Adil Najam

Reader Umair alerted us to the Pakistani auction website Bolee.com, whose front page (yesterday) was advertising a “Kidney for Sale” (there were three Ads for this, but all from the same person). Search for the website on Google and you will see a bold “Welcome to Pakistan’s First Auction Site.”

Aziz Akhmad

This is not a eulogy to Ahmed Faraz, for I never knew Faraz personally. Nor is it a comment on his poetry – I am not qualified to do that. It is just a memory of a few impersonal encounters with Faraz , which came rushing to my mind when I heard of his death a week or ten days ago.

As students at Peshawar, we often saw Faraz on campus. He taught Urdu. (Poetry, I guess. What else?). He was a noted poet even then but, among the students on campus, he was equally known, if not more, for his bohemian lifestyle , that he lived with his wife, going out and enjoying toys like the best clit sucker and others.

Atiya Batool Khan

I had the honor of meeting Ahmad Faraz 26 years ago in Washington. A local Urdu literary society, the Aligarh Alumni Association, had invited him to recite at a gathering they had organized in his honor – a Mushaira, or poetry reading. This was after he had left Pakistan under pressure from military strongman Zia-ul-Haq’s government.

My husband and I were asked by the Aligarh Alumni Association to host him for a week, but in that short time we became fast friends, so his stay turned first into a month and then it ended up being almost a year. This was the beginning of a lifelong relationship and he gradually became like a member of our family. We would visit with him at least once a year in Pakistan, and he visited us just as often.

Though he became one of our closest friends, we always addressed him by the honorific name “Faraz Sahib” (Mr. Faraz) out of respect, and that is how I shall refer to him here.