KARACHI: Shamim Navid, a poet and writer, was honoured at a especially convened meeting of Mahver-i-Ilm-o-adab on Saturday.

Himayat Ali Shaer, who had been since long in touch with Shamim’s writings, praised him for being an “all rounder”, writing good critical essays and poetry. But he deplored that most of such writings scattered in dailies and periodicals including ‘digests’ were soon forgotten and the author remained unrecognized.

Shaer, in his presidential discourse regretted that many talented creative writers and poets, in their urge to earn their daily bread were lost in what one may call the “literary under world”. He quoted his own example that he could not do justice to most of his research papers, which remained unpublished till now.

Shamim Navid was a prolific writer and a good poet, who wrote short stories and novelettes spreading over thousands of pages, which were lying unattended and away from public eye, since these were not found in book form, he said.

Prof Saher Ansari read a paper on Navid’s criticism and poetry recalling the decade of 60s, when he came to Karachi, form Aligarh (India) with a published work, and was received by his contemporary poets and writers like Obaidullah Alim, Salim Ahmad, with open arms.

For years, he remained a much sought after poet at mushairas, the poetic realism and ‘tarannm’ being his two fascinating qualities, he said.

An equally valuable article was presented by Qazi Mohammad Akhtar, who in his narrative described his longtime association with Mr Navid and other poets and writers. Later, they all dispersed and Navid got lost in the wilderness of journalism, he said.

Akhtar and some other speakers spoke with a sense of relief that they had at last discovered Shamim Navid after around two decades and were happy to find him engaged in creative writing.

While Yunus Ramz in his paper dealt with the personal qualities of SN, Rasheed Adil, a close relative of the writer paid his complements, “as a relative”. Journalist Tahir Najmi also spoke. — Hasan Abidi