Farewell Father : Shamsur Rahman Faruqi s Daughter Remembers the Legendary Urdu Critic Father would come up with searing verses from Mir and Ghalib that reflected his state of being. He recited Coleridge, Hardy and Shakespeare, recalls Mehr Afshan Farooqi.
Shamsur Rahman Faruqi with his daughter Mehr Afshan Farooqi. Photo: Author.
Culture01/Jan/2021
A black and white photo of mine with my parents holding hands sits on my fatherâs study table. I am four, and bright-eyed with a mop of short hair and bangs.
I can vividly remember the colour of my frock. It was sky blue, embroidered with tiny white flowers, satin ribbons tied at the waist. My motherâs
Born in Azamgarh and raised in Gorakhpur, Faruqi was a chief postmaster-general and member of the Postal Services Board in New Delhi until 1994.
Part of the first batch of the BA programme at Maharana Pratap College in Gorakhpur, he pursued a Master’s degree in English from Allahabad University in 1955. Although he topped the university, he did not receive a first-class, which he thought was probably because “he asked too many questions, or did not dress in the three-piece suits”.
He had chosen to work on a doctorate in English symbolism and the influence of French literature, and poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan was assigned as his supervisor. But after Bachchan came down heavily on him for missing a meeting, Faruqi did not return to pursue his doctorate, he had said in an interview.
Reading recommendations from a pandemic year
Poets and politicians, sportsmen and theatre personalities look back at 2020 through the books they read Updated: December 20, 2020 12:12:44 pm
Here are the books authors read this year. (Source: Getty Images)
Aruni Kashyap
writer
I think everyone in India should read Samit Basu’s Chosen Spirits (2020, Simon and Schuster) it is an urgent and topical book set in an India of the future, a work of speculative fiction. I don’t read a lot in this genre, but I think speculative fiction has the ability to
caution us.
I have long admired Moroccan-American writer Laila Lalami’s fiction but Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America (2020, Pantheon) is my first introduction to her nonfiction writing. Through a set of essays, Lalami talks about what it means to be a Muslim-American citizen, a naturalised American citizen; and how acceptance by the establishment comes with some conditions. Read