Faraz's death anniversary passes almost unnoticed

ISLAMABAD No big event was seen on August 25 in the Federal Capital except a small get-to-gather at Shiblis house on the 2nd death anniversary of Ahmed Faraz, a legendry Urdu poet of the last century. It seems that the people and the government and NGOs have forgotten the contribution of the late poet towards democracy and human rights. However, it is pleasant to note that the friends of Ahmed Faraz, hand in hand with his family, are still on to their struggle to keep alive the struggle he was a part of. The memoriam the Ahmed Faraz Trust arranged in collaboration with the literary organisation 'Zawia here Wednesday was a simple bunch of homage but graceful and continuation to the cause of the Trust. Agha Nasir, Kishwar Nahid, Tauseef Tabassum, Shabnam shakil and many other noteworthy figures spoke on the occasion while in the second part of the event, the poets including Shabnam Shakil, Haleem Qureshi, Hassan Abbas Raza, Manzar Naqvi, and Javaid Ahmed paid their poetic homage to the late king of romantic and revolutionary poetry. Well-known poet and anchor Mahboob Zafar conducted the programme. Shibli Faraz, Chairman of the Trust, while speaking on the occasion, said that it was apathy on the part of the government organisations mandated to promote literature have biased attitude towards Ahmed Faraz even after his death. The organisational heads of three main government concerns including Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL), the National Book Foundation (NBF) and the National Language Authority (NLA) are criminally ignorant to Farazs contribution to Urdu literature, and to our society, and for the promotion and strengthening of democratic values, Shibli said. Talking about the activities of Ahmed Faraz Trust, Shibli mentioned that the Trust would publish at least three new poetry collections selected by a committee of judges before the next birthday anniversary of Faraz. Other activities include a national mushaira, a poetry competition among the students and facilitation to research work on Faraz, he added. Agha Nasir said on the occasion, We miss Faraz a lot. His absence cannot be fulfilled in terms of a person or a poet. During the last two years, many things should have been done but we did nothing in memory of Ahmed Faraz. At least, the government should have named any road or institute after his name. Kishwar Nahid said that Farazs absence is felt in poetry, in literary conversations, in rights-based movements and in the moments when we needed him to support humanity in curse. I dont see any poet of the calibre of Faraz among the realm of present senior or junior poets, she said. Ahmed Faraz whose real name was Syed Ahmed Shah was born on January 14, 1931 in Nowshera. Faraz, who has been compared with Mohammad Iqbal and Faiz Ahmed Faiz, holds a unique position as one of the best poets of the time, with a fine but simplistic style of writing. Ethnically a Pashto-speaking Pashtun, Ahmed Faraz, learned and studied Persian and Urdu at the Peshawar University where he taught these subjects later.