KARACHI: A meeting of the Karachi Literary circle — a nascent body of city writers and poets — was held on Sunday.

Sponsored by known critic and poet Ahmed Hamdani, the meeting was attended by noted writers Prof Sahar Ansari, Mazhar Jameel, Sarshar Siddiqui, Mahmood Wajid and many others.

Saba Ikram, who conducted the proceedings, introduced the circle, and requested Hamdani to present his article. Earlier, humorist Dr Mohsin had read out his satirical essay Shumariat tanqeed, taking to task the phony self-styled critics.

Hamdani’s article, he presented from his book entitled Social realism, prompted comments from Mazhar Jameel and Prof Ansari. Both traced the roots of social realism in Urdu’s literary past and such “realist” writers as Premchand and Nazeer Ahmad.

As the agenda of the evening did not clearly indicate the recital of poetry, Saba asked everyone — of course the poets — to recite their verses one after another. But Safder Siddiqui Razi, himself a poet, intervened and suggested that literary issues be discussed instead. What he said was meant to shun or avoid poetry. Najma Khan, a poet and critic, took the remark seriously describing it as “an affront to poetry.” She was, however, calmed down and the matter of poetry recital, a ghazal or verse, not a mushaira, was shelved for some other time.—Hasan Abidi