "we are keeping adrift from books, as such from literature." Literary periodicals were dying, fiction and poetry both were in bad shape.

Javed felt that at present the society had grown very complex, and exploitative, but, there were no writers to analyze the cause behind it. He was sad to note that non-creative persons were being unjustly promoted. He was also critical of the critics, who were unfair in their judgements.

Ahmad Maqsood Hamidi, a former bureaucrat known for literary taste and massive reading, said that critics were expected to critically examine and explain the artistic value of literary writings and also to improve the taste of the readers.

He contended that Urdu's classical poets had done their job well when they defined the merits of good writing. He quoted Ghalib, Aatish and many other poets and their couplets.

Starting from Hali, who introduced the art of critical evaluation, Ahmad mentioned 'Andazey' - the critical essays of Firaq Gorakhpuri as the masterpiece in this genre and also Ehtesham Hussain and Mohammad Hasan Askari, for their creative criticism.

Mir Taqi Mir had said: Dardo sham kitney keiye jama to divan hua. Ghalib claimed: Ganjeenae mani ka tilism usko samajhey - Jo lafz ki Ghalib merey ashaar mein aaway. Aatish believed in ornamentation: Shaeri bhi kaam hai Aatish murasra saaz ka.

"That was how our poets judged poetry," Ahmad said and quoted T.S. Eliot saying: Poetry is an escape from emotion, while another poet giving vent to his feelings in these words 'When a kiss is refused, I begin to sing'.

Later, Ahmad read out an interesting piece of prose narrating his childhood years spent in Hyderabad (Deccan) and cultural environment in minute detail. Yusuf Jamal fealt that the graph of poetry was going down and recalled that in recent past, there was "a triangular of Faiz, Firaq and Josh" and asked the audience, was there any such triangle in present times.

Ahmad Faraz as usual enthralled the 'lawn-ful' audience who listened to some of his new ghazals and of course the verse Mohasra. In a brief discourse, he emphasized the need of peace among the nations and linguistic and cultural harmony.

He lamented that the society during two last decades had given nothing to the young generation -education, social awareness or knowledge of their past- therefore one should not expect too much from them.

He said that after Ghalib, during all the decades, the non-Urdu speaking poets had held the flag of Urdu high. Hasan Rizvi, general-secretary of the Mehfil, conducted the proceedings and said that a similar literary meeting of Sindhi language writers will be held soon.