For some strange reason, he chose to directly communicate with a gentleman in the audience while Amjad kept looking on. Apparently the two — the moderator and the gentlemen in question — had had dinner together the preceding night where they had discussed Amjad’s poetry and they found it appropriate to bring the discussion to the session.

And the discussion, quite irritatingly, revolved around some poetry that Amjad had penned in his younger, greener days. The tone of the discussion was as if it was a crime to have done that. It was Amjad’s wit that saved the day. “Poetry is not an affidavit, so don’t hold it against the poet … any poet,” he remarked.

As time was passing by, the audience got a bit restless and it was just as well that Amjad came into his own and started talking about the process of maturity that comes with age and the impact that it has on one’s craft. Even before he had recited any of his poetry, Amjad had won over the audience with his conversation. Once he unleashed the magical, poetic charm, the audience had their fill, ignoring the abrupt and irritatingly frequent interjections by the moderator and his gentleman friend.

Luckily for those who visited the KLF — and there were thousands of them — Amjad had an appearance on all three days. Apart from being a leading light in the session of poetry recitals that was presided over by Kishwar Naheed on the first day, Amjad also featured in a session on Perveen Shakir on the last day of the event.

Having been contemporaries, Amjad spoke with charm and grace about the late poet, stressing that by the time she grew up there were four established women poets on the scene with their own distinct flavours and sensibilities: Ada Jaffery, Zehra Nigah, Kishwar Naheed and Fahmida Riaz. Perveen’s poetry, according to Amjad, is a point of confluence for all these varied and sometime divergent emotions.

He also spoke at some length about what he called a perfect balance between the art and the craft in Perveen’s poetry, stressing that while art is good, it can do little on its own if not presented with proper understanding and practice of the craft. Reciting relevant couplets from Perveen’s poetry, Amjad also highlighted the dramatic element of leaving things unsaid for heightened emphasis.

For the lovers of Urdu, the presence of Amjad Islam Amjad at the fifth KLF edition represented one of the finer elements in ways more than one.