APNA

Date:21-12-05

Source:

Second time in consecutive years members of APNA got-to-gather in Tokyo. Last year they had discussed Bulleh Shah poetry and this time in December, 2005 they organized a Seminar on Waris Shah at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. The seminar was attended by people from various fields like art, media, social and natural sciences. Dr. Manzur Ejaz was the main speaker who selected some parts of the HEER for this occasion and talked about the poetry of Waris Shah. The speaker used both Punjabi and English languages in his talk considering the presence of two Japanese guests including one Urdu language professor, Dr. Asada Yutaka, at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

Waris Shah belongs to 18th century when greatest poets were contemporaneous to him such as Mir Dard and Mir Taqi in Urdu, Latif Bhitai and Sachhal Sar Mast in Sindhi language, Dr. Manzur added. Before Waris Shah there were numerous poets who wrote HEER with their own themes which are different from the Waris Shah one. The poet symbolizes different characters such as Heer, the main character of the tale, Ranjha, the hero of the tale, Kaidu, a negative character, Sehti, sister-in-law of heer, and so on, with society various good and bad aspects, Dr. Manzur explained. The participants took keen interest in the proceedings of the seminar and asked many questions about Waris Shah’s poetry especially HEER.

Dr. Manzur also discussed the controversial matters aboutHEER with the audience, which was quite interesting to most of them. Overall he conveyed the theme of Waris Shah HEER in a short time to his audience. Finally Dr. Manzur recited a little part of the HEER which was highly admired by the participants. This a great effort from our honorable guests, Dr. Manzur Ejaz and Dr. Khawaja Ashraf, to come all the way from US to change deserted Tokyo into a blooming garden regarding literary activities, quoted by Dr. Asada Yutaka at the end of the seminar.

(Arshad Ali, Tokyo, Dec. 28, 2005)

PICTURES