KARACHI, May 11: Sham-i-Afsana was held at the Arts Council on Tuesday with Rizwan Siddiqui acting as a host. Among those who presented their stories included a young writer, Bushra Noor, a television artist, Ayesha Khan, senior story writer Firdous Haider and Rizwan Siddiqui himself who was apologetic that fiction was not given its due importance at the Arts Council forum and poetry was accorded more weight. Dr Manzoor Ahmed at the end commented on Urdu fiction.

Bushra in her story had narrated the tale of a nomad girl with a golden voice, who fascinated everyone by her music. The location was railway compartment where due to power breakdown it was complete darkness. Nobody could see the girl but everyone visualized her to be as pretty as her voice. But as the light returned, they found her very ugly and totally frustrated.

Ayesha Khan, in her story, depicted the behaviour of a male chauvinist, a bully and a greedy person — the character commonly seen in society, running after money and power. As he tried to harass the lady in his neighbourhood, she paid the brute in the same coin. In Urdu dictionary, the word ‘tawaef’ (prostitute) should be redefined, she said: a male chauvinist power hungry and earning money by immoral way. The story was liked by most listeners.

Rizwan Siddiqui in her story had depicted the character of a model girl, daughter of a singing mother, who enacted a fake so-called drama to earn, name, fame and common people’s sympathy. The girls ‘promotion’ got for her a fake medical certificate of being ‘raped’ and the ‘rape’ story was given wide publicity throughout the country.

Firdous Haider was subtle and artistic in her treatment as usual. She had described the historic events of the Pakistan movement, which brought freedom for the Muslims, but the noble ideals soon dwindled. A long period of political decay and moral erosion followed. And finally the young idealists with new determination rose to recreate the dream of their elders several decades back.

In his brief discourse, Dr Manzoor Ahmad said that story writing was the most difficult genre in literary writing, although it appeared very simple. He said the 20th century would be remembered for the most powerful fiction written during those years. The stories written in Urdu were as fascinating as those written in any other language the world over. For example, he said, “Recall Krishen Chander, he alone was enough to match any writer of world fame, but we had many other remarkable writers in the wake of progressive writers’ movement. In between them emerged Manto, followed by the writers of modern sensibility and the post modernists.”

Dr Manzoor Ahmad felt that such evenings for story readings should be held in future as well.—HA