An evening with Waseem Barelvi
Under
the auspices of the Chandigarh Heritage Festival this evening the
Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi hosted an evening with the noted Urdu poet,
Waseem Barelvi at the UT Guest House.
The event witnessed
an unprecedented crowd that listened enthralled to the shayari for an
hour and then thronged around the veteran poet, unwilling to bring the
evening to a close.
Dr Waseem Barelvi has an academic
background with a doctoral degree in literature. This was evident in his
opening remarks on the common roots of language and his views on the
manner in which poetry crosses boundaries of time and space. Not only is
he a moving poet, he is also an excellent orator and singer, truly an
inspired bard, the likes of whom we do not see very often. Chandigarh
was indeed lucky to play the audience to such talent.
"Woh jhoot bol raha tha bade saleekey sey / Main vishwas na karta toh kya karta?"
"Phool toh phool hain, aankhon se ghirey rehtey hain / Kaantey bekaar hi hifazat may lagey rehtey hain...."
Each couplet that Barelvi sa'ab uttered was greeted with loud applause and cries of "mukarar," "irshad," and "Wah wah."
Presiding
over the event was Shri Sarvesh Kaushal, Chief Secretary Punjab,
accompanied by Bhavna Garg and Amandeep, Secretary and Director
(respectively) of the Dept of Culture, UT.
The organizers as well as the speaker of the day had warm words of
appreciation for the audience. It is evident that Chandigarh is a city
peopled with literature lovers who are eager to reach out beyond the
limits of the city and welcome the opportunity to listen to voices from
other parts of the country.
The programme was ably compered by
Madhav Kaushik, himself a poet and the Secretary of CSA. In her vote of
thanks the Chairperson of CSA, Manju Jaidka, announced that tomorrow
(14th Sept) CSA would host Sir Mark Tully at 4pm in the UT Guest House.
