Zubair Qureshi
Poets, writers, teachers and students and contemporaries paid rich tributes to what they held “the representative of dying values and traditions of our rich civilization” Dr Tausif Tabassum who breathed his last recently in Islamabad. He was 95 and passed away in Islamabad on October 5.
They were speaking at a reference held in memory of the poet and retired professor of Urdu from Gordon College Rawalpini organized by the Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL). Acclaimed poet and a contemporary, Iftikhar Arif presided over the reference while Kishwar Nahid, Prof Ehsan Akbar, Jalil Aali, Hamid Shahid, Manzar Naqvi, Akhtar Usman, Dr Iqbal Afaqi, Mehboob Zafar, Dr Wahid Ahmed, Muhammad Izharul Haq, Qazi Arif, Ayesha Masood, Shahid Mehmood and Dr Sher Ali were among those who highlighted the qualities of Tausif Tabassum’s head and heart. “Undoubtedly, he was not only one of the finest poets of Urdu literature who followed the classical tradition “maintaining a modern tone,” said Iftikhar Arif while recalling how great a man as well as a poet he was.
Chairperson of the PAL Dr Najiba Arif had also invited the family members of Dr Tausif Tabassum. Tausif Tabassum was among those rare literary persons who didn’t have an appetite for fame or lust of position, rather, he preferred to be at peace with him and believed in sticking to the golden values of the past. “Tausif Tabassum was an eyewitness of the whole century taking shape during its formative years,” she said. The ebb and flow of the past 100 years were before his eyes and he had successfully penned down that age in his autobiography “Band Gali Mai Sham,” said Najiba Arif.
Born in Budaun, India, Tausif Tabassum had seen many ups and downs in his life but his relation with book and writing was never weakened, let alone broken or torn apart.
Kishwar Nahid also spoke high of Tausif Tabassum saying he was always there to help you out be it a literary event, some reference or difficult word. He had in fact absorbed the traditions of helping one out whenever one is in difficulty. Prof Ehsan Akbar said he was privileged to work as a junior lecturer but Tausif Tabassum never made him feel as if he was junior to him. He was such a generous man that he was always ready to correct, amend and even re-write the young poets’ kalam.
Izharul Haq said Tausif Tabassum started his professional life just like him working as a clerk in GHQ. Then he took evening classes at Gordon College and was appointed there as Lecturer in Urdu. The speakers also recited a number of verses to attest Tausif Tabassum’s poetic genius.
Tausif Tabassum’s doctorate on Muneer Shikohabadi and his work on children’s literature were termed of the highest caliber. Muhammad Hamid Shahid on the occasion recalled the days when Tausif Tabassum was living across the road in G-9/4 and used to visit him or pay him a visit.
Those were the best days and I learnt a great deal from him. Tausif Tabassum’s son Dr Asif and daughters Nayyer Tausif and Tanveer Tausif also spoke on the occasion and thanked the PAL Chairperson for organizing a reference in memory of their late father.
