By Er.Shafi Ahmad
He sports a sweet simper, even eats a fabulous smile with his couple of teeth on display, walks and talks a grin attracting passerby as well as people in conversation with him, he even sits with the smile during a serious mood. The smile suits his face having all components in clear appropriate dimensions, neither bigger nor smaller .Face readers don’t have to spend their energy to describe his face , nose ears chin etc. ,meaning thereby his face has the dimensions in Golden ratio. The face readers and psycho analysts believe that the mouth and nose are each positioned at golden sections of the distance between the eyes and the bottom of the chin. And such people have attractive smile and golden heart. He is Prof Farooq Fayaz . Apart from an attractive smile on his face he grows a white beard adding grace and grandeur to his personality. The masculine men–those with a large jaw, prominent cheekbones, straighter eyebrows, and a heavy beard–were found to be attractive.
Since recent times he sits on Zaeli Dub, the latticed balcony, to keep an eye upon who create fiction, who write non fiction , who pen poetry , who collect historical evidences and who have been focusing on the literary contributions. Mushtaque Barq reviews the book as , “In a sense , literary critic is an academic detective who solves previously unsolved riddles ,bringing the raw materials and labour used by the artist into the public realm ………Zaeli Dub is a remarkable literary work that tackles prose and poetry ,two of the most fundamental genres in literature.” He is professor of history and his area of specialization is Literary and cultural history and, as such, his focus is on literature and culture . Aart from his mother tongue Kashmiri he has command over English , so he wrote around a dozen books in both languages .Not only that he has command over translation traits and so translated few scripts from English to Kashmiri enriching his mother tongue. Folklore has in all civilizations great importance in any society , he wrote a book entitled “Folklore and history of Kashmir” thereby connecting the two enriching the language as well as history. Did not stop there but moved forward to add to the treasure with “ Kashmiri Folk-Lore—A Study in Historical Perspective” . The revered saint Shaikh ul Alam did not lose attention of the professor as he penned “ Shaikh-ul- Alam——Kashmir Revisited”. He focused on the poetic giants of Kashmir like Fazil Kashmiri and Amir Shah Kreeri and introduced them to the masses through namesake biographical accounts. And teacher afterall remains a teacher so is our respected teacher . He did not leave the chance of teaching students of history through his another publication titled “The Concise Teaching of History & Civics.”
He did not sit quite but went ahead with translation works titled
“Kashmiri Translation of Romila Thapar’s “Penguins History of Early India.”
Kashmiri Translation of Anita Desai’s “Fire on Mountain .”
English Translation of Prof. Shams ud din Ahmad’s “Shamas Faqir.”
With laptop in one hand and the index finger scratching brain he is in a hurry to finish following titles which are under publication.
A Comparative Study of Literary Cultures and Literary History.
The Literary glory of Kashmir.
Band Pather—History and Technique.
Poetic Collection.
And the society did not ignore the ever engaging professor but conferred following awards .
Best Book Award in the year 2009 for the Book titled “ Kashmir Folklore—A Study in Historical Perspective”, by J&K Cultural Academy.
Kashmir Media Award for Literary and Academic Contributions.
Fazil Memorial Award 2017.
Ghulam Ali Majboor Memorial Award.
As if this much was not enough he held positions in other fields also;
Producer literary programme Sangarmal; Radio Kashmir Srinagar.
Producer Weekly Programme Gandhi Katha; Radio Kashmir Srinagar.
Founder Producer Kashmir University Radio Digest (Weekly Programme).
With so much contribution in varied fields our professor is definitely a polymath .
Post Script : But with so much of contribution one wonders Is the learned professor extra talented or confused . Teaching, writing ,translation and publishing so much or not able to decide which permanent line to adopt ? hahaha ! Https
Er.Shafi Wani can be reached at wanishafi999@gmail.com)
