Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)
Poet from the Frontier By Hasan Abidi A popular poet from Peshawar, Majid Sarhadi, was in the city last week and spent a few busy days among friends and admirers. A small mushaira was held in his honour by Iqbal Majeedi. Muslim Shamim, Aejaz Rahmani, the satirist Amirul Islam Hashmi, Ghalib Irfan, Javed Manzar and others were among the invitees. Majid Sarhadi used to be a senior government officer, known for his fair and honest ways. He resigned from service and began practising law. His parents had migrated from Aligarh (UP) to the Frontier soon after partition, and Majid had started composing poetry at an early age. He was a disciple of Mahmood Sarhadi, known for his humorous poetry. Majid has two published collections of poetry, 'Yeh kaisa insaf hai?' and 'Chitakti kalyan'. Habib Ahsan, editor of his quarterly journal Khayal and his associates, had planned to receive Majid Sarhadi in a big way. Two sessions were to be held - one for critical essays on the poetry of Majid and the other for poetry recitation. But the city that day was paralyzed because of a transport strike, and the first session could not be held before 8pm, in which only one paper, by Ms Nasim Anjum, could be read. The mushaira started after 10pm, and, in view of the strike, did not go beyond 190 minutes. Ghazals were the order of the evening, with the exception of Saba Ikram, who recited a poem on the horrific tsunami tragedy. Majid Sarhadi was heard with rapt attention. * * * * * Dedication and diligence are not qualities commonly found in our writers these days. Urdu books dealing with serious subjects like criticism and social conditions often turn out to be collections of published essays. In this milieu, it was most appropriate that literary circles should have warmly welcomed Mazhar Jameel's 1,600-page treatise on Sindhi literature. The book, which took Jameel nearly 30 long years to write, was launched last Thursday. It is a critical examination of changing trends in Sindhi literature and its future prospects. Rich tributes were paid to Jameel by both Sindhi writers such as Ibrahim Joyo and Urdu litterateurs, including Iftikhar Arif. Prof Afaq Siddiqui said with the publication of the book, terms commonly used such as "old" Sindhi and "new" Sindhi had lost all meaning. Dr Hamida Khuhro was even more evocative when she said the joining of Sindhi and Urdu had made both languages stronger. Iftikhar Arif pointed out that we knew a lot of things about the old masters but little about the scholars and writers still in our midst. Not much had been written about post-partition literature, and Jameel's work was the first to critically evaluate modern Sindhi. Arif suggested that a shorter form of the book should be published in English for the benefit of a larger readership. Shamsherul Haidery, poet and writer, said the work done single- handedly by Jameel was of enormous value and would normally have taken an institute or organization to complete. * * * * * Young and promising poet Nadeem Sibtain launched his maiden collection of verses, Lamha Lamha, at the Pakistan Arts Council last Saturday. Syed Kavish Rizvi was in the chair. 'Special' guests and 'honoured guests' (mehmanan-i-khasoosi and mehmanan-i- aizazi), 14 in number, were billed to speak. Mercifully most of them were missing. The failure of the constitution in Pakistan, rising poverty and the miseries of the working people were the main themes of the speeches delivered by an ex-judge and jurist, a former senator and others. Communist leader Zubairur Rehman, trade unionist Manzoor Razi and Khadim Soomro made fervent orations. But the contents of the book and the quality of Sibtain's poetry were barely discussed. Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)
