By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
The second session of April 2017 literary program of the Urdu Academy of North America was dedicated to the life and work of Shaukat Thanvi, a distinguished journalist, poet, playwright, columnist, feature radio writer, director, humorist, and short story writer.
The event, held at the Chandni Restaurant, Newark, CA on April 16, 2017, was presided over by a prominent Urdu poetess from Pakistan, Farhat Parveen who has three collections of her short stories “The Frozen” “From the window of Restaurant” and “The rocks of glass.”
In August 2016, the Urdu Academy introduced her first poetry collection Guftum. She has started writing fiction in 90s and soon become a known figure in the history of South Asian Urdu fictions. She has a post-modern approach in all her writings, she gives a real touch of truth fullness to her fictions. she has become an established fiction writer of her age. Farhat Parveen amused the audience with her poetry recital which drew wide applause.
Dr. Ghazala Ansari presented a well researched Maqala on the life and work of Shaukat Thanvi. She also amused the audience with a humorous writing of Shaukat Thanvi. Dr. Ghazala’s unique style of presentation drew wide applause.
As usual a number of Urdu enthusiasts recited the poetry of Shaukat Thanvi, which include: Kausar Saiyed, Abdus Sattar Ghazali, Moiz Khan, Tasadduq Hussain Attari, Tashie Zaheer, Zafar Khan.
Shaukat Thanvi was born on February 2,1904 in Bandarban (Mathura). His ancestors belong to Thana Bhawan (Uttar Pradesh). So he adopted the name Shaukat Thanvi according to Thana Bhawan. Shaukat Thanvi started his primary education in Bhopal. After he went to Lucknow and took admission in Mission school. It is said that Shaukat Thanvi was not a good student. He was not interested in completing his education. He left the school and joined the newspaper “Hamdam”. The editor of this newspaper was Syed Jalib was a veteran journalist who trained the Shaukat Thanvi. Shaukat left the job and published his paper named “Toofan”, but it was closed soon.During the job in the newspaper, Shaukat started to write poetry and prose. He showed his capacity in novel writing and poetry. In 1938, he left the journalism and joined the all India radio as a playwright and broadcaster.
After the partition of India and creation of Pakistan, he came to Lahore and joined Radio Pakistan Lahore station. He began here his famous program Qazi Jee, which was directed by him. He was broadcaster and writer of the program. Meanwhile, he worked with Pancholi art pictures as a film story and dialogue writer. He has directed a film named “Gulnaar” also.
In 1957, Shaukat Thanvi left for Karachi and continued his Program Qazi Jee in Radio Karachi. He started to write a humor column in daily Jang after the death of Majeed Lahori, who was writing earlier. In 1959, when daily Jang began to publish from Rawalpindi, he joined Daily Jang as an editor in Rawalpindi. He continued to write his column with the changed surname Waghera Waghera, and it ended with his death.
Shaukat Thanvi was a prolific writer and penned some sixty books which include collections of short stories and humorous essays, plays and novels. He was also a poet and a book called Guharistan is a collection of his poetry published early in his career.
On May 4,1963, Shaukat Thanvi died in Lahore.
At the end of the program Abdus Sattar Ghazali thanked the audience to make the event successful. He particularly thanked entrepreneur Syed Sarwat for patronizing the Urdu language in the Bay Area.
