LAHORE – An international colloquium started at LUMS on Saturday in Faiz Ahmed’s honour, while Alhamra hosted an evening with Shabana Azmi, an eminent Indian actress and daughter of Faiz Ahmed’s close friend; Kaifi Azmi; also a poet. The two-day international colloquim, to continue till February 13, features an array of scholars, writers, poets and theatre and TV personalities from all over the world; Pakistan, India, Canada, USA, and UK.
Some of the prominent speakers include Mushtaq Ahmed Yusufi (Karachi), Nadeem Aslam (London), Basharat Peer (Srinagar), Sean Peu (Michigan), Atal Talwari (Mumbai), Sania Saeed (Karachi) and Salim Arif (India) among others. Meanwhile, Azmi was joined in Alhamra by other personalities of the world of performing arts including Shama Zaidi, Salima Hashmi, Arshad Mehmood and Ila Arun (India), who spoke about their encounters with Faiz. Their talks were interspersed with Faiz’s, recorded, poetry sung by children and live by Ila Arun and Shabana Azmi herself.
A launch of centennial books was held on Friday, when six books written by Faiz and those written about him were launched at Alhamra. The books were Two Loves – Letters from Jail (Faiz), Payam-e-Mashriq by Iqbal (translated by Faiz), Faiz Benaam Iftihar Arif (Iftikhar Arif), Jinhain Jurm-e-Ishq Pe Naaz Thaa (Salahuddin Haider), Sheeshon Ka Maseeha: Faiz (Ashfaq Hussain) and Mauzoo-e-Sukhan (Humair Hashmi). Prominent speakers included Iftikhar Arif, Zehra Nigah, Asghar Wajahat, Salima Hashmi, Ashfaq Hussain (Toronto), and Obaid Siddiqui (India).
