The deaths, which occurred in Lahore last week of two well-known creative persons, have cast a gloom over the cultural scene in the city. A Punjabi Mushaira sponsored by the Department of Punjabi Language and Literature got adequate response and the announcement by National College of Arts of holding a month-long workshop on calligraphy has been well received in the city.
On Wednesday, June 9, a popular Stage/TV actor Sikander Shaheen died in Lahore of cardiac arrest. He was one of the pioneers of television in Pakistan. After obtaining his master's degree in English from Government College, Lahore, he joined Lahore Television Center as a producer in November 1964, when a pilot studio was set up with the help of Japanese experts. He later rose to the position of General Manager PTV Center Islamabad, a position from which he resigned due to personal reasons.
Thereafter, he started freelance playacting in plays screened on the mini screen, a career, which lasted more than two decades. Late Sikander Shaheen also acted in a couple of films - Laazwal and Aik Din Bahoo Ka, in which his performance was much appreciated by discerning cine-goers.
A day after his departure for the ethereal world, Shaista Habib (wife of Fakhar Zaman of World Punjabi Congress fame and former Chairman of Pakistan Academy of letters) died in Lahore on June 10 after putting up a long and brave fight against cancer. Daughter of Habib Kafwi, a poet and creative writer from the Indian occupied state of Jammu and Kashmir, who migrated to Pakistan in 1947, Shaista in her own right, was also a perceptive poetess of Urdu and Punjabi, with two collections to her credit. When she fell prey to the interminable disease, she was working as Deputy Controller of Current Affairs at Radio Pakistan, Lahore, and was due to retire later this year.
The deaths of Sikander Shaheeen and Shaista Habib were mourned by a large number of their friends and colleagues, and also by the members of the local creative fraternity.
The Department of Punjabi Language and Literature, University of the Punjab sponsored a high-profile well-attended mushaira (poetic symposium) at University Oriental College, Lahore on June 9. The Governor of Punjab General (r) Khalid Maqbool presided over the function where Vice Chancellor of the Punjab University acted as chief guest.
In his inaugural address, the governor focussed on the rich heritage of this one of the old languages of the sub-continent before a distinguished panel of guests, which included frontline poets of the like of Munir Niazi, Anwar Masood and Fazal Farid Laleka. Other heavyweights of the Punjabi language like Afzal Ahsan Randhawa, Saleem Kaasher, Dr. Shehzad Qaiser, Dr. Inamul Haq Javed and others of their stature recited their fresh kalam at the mushaira.
The news about the impending privatization of Falettis Hotel, Lahore, has caused a deep concern among the people, who love to see the old heritage of the city intact. The Lahore Conservation Society (LCS) was the first to express its concern over the risk of a high-rise building, which is slated to replace the old hotel built in Lahore after the annexation of the Punjab with British Indian empire in 1849.
"The Falettis's Hotel", claimed Dr. Aijaz Anwer, Secretary of LCS in a statement issued in Lahore on June 9, "is on the list of protected premises under the Punjab Special Premises Act, 1986, and is a Lahore's cultural landmark, which should be conserved". He decried the plans of the government to convert the hotel, which is currently bedecked with a large number of old trees into a commercial plaza.
It may be recalled that several persons of great national importance like our Founding Father, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Mr. Justice A. R. Cornelius, the intrepid Chief Justice of Pakistan, had stayed at Faletti's for long periods of time before and after the dawn of independence.
The National College of Arts, Lahore, through a press release, has announced holding a month-long workshop on calligraphy from June 20. This is the third year in a row that the college will be holding a workshop on calligraphy, which will be conducted by Gauhar Qalam, a renowned calligrapher of South Asia. Students of arts, especially those interested in the Islamic art of calligraphy, have welcomed the NCA decision to hold the workshop, which will go a long way in creating awareness among the people and the government about the need for preserving this unique mode of creative expression of the Muslims.
On Friday, June 11, the Nairang Galleries in Lahore sponsored an exhibition of 15 oil paintings of Iqbal Ahmed, which reflected both the rural hinterland as well as the urban scenes of the country. Mrs. Mira Phailbus, who until recently was the Principal of Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore, inaugurated the exhibition, which attracted a sizeable audience of art lovers and students. An additional attraction at the inauguration of the exhibition was a recital of poetry of Jocelyn Ortt Saeed by her daughter Maryum.
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