LAHORE: The Faiz Foundation Trust is doing a lot of things in the coming days from sending a set of books to Senate library for a newly set up Gosha-i- Faiz there, holding a storytelling session at Alhamra on the public demand and preparations for upcoming Faiz International Festival at the end of this year.

Faiz Foundation Trust trustee Muneeza Hashmi, in a conversation with Dawn, said the foundation was presenting a set of 24 books of Faiz and by other writers on him through the chairman Senate next week to the Gosha-i- Faiz (Faiz Corner) being established at the Senate library.

“Faiz Foundation Trust chairperson Salima Hashmi and I will go to Islamabad in this regard next week,” she added.

Sharing what the Faiz foundation was doing in near future, she said a two-day ((21- 22 March) storytelling event would be held at Alhamra Art Centre, The Mall. “The storytellers, Fawad Khan, Mesum Naqvi and Nazarul Hassan, will narrate stories from Tilsm-i- Hoshruba besides a piece titled Haveli written by Mushtaq Ahmed Yousafi. These three storytellers had performed at the Faiz International Festival last November and now on public demand they have been invited again to perform at Alhamra under the Faiz Foundation Trust,” said Ms Hashmi. The entry to the event will be through passes.

She said the Faiz Ghar was digitised in December last and the museum and the details of the objects in it are now available at Chughtai Public Library–an online library. She said Angro Foundation, in collaboration with Faiz Foundation Trust, had set up a library at Dharki (Sindh) called Faiz Ahmad Faiz Library.

“The books, 200 or so, sent to the library by the Faiz Foundation Trust were the outcome of funds raised by foundation’s friends. The books are on a variety of topics such as history, biographies, traveling , literature and geography.”

Mentioning the plan for the Faiz International Festival in November, she said the foundation had got confirmations from various artistes who would perform at the festival. Taniya Wells from UK would again perform at the festival, similarly Kathak dancer, Farah Yasmin Sheikh, will give a performance on the life of Queen Nur Jahan. Known Bollywood director Mahesh Bhatt will also be attending the festival to talk about cinema.

To this question that whether famous Indian actor Naseerudin Shah will visit Pakistan this year to do theatre here, Muneeza Hashmi said Mr Shah had confirmed that he would visit Pakistan; however, she would go to Bombay in March to see a collage of three plays by Ismat Chughtai that Shah wanted to stage in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2018