ISLAMABAD, March 11: Two working sessions on the third day of the international Urdu conference on Friday discussed and interpreted the works of four great poets of Urdu literature — Meer, Ghalib, Iqbal and Faiz.

Perhaps, Faiz Ahmad Faiz was more near to our times the interpretation was carried out in the reverse order with Russian scholar Ludmila Vasileva saying Faiz was doubtless in love with the Russian Revolution he believed Russia could usher in a new world for the poor and wretched of this earth.

Thus, he spent considerable time in Moscow where he wrote Sar-i-Wadi-i-Seena and many other poems like Khursheed. Often the poet would be asked by critics of the regime whether Faiz saw no fault in the system, but he never gave a reply. All the same, he had a premonition that Soviet Russia would collapse, reflected in such poems as Mere dil Mere Musafir, which speaks of the changes in the air. Thus Faiz’s last days were one of disenchantment, tinged with sadness. He then remembered the sorrows of his home in Pakistan about which he speaks in such lines as Tark ulfat ke shab or ab sooye vatan rukh kiya hai.

Ms Vasileva threw light on Faiz’s association with the quarterly magazine Lotus of which he was the chief editor, and his prodigious work of encouragement to little known writers and poets from Africa and Asia. She had found documents which showed him spending many hours editing manuscripts so that these writers would later emerge as important writers.

In the case of Allama Iqbal the needful interpretation was attempted by his son, Justice (retired) Javed Iqbal who, once again, repeated his oft repeated theme that the great poet-philosopher was quite frank in admitting that he was not a poet of great distinction or a philosopher who had advanced organized philosophical thought.

Allama Iqbal was a man imbued with ideas of regeneration of the Muslim society but he was looking for a man of action to establish them in practical term. He found such a man in the Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah who created Pakistan in which Allama Iqbal’s ideas could be practised.

Dr Aftab Ahmad, who had spent years studying Ghalib, said he emerged as the first romantic poet in Urdu poetry. Dr Aftab placed Ghalib in the rank of Shakespeare.

Like the great Bard of Avon, Ghalib’s works, laid the seed for creative writings departure from the prevailing notions and served as springboard of ideas. Ghalib’s poetry gradually becomes universally accepted truth.

This made him (Ghalib) a harbinger of changing times and this was reflected in the freshness and novelty of his poetry which was quite impossible for other traditional poets of his age. His Urdu poetry has musicality, and appear as if they were fresh flowers in a garden mirroring the spirit of the age.

Indian scholar Dr Gopi Chand Narang was impatient to present his own assessment of great poet Mir Taqi Mir, whose name had been missed out from the list.

Summing up the proceedings Prof Fateh Muhammad Malik stated that the four poets lived in different ages but related to each other and in their own ways advanced the frontiers of poetry.

The next session was devoted to the discussion of the changing attitude of the media with regard to works of Urdu literature.

Dr Zubair Rizvi from All India Radio, who also read a paper saw a window of opportunities for Pakistani channels to reach out to Urdu viewers of India, who were gradually disoriented with their Urdu heritage.