Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi was an outstanding man of letters and columnist. He wrote for newspapers had profound influence on events of his country. This was the view of a number of literati, who gathered at the Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL) to pay homage on the second death anniversary of the deceased poet and fiction writer, here on Wednesday.
He was the kind of person who could be singled out even in a crowd, the sponsors of the function said, making it clear that the function was to celebrate Qasmi's literary worth,' and not to mourn him. Dr Manzur Ahmed, Islamic University, Rector, came as an admirer but he was elected to be the chief guest. He narrated the story of a meeting with Qasmi at a function of the Majlis Taraqqi Adab at Lahore.
Still young, then, Dr Manzur had read philosophy at the University and trained to become lecturer of the subject. At the meeting he rather went eloquent to explain some form of fashionable philosophic enquiry. Later Qasmi advised him to be a doer. He said he had read many of Qasmi's fiction and poetry, and enjoyed him. This is the greatest tribute to any one writer.
Qasmi's friend Dr Khalid Ahmad said he lived in his shadow for many years, and he had become ingrained with the gentle quality of the deceased poet, and the effect was that he could have disagreement with another friend or writer, but we would not become disagreeable with one another. He loved every one he met and he would wear his gentle quality on the sleeves. As Qasmi himself said in a couplet, 'even an enemy could enjoy cool breeze sitting beneath the shape of my large leafy tree.'
Poet Amjad Islam Amjad, the chief attraction at the function, looked back to the fifties when he was studying for his M.A. Then he was invited to read his poem at a college Mushaira, where Qasmi was also present. At the end of the Mushaira Qasmi came up to him and said, Would you be so kind as to allow me to publish your Ghazal in my literary journal Nuqoosh.
All my life I find myself weighted down by the kind words he used for a new entrant in the field of literature. But that was usual for Qasmi to nurture the ability of talented young people. Iftikhar Arif reminded the gathering that characters in Qasmi's short stories haunt us with a number of questions about the dreary of life they are forced to endure.
'That provides us with the test of living literature, no matter when it was written.' National Language Authority Chairman and president of the function Professor Fateh Muhammad Malik announced that he has started a new book of evaluation dedicated to the life and works of Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi.
He said in doing this he is fulfilling the promise he had made in the foreword of a book written during Qasmi's lifetime. But an assessment of the short story writer and poet Qasmi was already made by Dr Najeeba Ahmad, who called him a genuine person, 'who lived life without contradictions.'