THE 7th Urdu Conference started with a big bang. At the opening ceremony, there were people all over the place. Even biased and conservative assessments would put the number somewhere beyond the thousand mark. Nothing less. The organisers could not have done better. Linking the inaugural session with the launch of Mushtaq Ahmed Yusufi’s book was, indeed, a master stroke. Just the name was able to lure the crowd.

People had come in groups long before the start of the ceremony to have a ringside view of the man who remains the most celebrated of the modern-day Urdu greats. The book had been made available at a stall set up by the publishers and it was doing brisk business at least a couple of hours before being officially launched. A number of people could be seen browsing through the latest Yusufi offering as the proceedings of the ‘opening ceremony’ got underway. Every now and then giggles could be heard from some nook or cranny of the open-air venue as browsers shared something witty with their friends. The book apparently had everything that has made Yusufi utterly irresistible over the years.

This was the first time Yusufi, the hermit that he is, had agreed to a book launch. The fact that a Yusufi title was hitting the shelves just a shade under a quarter of a century after his last book also added to the occasion and gave it a touch of festivity. People were happy. Actually happy. Yusufi has given loads of happiness to his readers with his characteristic wit, literary finesse and linguistic subtleties that are the hallmark of his four previous titles. This time, he evidently made them happy by simply agreeing to publish a title.

Unfortunately, though, those who spoke at the launch — Zehra Nigah, Iftikhar Arif, Anwar Maqsood, Zia Mohyeddin and Shahid Rasam, a glittering bunch on all counts — could not say a word about the book itself for none had had the chance to go through it before coming to the ceremony. As mentioned by each of them, they had got their copies only on the preceding day. Quite literally, the book was hot off the press.

To their credit, however, none of them let the crowd down. In their own inimitable styles, they spoke about Yusufi, the man, and Yusufi, the master craftsman. For his part, Yusufi didn’t speak a word and that was just as well for it would have made the evening way too surrealistic for Yusufi fans.