The occasion was the Indo-Pak Mushaira organised in connection with the bicentenary of Mirza Ghalib's birth by the Haryana Urdu Academy. The audience saw, heard and was conquered by the poets including some of the leading lights of Urdu poetry like this year's Jnanpith Award winner Ali Sardar Jafri and ghazal singers' delight from Pakistan Qateel Shifai.

They say when you are in the company of poets you do not need any intoxicants for their poetry itself becomes nasha for you. It was so this evening when they recited couplets after couplets which gripped the audience into their hold thoroughly. Kumar Panipati and Pakistani poetess Bismil Sabri were the crowd-pullers in the first half though it was Kumar who literally shook the listener's inner realms with his punching verses. Bismil with her romantic lines established an instant rapport with the audience.

Earlier in the day, a seminar on Ghalib was inaugurated by Mahavir Prasad, the Governor of Haryana, at the Haryana Niwas. Releasing the book of Ghalib's poems edited by Academy secretary K L Zakir, the Governor pointed out, "Language can only join the people, not divide them." Presiding over the function, Haryana Chief Minister Bansi Lal said, quoting Mahatma Gandhi, that Hindustani should have been the language of the Country. Speaking at the seminar, Ali Sardar Jafri noted that Haryana, due to its link with Ghalib, should have a place for ghazals and poets just as they have done in Gujarat. "In Ahmedabad, there is a building devoted to their poets, each room for a separate poet or genre. Why not one for Urdu poetry? " Academy secretary Zakir said that they would soon launch a project to develop the relationship that Ghalib had with Haryana as he was married into the Nawab's family at Ferozepur Zilka.

No walls
Since there were two invitees from Pakistan, the speeches by the leaders focussed onIndo-Pak relationship. Haryana Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma was the first to start. He said, "Though the Partition wall came up between the two countries, no such boundaries exist between the people. It is the litterateurs who had kept the people together." It was his boss's turn next as Bansi Lal noted quite poetically, " We are the same, the same blood flows in our veins. Even if someone spews venom into the relationship, it cannot separate us." The Governor went a step further, "This `dil ka tukda' can bring the divided `prithvi ka tukda' together." Is George Fernandes listening? Hope he does not misunderstand the word "Prithvi".

The anthem fiasco
The compere asked everyone to stand up as the National Anthem was to be sung. The audience was readily up on their feet and off the emcee started with "Jana Gana Mana". All fine till he reached the second stanza. Then he suddenly lost track and fumbled. He had to finally wind it up with the "Jaya Hain...". All these while the head of the state, the head of the government and senior bureaucrats stood in attention.