Prof Dr Farman Fatehpuri passed away here( Karachi) on Saturday and was buried on Sunday. He was one of the most celebrated critics, linguists, lexicographers and researchers of our times. But above all, he was a person who epitomised certain social, academic and literary values.

Born in a village near Fatehpur Hasva, UP, British India, on Jan 26, 1926, into a middle-class family of small landowners, Farman Sahib rose to the eminence that many in his hometown could only dream of. The village boy who was named Syed Dildar Ali, orphaned at the age of seven, once fell so ill that he almost died of an undiagnosed disease and was, on another occasion, almost swept away with the gushing waters of torrential rains, was to adopt the penname of Farman Fatehpuri to write, compile and edit over 60 books. He was to become the head of Urdu department at the University of Karachi, the chief editor and president of Urdu Dictionary Board (UDB), member of public service commission, to travel to many countries and was to earn many other honours his humble beginning hardly offered any clue to.

To make both ends meet, Farman Sahib had to join a school as teacher immediately after passing his matriculation in 1946. Inspired by Maulana Hasrat Mohani’s anti-British ideas and being a zealous supporter of the Muslim League, Farman Sahib migrated to Pakistan in 1950 in the wake of communal tension in his hometown. For him, life was not a bed of roses in the nascent country either. First, he had to be content with a lower-cadre clerical job at the Civil Aviation and then another clerical job at the audit department of the office of the Accountant General of Pakistan. But with a degree from Agra University, and a command of Urdu, Persian, Arabic, English and Hindi, he was keen to resume his teaching career. In 1955, he as teacher joined Karachi’s Kotwal Building School, known for its quality education and learned faculty. With a penchant for literature and a critical mind, Farman Sahib was not the kind of souls that sit idle and wait for things to happen to them. He had much earlier started writing critical essays that appeared in prestigious literary journals of the day. In fact, he had been composing poetry since school days and contributing to some well-known newspapers and journals even in the 1940s.

Making ends meet was quite a task and with the proverbial candle that he had to burn, Farman Sahib did part-time jobs and compiled students’ guides for Urdu Bazar publishers just to earn a few hundred rupees. Once he confided with this writer that in the 1950s and early 1960s, many guides for the students of some subjects as diverse as economics and mathematics were penned by one S. D. Ali. And it was none other than Syed Dildar Ali, who by that time had established himself as a critic and researcher with the penname of Farman Fatehpuri and was assisting Allama Niaz Fatehpuri in bringing out his celebrated literary magazine ‘Nigar’, a magazine which Farman Sahib began editing after the death of Niaz Fatehpuri in 1966. Its latest issue has appeared a couple of weeks ago. Click link below for full article.

http://dawn.com/news/1034068/farman-fatehpuri-an-era-comes-to-an-end

( Farman Fatehpuri was the grandfather of Mrs. Aziz Amin. Dr. Aziz Amin is TFUSA affiliate. Condolences to Mrs. Aziz Amin and entire family on behalf of TFUSA )

Posted By F.Sheikh