Main ke meri ghazal mein hai aatish-i-rafta ka suraagh Meri tamaam sarguzasht khoe huon ki justujoo THIS couplet, taken from poem `Zauq-o-Shauq` in Iqbal`s Baal-iJibreel, can roughly be translated as: my ghazal has traces of a bygone fire, my entire life account is but a quest for the lost ones. Here Iqbal alludes to the wayfarers of history, while actually mourning the lost glory of the Muslims.

Indeed Muhammad Hamza Faroogi had this couplet in his mind while naming his new collection of pen sketches: Aatish-i-Rafta Ka Suraagh. Through this carefully chosen title Hamza Farooqi has implied that he has tried to trace the remains of a bonfire that a caravan had set up and then left, with all those luminaries who were fellow travellers poets, writers, scholar and intellectuals whom Faroogi rubbed shoulders with.These pen sketches invoke fond memories of a departed caravan from a bygone era, studded with stars like Mushfiq Khwaja, Shaukat Siddiqi, Dr Muhammad Hameedullah, Dr Zawwaar Husain Zaidi, Dr Ahsaan Rasheed, Prof Abdulkerim Germanus (the Hungarian scholar of Islamic Studies), Maulana Hasan Musanna Nadvi and some others.

Pen sketch writing, or khaka nigaari, as it is called in Urdu, is a genre that tries to capture the essence of a personality by highlighting the peculiar traits. A pen sketch or pen portrait is not a biography so it covers only the glimpses of a person`s life events along with his or her demeanour.

But the art of writing successful pen sl(etches consists of recording, preferably in a lighter vein, the glimpses of a personality`s defining traits as well as discovering the real person behind the persona, thereby creating a vivid picture throughcandidness.

And Hamza Faroogi knows thissecret of writing interesting sketches as he is a veteran sketch writer. Hence, the book is a collection of delectable sketches written in a lively and flowing prose.Published by Karachi`s Fazlee Sons, Faroogi`s boolc is an effort to remember the members of a caravan that is no more, but has left behind a trail of memories. So Faroogi`s book too, in a way, is an effort to recall the past glory of our society. It records the events of an era when in the 1960s and 1970s he was a student at the University of Karachi, and then at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, highlighting the luminous personalities that he crossed path with and befriended quite a few of them.

In his foreword, and sketches too, Faroogi lets the reader l
As put by Najeeba Arif in her crisp intro to the book, we cannot truly Hnd the traces ofthe caravans that have left and if at all, Faroogi has narrated it with a tinge of melancholy, mourning the loss and mixing the sense of grief, with affection. But then Hamza Faroogi is a humourist too so the sketches are peppered with a generous sprinkle of wit and his sense of humour can amaze you at the oddest of moments, being pensive at one moment and naughty the next.

The memories of his studentship at Karachi University sound like Faroogi had love-hate relationshipwith the varsity and teachers, writes Najeeba Arif. But one feels that this can be said of some the personalities as well and these memories can be described as bitter-sweet. One of the reasonsis thatFaroogidoesnot believe in mincing his words and writes what he feels, sometimes barely bothering to tone down the thinly-veiled insult with his usual witty remarks.

In these sketches, the writer has intentionally recorded the political and social aspects of our society.

Some of these pieces of information are important indeed but at times they affect the tone and colour of a sketch. Here one has to agree with Najeeba Arif when she says certain portions of the bool< read like memoirs or sound autobiographical. But Faroogi`s iconoclastic one-liners are something to relish.

Muhammad Hamza Faroogi is a Karachi-based researcher, travelogue writer, humourist and an acclaimed expert on Iqbal Studies.

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