Posted by Sabahat (iFaqeer) on August 30, 2008
I just found this tribute to Ahmad Faraz by our own Harris Khalique (ME; Batch ‘84-85) on Pak Tea House:
As if the recent loss of Prof. Khatir Ghaznavi, a fine poet and scholar, and of Adam Nayyar, an authority on Pakistani cultures and civilisations, was not enough, the hard-up intellectual and literary life in the country became more impoverished with the passing of Ahmed Faraz. His diction, metaphor and similes evenly kneaded in conventional Persian and Urdu ghazal make him one of the most prominent poets in the classical tradition of Urdu poetry after Faiz Ahmed Faiz. This being the most common and popular tradition among poetry lovers, promoted through mushairas, radio and television programmes and literary journals, made Ahmed Faraz a household name across the subcontinent. His style of rendition, handsome looks and a measured indifference is paralleled only by Iftikhar Arif among those poets who appeared some years after him. As a student of literature, I grew closer to the modern strand in Urdu poetry, as it were, which in my view include Noon Meem Rashid, Majeed Amjad, Akhtarul Iman, Munir Niazi, Aziz Hamid Madani, Fahmida Riaz and Saqi Farooqui among others.
Read the rest here.
