Urdu literature - An Answer to Terrorism

The second annual Urdu conference was held in Karachi recently. It was a five-day event filled with literary fun activities and lots of music. The conference started from 17 November and ended on 21 November.

 One the 17^th of November, Jashan e Faiz was held. It was meant to celebrate the Urdu poetry of Faiz and to pay tribute to the great poet who never bowed before anyone. Poetry of Faiz was recited. Faiz daughter Salima Hashmi and people like Kishwer Naheed, Iftikhar Arif, and Shabnam Shakeel were invited to discuss the life of Faiz Ahmed Faiz. 

On 18 November, a discussion session was held on the Urdu novel writing in Pakistan. The discussions touched the topics of Modern day Urdu novels, Quratul Ain Haider’s novels and themes of Urdu and Sindhi novels.

The second discussion session on 18 November was all about the Urdu poetry. The topics of discussion were modern day Urdu poetry, the influence of science on Urdu poetry etc. There was a large number of participants and audience in this discussion session.

On both the 19^th and the 20 November, three discussion sessions were held each day. There were different topics. Interesting topics include the trend setting by Qurat ul Ain Haider in the world of Urdu literature and the use of Urdu literature in the broad casting.

On almost each day, the great Urdu poets and writers who are deceased now were remembered and were paid tributes. The 21^st November was the day of the closing ceremony.