SESSIONS in memoriam are generally meant to relive the lives of people who were able to give some meaning to the times they lived in. The exercise is about reviving the interest of those who were not lucky enough to interact with them or, for one reason or the other, were not already exposed to their body of work.

As happens almost every year at the Urdu Conference, quite a few speakers seemed to have confused such occasions for scholastic appraisals which just kills the very purpose of what they set out to do. What a pity.

Though he spoke for hardly 10 minutes, Ataul Haq Qasmi was able to excite a lot more people about Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, the man and his work ethics, than most of the other speakers who chose to read out written papers that would — and should — have adorned the pages of research journals, but only earned yawns from the audience. Even the fellow speakers sharing the stage could be seen whiling away their time.

While Ataul Haq Qasmi mostly went on long tangents that had more to do with his own life than with that of the senior Qasmi, he served the purpose well for he dished out anecdotes and spoke with warmth and respect for the latter. The others spoke with professional respect which converted their speeches into stuttering narratives. There was absolutely nothing — repeat nothing — wrong with the speeches except that they were delivered at the wrong place.

The balance between the two camps was unarguably struck by Asif Aslam who spoke on Mahboob Khazan. Aslam spoke with relevance and successfully managed to capture the texture of an entire life and communicate it to even the uninitiated in the audience. Mahboob Khazan could not have done more for himself.

In many ways, the discovery of the 7th Urdu Conference was not a writer; not even someone known for his interest in Urdu. Painter Shahid Rasam had first surprised the audience when he spoke about his association with Mushtaq Ahmed Yusufi on the opening day.

His attempt at reliving his interactions with Sadequain was just as successful. He had the good sense to leave out portions from the written text in view of some of the rather prolonged pieces that had been read before him.

What a session it would have been if only some of the others had also displayed the same good sense.