By Syed Hasan Zia Rizvi, TwoCircles.net,
Lucknow: On the occasion of birth anniversary of a great Urdu Poet and writer, Raghupati sahay, better known by his pen name Firaq Gorakhpuri, Lucknow Society organized Sham-e-Adab, a literary seminar on Firaq at Rai Amarnath Bali Prekshagrah, Qaiserbagh.
Emerging in the era of Josh Malihabadi and Jigar Akbarabadi, the prominent Urdu poets of the time, Firaq captivated the essence of a prolific poet and a writer who was almost the master of all languages Urdu, Hindi and English but he personally promoted Urdu.
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Kailash Joshi
He was a Lecturer of English Literature at Allahabad university and and awarded with the most prestigious literary award of India, Jnanpith Award. Later he was also awarded with Padma Bhushan.
He had written more than a dozen volumes of Urdu poetry, a half dozen of Urdu prose, several volumes on literary themes in Hindi, as well as four volumes of English prose on literary and cultural subjects.
Seminar started with the photographic presentation on the life of poet made by Atif Hanif and anchored by Nirmal Darshan. Many prominent poets, writers and lecturers were present at the event like Ghazaal Zaigham explained the aspects of drama in Rubayi of firaq as he was used to be the expert in rubaiyaats.
Fazle-Imam shared his experiences with poet in Allahabad University; he describes poet as an egoist and a poet who had done a lot for urdu in spite of being an English teacher.
Mohammed Sabir, the freedom fighter was the guest of honour as he was also contemporary with Firaq.
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Other people who attended the seminar included Ms.Manjula tripathi whose family was close to fIraq, Mirza shafiq Husain shafaq, Justice Haider Abbas Raza, Shahnawaz Qureshi and Sharib Rudaulvi who highlighted the use of Sanskrit and urdu words in Firaq’s poetry.
The seminar ended on a melodious note as Kailash Joshi sang beautiful ghazals of Firaq.
“Ab aksar chup-chup se rahe hain yun hi kabhu lab khole hain
Pahle "Firaq" ko dekha hota ab to bahut kam bole hain
Hum log ab to paraaye se hain kuchh to bataao haal-e-"Firaq"
Ab to tumhi ko pyaar kare hain ab to tumhi se bole hain”
After the seminar the winners of World Photography day contest was awarded in three categories:-
1. Architectural Wonders of Lucknow – The unique angles of the heritage monuments [ approx 200 entries ]- Trilochan Singh
2. Emerging Lucknow – The new architecture in Lucknow which emerged post-independence [ approx 155 entries ]- Arun Khanna
3.Cultural Life of Lucknow – Nazakat, Nafasat & Tehzeeb to be captured in frame [ approx 170 entries ]- Raktima Banerjee
