I had the Opportunity to visit India twice in 2004. Then there was the government of Parvez Musharraf. He started a series of literary, scientific and cultural delegations. The same number of people used to come here from Pakistan, a few months later the same number of people used to come here from here. Pakistani delegations used to travel to India via Wagah under the banner of World Punjabi Congress. The head of the Congress was Fakhr Zaman Sahib who was the greatest scholar of Punjab, Punjabi at that time. For the first time, our delegation was confined to Amritsar, Chandigarh and Delhi. The second time we were taken to Haryana. The then Chief Minister of Haryana was Om Prakash Chautala (Today, at the age of about 80, he has been working in institutions like our NAB). Om Prakash Chautala had organized a Punjabi conference at the largest government university in Chandigarh, the capital of Haryana. A cultural show was also held during the night in which Chautala had invited senior Bollywood actor Sunil Duet as a special guest but at the same time his health deteriorated. Look at Duet's kindness and elegance that he himself could not come. He sent his son Sanjay Duet to console and host the Pakistanis. The Vice Chancellor also came to Kirk Sheeted University. A gentleman was clinging to Mr. VC. Any Pakistani writer or journalist who wanted to hand over his book to VC would say: "You hand it over to my OSD." This OSD was very active. They were the apple of everyone's eye. I was wondering what is the matter? In our country, officers who become OSDs are suspended. They are lifted from the attractive chair and lined up. The present service officers stop facing the SD. The situation here is very different. I just asked a professor from the last university what do you mean by OSD? He said: "It means, This is VC's personal assistant. " Then it dawned on me that the man who is called PA in our country is called OSD in India. Secondly, there was a doctor attached to the names of every lecturer, professor and journalist I met at I-Kirk Shatter University. I saw that he was doing PhD. Let the people associated with the education department get this degree. Journalists also got PhDs. Today, seventeen years later, the situation is the same in Pakistan.
A few days ago a strange thing happened. I was sitting with a professor friend at a large university in Lahore. A student was already sitting there.It turned out that he had been given the subject of writing a dissertation at the level of M.Phil. This student never even saw his face. Just read his book of poetry. The student doesn't even know much about the London-based personality's friends.When I asked my professor friend about the subject of this student's research, the name of the personality, the name he mentioned, I jumped. That personality belongs to Ehsan Shahid. Ehsan Shahid has lived in London for the past three decades. Ehsan Shahid from Mian Channu worked so hard that even whites today look at him with envious eyes.Whites eat free food from the handkerchiefs laid out by him. He sees human beings through the eyes of human beings. There is no personal or national prejudice. Ehsan Shahid is the host of every eminent person going to London from Pakistan. Allah Almighty has given him a wide and painful heart. He considers the pain of others as his own pain. If he finds out that a poet or writer is in trouble, he will not leave China until he has solved the problem.
Ehsan Shahid is also a poet. His poetry is as expressive of compassion as his personality. A wave of pain is felt running through each of his lions. Ehsas Shahid knows that if ghazal means to talk about women, then this scream is also called ghazal which comes out of the deer's throat after being hit by the hunter's arrow. If there is no pain in poetry, then it is useless. Ehsan Shahid has been blessed by Allah Almighty with a wealth of pain. Therefore, his poetry has both effect and sorrow. He makes money from the mind and loves friends from the heart. Wealth earned by the mind he spends on the advice of his heart on the weak, the needy and the hungry He met me 21 years ago today in the Norwegian capital, Oslo. Atash was young then. That too and I too.
Earlier he was trying to change his life, now he is busy changing the lives of others. I was very impressed by her nawabi luxury but as she came to understand the reality of life, her personality changed. I forgot this student who was sitting next to my professor friend. He did not ask me for bricks, cement and sand for his plot but I must say that by writing these few lines he has brought his research subject personality before him.
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