By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: The Urdu Academy of North America dedicated its August 20, 2017 literary session to the life and work of prominent Urdu poets, Parveen Fana Syed and Zafar Iqbal.
The event, held at the Chandni Restaurant Newark CA, was presided over by Mohammad Ali Haider Naqvi, Founder Chairman of Sadeqain Memorial Trust, New Delhi, India. Mr. Naqvi was visiting the Bay Area.
The first session was dedicated to the life and work of prominent Urdu poet Parveen Fana Syed.
Tashie Zaheer, President of the Urdu Academy was MC of the session. He presented a maqala about the life and work of Parveen Fana Syed.
Parveen Syed, born in Lahore on September 3, 1936, had been the disciple of the legendary Faiz Ahmad Faiz
.
In 1951 she got admission in F.S.C in Lahore College for Women However within the two months she fell seriously ill and was advised to stay away from any sort of mental work.
She lives in Rawalpindi and writes under the pen name, Fana.
Harf-E-Wafa and Tamanna Ka Duusra Qadam are the collections of her poetry.
(Picture shows from left: Moiz Khan, Lubna Manzar, Mohammad Ali Naqvi and Tashie Zaheer.)
As usual a number of Urdu enthusiast recited Parveen Fana Syed's poetry: Abdus Sattar Ghazali, Tashie Zaheer, Manzar Salam, Mehboob Alam, Sarwat Iqbal, Kausar Sayed, Kuldip Singh, Tasadduq Hussain Attari, Mukesh Kackar, Irfan Siddiqui, Lubna Syed and Shehzad Basir.
Poetry of Zafar Iqbal
The second session of August 20, 2017 event was dedicated to the life and work of Zafar Iqbal.
MC Moiz Khan presented a well researched maqala about Zafar Iqbal known for his rare style of poetry, in the genre of ghazal.
The diction of his ghazals are entirely different from traditional Urdu poetry that distinguishes him from the rest.
Zafar Iqbal was born on September 27, 1932 in Bhawalnagar, where his maternal grandparents lived. He received his early education in Okara, his hometown, and moved to Lahore for higher education.
He is a lawyer by profession, and regularly contributes articles to an Urdu newspaper, Daily Jinnah.
With 18 volumes of poetry already to his name and 18 more in the process of being published in three volumes, Zafar Iqbal must indeed be the most prolific writer of ghazal, according to Naseer Ahmed of daily Dawn Karachi.
His books include Aab-i-Rawan, Gulaftab, Ratb-o-Yabis, Ghubaralood simton ka suragh, Sar-i-aam, Aib-o-hunar and Vehm-o-guman. The honours he has received include the President's Pride of Performance Award.
Probably about 50 years after my death critics would be able to correctly evaluate my poetic standing ... whether I was a poet at all,' says the septuagenarian poet in an interview with Dawn.
About his experiments in language, which some critics appreciate, others criticize, he says he has used words of various local languages such as Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto and Balochi to express a particular thought. The radeef (refrain) of one of his ghazals is in Gujarati.
As usual a number of Urdu enthusiast recited Zafar Iqbal's poetry: Mobin Khaleel, Mukesh Kackar, Tasadduq Hussain Attari, Abdus Sattar Ghazali, Irfan Siddiqui, Shehzad Basir, Mehboob Alam, Sarwat Iqbal, Lubna Manzar, Dr. Tahir Mahmood and Kuldip Singh.
Kuldip Singh stole the show with his melodious presentations of ghazals of Parveen Fana Syed and Zafar Iqbal.
At the end Abdus Sattar Ghazali thanked the audience for making the program successful. He also thanked Syed Sarwat for hosting the Urdu Academy even
