Lucknow, UTTAR PRADESH :

Lucknow:

A poet, a novelist, a teacher and a champion of stylising compering into an art, Prof Malikzada Manzoor Ahmad breathed his last in the city on Friday. The 87-year-old, a well known face in the literary settings of the city was highly eulogised for creating a uniquely independent genre of ‘nizaamat’ (compering) for the thousands of poetry events he mastered with his spontaneous wit and humour.

Buried at night in the Fatehmi graveyard in Khurram Nagar on Friday, Ahmad, born in 1929, was a native of Faizabad. He had moved to Lucknow in the early ’60s as a lecturer in Lucknow University’s (LU) Urdu department from where he retired in 1989 after 30 years of service.

“Before him, compering a mushaira was just a sub-standard job. He transformed it into an art. His literary articulation and spontaneity, his wit and the way he weaved sarcasm and humour are unmatched to this date,” shared Prof Anis Ashfaq, former head of LU’s Urdu department who was also Ahmad’s student. Ashfaq also said that he was the one and the only person who exemplified compering and with him the golden period of the new art has gone.

A man who donned many hats, Ahmad also wrote poetry and several novels, including his biography ‘Raqs-e-Sharar’ wherein his narrative too was praised of bearing a uniquely creative style. “Even though my father was a man of the English language, Urdu was his passion and mission. He was a proponent of composite culture,” said Ahmad’s son Malikzada Javed.

Ahmad had served as the chairperson of the UP Urdu Akademi and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad Urdu Memorial Committee. He also held a senior post in the All India Urdu Rabita Committee and was a receiver of the 2015 Ghalib Award for literary services to Urdu. He was condoled on his death by chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav and minister Azam Khan.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India /  News Home> City> Lucknow / by Yusra Husain / TNN / April 23rd, 2016