KARACHI, Jan 10: The Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology organised a five-hour long mushaira on its premises. It was heartening to see poets from other cities as well as across the country being heard good-naturedly by the audience for such a long time.

The mushaira was part of the City District Government's Humara Karachi celebrations.

The mushaira was presided over by Mohamad Zakir Ali Khan, who at the end of the programme remarked in tongue in cheek manner about his likeliness with the president of the country.

Though the students present in the mushaira understood very little of what was being poured out before them, they did praise the poets open heartedly.

However, the versifiers who tabled their issues of romance and youth in an easy to comprehend language, were immensely appreciated and were requested to present their poetry again on the stage. Among such fortunate poets, who managed to bridge the communication gap between the two generations in a witty yet subtle manner were Saghir Khiami, Tahir Faraz (both from India) and Ameerul Islam Hashmi. An interesting fact was that three out of the five Indian poets present at the occasion had a melodious voice.

The key poets of the evening were (from India)Saghir Khiami, Tahir Faraz, Waseem Barhelvi, Khushbir Singh, Naeem Akhter, (from the US) Mona Shahab, (from Hyderabad) Muzafir Khalish, (from Lahore) Abbas Tabish, (from Karachi) Suleha Kulsoom, Naheed Shahab, Sirajul Munim Tasneem and others.

There were loud cheers for two girls of the univerrsity, obviously not for their work, who read out their work before the audience. The city that had seemed to have lost its flair for such events had given a positive impact to the visitors at least for once by organising a mushaira in such a brilliant manner.

The programme which started off in an unusual manner, -- all the chairs were occupied-- ended in a predictable mode –only a few of the front rows remained filled.

Nonetheless, such events had been considered rightly as the ones that createawareness among the youth about the richness of the Urdu language which due to the proliferation of English seemed to have had lost its fascination for the people of this region.