KARACHI, Jan 9: Speakers outnumbered the audience at a seminar on lyric poetry organised by the Institute of Ethics and Culture, Men’s Forum and Archaeology Magazine at Mohammad Ali Jinnah University on Monday evening.

The programme was aimed at rediscovering the charm of the once popular genre of Urdu literature; lyric poetry.

Presided over by a well-known lyricist Ahmed Umar Sharif, the key speakers of the event were Mumtaz Rafiq, Nasir Shamsi, Nadeem Israr Usmani, Manzar Imam and Shahida Tabassum. The organisers claimed that this was the first ever programme held on geet.

The speakers etched out different aspects of this genre, including the history and technicalities of song writing. They also shed light on the need of transmitting the knowledge of this sort of poetry to the young generation that had no clue to what a cultural asset it was.

They emphasised that lyric poetry was as ancient as the language itself, however, it had modified itself over time.

The artists voiced their concern regarding the decline in the youth’s interest in Urdu literature overall, and geet in particular.

The character sketch of a song writer by Mumtaz Rafiq and Ahmed Umar Sharif's geet won appreciation from everyone present there.

The programme despite having quenched audience’s thirst for information about songs or geet, had two glitches; one that it started almost one and a half hour behind the scheduled time, secondly it had more speakers than mentioned.