The Fifth Faiz Festival formally began on Friday with a conference on “Faiz and Government College Lahore”, where in her inaugural speech Salima Hashmi unfolded some very interesting incidents from the life of her father, Faiz Ahmad Faiz.
“The Government College Lahore remained very close to the heart of Faiz throughout his life because it was here he got the great teachers like Patras Bukhari and Sufi Ghulam Mustafa Tabassum. Whenever Faiz writes something, he takes it to Sufi Sahib at his residence in the Samanabad, Lahore, for guidance and correction, while the character and personality of Patras Bukhari Sahib inspired my father throughout his life,” she said at the conference held at the GCU’s Bukhari Auditorium.
She added that her father had wanted to teach at the prestigious Urdu Department of the Government College, but he was denied this opportunity because he didn’t have MA Urdu degree. “Faiz (who is now taught to the students of MA Urdu) had master’s degrees in English and Arabic,” she said. Arshad Mehmood, who is quite famous now, was the student of my husband Shoiab Hashmi at the Government College Lahore. Arshad once asked Faiz that we both did MA from the Government College Lahore, but you’re Faiz, and I’m not.
