International Urdu moot to be held in March

* Maestros of Urdu performing arts to participate

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: World-renowned artists, poets, writers, scholars and researchers of Urdu language would participate in an International Urdu Conference scheduled to be held in the federal capital from March 9.

President General Pervez Musharraf has been requested to inaugurate the conference. Maestros like Gopichand Narang, Quratul Ain Haider, Professor Shamsur Rehman, Jagjit Singh, Gulzar, Javed Akhter, Shabana Aazmi, Iqbal Bano, Zia Mohiuddin, Tina Sani and Nighat Chaudhry are expected to attend the conference.

The four-day conference ‘Urdu hai jis ka Naam’ is being organised by Grapevine Communications in collaboration with the Capital Development Authority (CDA), Academy of Letters, the education and culture ministries and the National Language Authority.

Members of the organising committee, including Talat Azim, Syed Shamoon Hashmi, Naveed Siddiqui, Kishwar Naheed, Ahmad Faraz, Iftikhar Arif and Akhter Waqar Azeem addressed a joint press conference on Tuesday to give details of the conference.

They said the basic objective of organising the international event was to revive the golden language by persuading Pakistani youth to adopt Urdu in modern environment. Delegates from India, Russia, Japan, Germany, China, England and the United States will participate in the conference, they said.

The conference would promote the performing arts related to Urdu in a fascinating manner to attract the youth. It would encourage new talent to choose careers in their fields of creative performing arts.

The organising committee has arranged enthralling programmes for the four-day conference from Mehfil-e-Mushaira to food-festival. The four-day Urdu gala would provide people an opportunity to get the real flavour of Urdu culture.

The sessions to be held during the conference include Language and Culture, The Art of Storytelling, The Great Urdu Poets, The Changing Colours of Urdu Journalism, Script Writing for Radio, Film and TV, Literature for Women and Language and Process of Learning.

A unique Mehfil-e-Mushaira will be held at Daman-e-Koh where well-known poets will recite works of legendary poets. An epic presentation of the evolution of Urdu language will be presented in seven stages. All the eras will be represented by fashion, music, poetry of each stage with choreography featuring top models and designers.

The ‘Life of and Times of Amir Khusro’ and ‘Aik Shaam Ghalib-o-Faiz kai Naam’ are two important segments of the conference. The organisers have also planned to arrange a grand book fair where classical as well as contemporary writings will be put on sale at reduced prices. A further attraction will be added by inviting some writers to autograph their books.

Programmes like Urdu film festival ‘Nautanki Mela’, a food festival and art exhibition would add colours to the conference.

The organisers hoped the conference findings and recommendations would help Pakistan government to make improvements in syllabi at all levels. The organising committee decided that Kishwar Naheed, a known Urdu poetess, would arrange and supervise literary sessions of the conference. Ahmad Faraz, known poet and head of National Book Foundation, would supervise the book fair.

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