KARACHI, March 31: Poets and critics of Urdu literature heaped praises on poet Saher Ansari at a function organized by the library and literary committee of the Karachi Gymkhana on Saturday night.

Renowned poet Pirzada Qasim said of all men of letters who had been feted in this hall only Saher Ansari deserved the praise rightly. “Saher Ansari is not only a poet, he is a scholar of the first water. It is easy to find poets; indeed, I also compose poetry. But scholars are hard to come by. The range of subjects that Saher Ansari has chosen to write about in verse shows how well read he is.”

Mr Qasim said that Saher Ansari was a voracious reader and it was evident from the fact that he was never found without books. ”There are more than 20,000 books in his personal collection. And more importantly, he has read them all. He is at home in linguistics, history, fine arts, sociology, language, literature and psychology. The breadth of his knowledge can also be judged from the fact that he delivered a series of lecture on German poetry at the Goethe Institut.”

Talking about Saher Ansari’s poetry, Pirzada Qasim said that at least three theses had been written on Mr Ansari’s works. ”Saher Ansari’s poetry has a lot of intellectual content. It has no staleness and no entrophy. It is vibrantly fresh.”

Pirzada Qasim said he had also learnt a lot from Saher Ansari. “Inspiration influences a poet in a very subtle manner. Saher Ansari wrote a couplet:

The same expression is handled by me in a slightly different manner.

Critic Aslam Farrukhi spoke of his long-standing association with Saher Ansari, first as a teacher and second as a colleague. ”In Government College, Nazimabad, a colleague told me that a student, Anwar Maqbool Ansari, wrote good poetry. We called the boy in the staff room and made him recite his poem which was very good. Later on, the boy became famous as Saher Ansari.”

He added that afterwards Saher Ansari had joined him as a colleague at Karachi University. “We used to tell each other about the poetry we composed and I can recall the day he had come up with the couplet which was to become very popular.