Requiem for prolific journalist and poet, Kaleem Omar

ISLAMABAD: The life and career of the prolific writer, distinguished journalist and remarkable poet Kaleem Omar (KO) was celebrated at a memorial meeting at the Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL) here on Thursday.
Prof Alamgir Hashmi presided over the event.
Former Cabinet Secretary Ejaz Rahim, who has published three collection of English poetry and was chief guest, said though KO's ‘edifying poetry’ made the world a happier place and earned him fame, his prose too was exquisite as if he had chiseled words to produce a fine sculpture.
He particularly enjoyed KO's jibes at the bureaucracy, and quoted a few of the definitions he had coined. He also found ‘some of the most profound and compassionate studies about micro-finance’ in KO’s journalistic writings.
In a strange coincidence, just when Ejaz Rahim was referring to KO’s verse ‘hooking another life’ dealing with the question of philosophy and his poetical discourse regarding life and death, the audience learnt of the suicide bomber's ugly work in Rawalpindi.
Prof Alamgir Hashmi felt that the audience was really paying respect to a wonderful poet whose stature would be determined not only by this generation, but by generations to come. ‘We will always value him,’ he said, going back to the time when he first struck friendship with KO in the gloom of the fall of Dacca.
They continued to meet at Lahore, in Europe, and at Harvard where they would read poetry together and organise poetry workshops. He wanted Kaleem Omar's life and his poetical collections to be thoroughly researched and recorded.
Prof Mubina Talat of the Islamic University pleaded for organising English literature syllabus with samplings from contemporary Pakistani-English writings ‘to include a taste for our own ethos and culture’. KO would find an important place in that kind of syllabi, she said.
PAL’s director general Yasser Iqbal spoke of KO’s childlike simplicity, also recording the fact that the poet and journalist did not manage to get over the agony of the loss of East Pakistan.
Speaking on the occasion Journalist Azhar Masood, referred to his association with KO in the PTV, as well as in The Muslim newspaper, which once used to be published from the federal capital, and remarked that his dispatches about ‘Ideas II’ showed KO an expert on modern weaponry, and has never been equaled even by foreign journalists.Poet Khurram compered the obituary reference.

By Jonaid Iqbal