AMjad Islam Amjad

http://img.poemhunter.com/p/71/1596871_b_5365.jpg

Amjad Islam Amjad was born on August 4, 1944, in Sialkot in Sialkot the city where Allama Iqbal and Faiz Ahmed Faiz were born. He received his education in Lahore. He graduated from Government Islamia College Civil Lines, Lahore. His career started as a lecturer in M.A.O College Lahore. From 1975 to 1979 he worked as a director at Pakistan Television Corporation before returning to the College.

Since his school days, Amjad had an inclination towards writing and playing cricket. His ambition was to become a cricketer. When He was in class 9th, he was selected editor of their school magazine. In college also writing and cricket went side by side. During those days, his writing pursuits were in extremely immature phase. In graduation, he got scholarship in Urdu. He took admission in Urdu department in Oriental College. This brought an end to his heartfelt desire of becoming a cricketer because he could not play from University of the Punjab as he was a student of Oriental College. Finally, he devoted his whole attention to writing. He was recognized as a talented young poet and was published in literary magazines. This encouraged him to write poetry.

Lahore at that time was the hub of all social and cultural activities. Its vibrant culture not only enriched his experience but also helped him develop his own outlook about life. The influence is discernable in hispoetry and especially in most of his plays.

He said about himself by the following words:

"During formative years, form does not possess any meaning because, practically, one is neither conscious of form nor knows the scope of it. It was important for me to express myself and nothing else. Poetry was never a profession for me. It was part of my life.

I can write about the innermost recesses of my personality only in poetry. My personal potential, I think, can best be realised only through this medium. Poetry is my natural expression. I wish people could identify me as a poet. People may stop watching my plays even in my life but my poetry will last longer. The readership is though limited but more captivating. Longevity of poetry is more than that of plays. My plays might be forgotten after decades but not my poetry.

I don’t know if it is possible to understand the urge that compels one to write, especially poetry. What can one say about why one writes it, and why in the form of half-formed sentences, or why one juxtaposes words in strange combinations, and even then it has its own strictness of format, two-lined, three-lined, four-lines and so on. But there is a strange, almost inexplicable satisfaction when the urge to create takes hold of one, and one feels compelled to purge oneself of the thoughts one is possessed with. The stronger the urge, the greater the catharsis. I believe that yes, there may have been, each time, some stimuli that provided the prompt, that became the catalyst, and started trains of thought and brought about the process of creativity, but what comes out, each time, is the sum-total of one’s entire personality to the hour. It is the expression of everything that has gone into one’s mind, the little pin-points of experiences and information and everything else to which one has related and which have become part of one’s psyche. The process in the mind that, in reaction, creates a whole work of art, is what I call the tip of the iceberg. I believe the creative process has not been understood so far, I don’t know if it will ever be. For my part, I believe that one cannot wholly grasp the process of creativity with reference only to stimuli percived through the eye or the ear, or the nostrils, or the tongue or the skin. And that is why I don’t know how my poems come into being."

In 1989 he was appointed as Director General of Urdu Science Board. Currently he is the project director of the Children Library Complex. He is the author of over 40 books and received several national and PTV awards.

Amjad Islam Amjad is the writer of many drama series for Pakistan Television Corporation including the very popular Waaris. He has written many columns, translation, criticism and essays whereas his main focus is writing Nazms. Among his most famous dramas are Waris, Dehleez, Samandar, Raat, Waqt and Apnay Loug.

In June, 2008 he joined Urdu newspaper Daily Express and writes column with the title of "Chasham-e-Tamasha".