KARACHI: To honour Rasool Ahmad Kalimi, a known poet and a banker based in Canada and at present in Karachi, a She'ari Nashist (poetry session) and dinner was hosted by Yusuf Jamal, Sindh Ombudsman, on Wednesday at the Karachi Gymkhana.

Ahmad Faraz was in the chair and among those who read out their poetry included Mr Kalimi, Hemayat Ali Shaer, Khalid Alig, Qasim Peerzada, Prof Saher Ansari, Rauf Siddiqui, Shahida Hasan, Salim Kauser, Pervin Javed, Nasim Nazish and Sarver Javed who also compered the proceedings which started at around 10.30pm and continued till 01.00am.

It went to the popularity of the guest Mr Kaleemi and also the host Yusuf Jamal that quite a large number of poets had turned up, but to avoid much delay, many of them gracefully withdrew from presenting their poetry in favour of 'senior poets'.

Rasool Ahmad Kalimi, it may be recalled, was a popular figure among university students in the decades of '60s and '70s as a prose writer, a debater and a columnist, writing casually for city journals. Trained as an engineer, he turned to banking and rose to highest ladder of his career, serving in and outside Pakistan. He got published his only poetry collection Hawa-i- dasht a few years back.

Yusuf Jamal remembered his association with Kaleemi and Ahmad Faraz, a Saqafati Dehshatgard (a cultural terrorist), and spoke with a zest about both. Fraz had brought out his latest and a voluminous poetry collection Shehr-i-Sukhan Arasta only recently.

Kaleemi, a popular figure in Toronto, said, he would arrange a mushaira and invite Pakistani poets, including Yusuf Jamal, who was a likable person among the Pakistanis over there. He further suggested that some literary body in Pakistan should announce a prestigious award for the senior and most respected poet Shamul Haq Haqqi, who was in sickbed in Canada these days.

A couple of couplets from Ahmad Faraz, who recited many fresh ghazals, including mohasra, are quoted below:

Maikaday ke adab adaab sabhi jante hain
Jam takrae tau wa'az ne kaha bismillah
Ujarh ghar mein ye khushbo kahan say aai hai
Koi tau hai dar-o-divar ke elava bhi