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AKU
Special Lecture Series - Zia
Mohyeddin on "My Unwanted Classics”
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Zia Mohyeddin, renowned actor, compere and broadcaster, addressed
students, faculty, staff and distinguished guests on "My Unwanted
Classics" at a lecture at Aga Khan University (AKU). This programme
was part of a special lecture series, which aims to provide students
with a broad-based education by enriching their understanding and
appreciation of the humanities and social sciences.
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| Zia
Mohyeddin, eminent actor, compere and broadcaster, speaks on "My Unwanted Classics" at AKU auditorium. |
The community at large also benefits from this interaction with outstanding
personalities.
Welcoming the eminent speaker, Shamsh Kassim-Lakha,
President of AKU, applauded him for being one of the few Pakistani
actors today who has worked internationally both on the stage and
screen. The President continued that Zia Mohyeddin's mastery of both
the Urdu and English language was an attribute that all those in the
audience should aspire to.
Mohyeddin commenced his talk with a general discourse
on his own creative efforts and the manipulation of language. He said, "It is amazing how well I write in my sleep. The style is lucid and
the writing is revealing and elegant. It is a pity I cannot recall
much of this ingenious prose in my waking hours." He continued saying
that, "A word combines the meaning of reason, thought, discourse and
all the events in the human mind that are set in action by language.Don't
look a word that you don't know straight in the eye, or you will be
embarrassed."
Defining a classic as "A work about whose value it is assumed there
can be no argument.it is all that is laudable, soul-lifting and enriching,"
Mohyeddin went on to list some of his least favourite works amongst
the great literary giants such as Gibbons and Dickens. Conversely,
he went on to portray as an "unwanted classic" all of those tomes
kept on the bookshelf to make a room appear more high-brow. Among
such works, Mohyeddin included Thomas Mann, Melville, Hawthorne, Charlotte
Bronte and those by the poets Tennyson and Byron, whom he described
as "the epitome of tedium."
Mohyeddin regaled the audience with a scholarly and sometimes irreverent
analysis of numerous works widely regarded as masterpieces and encouraged
the listeners to read extensively in order to form their own conclusions
to add to their list of "unwanted classics."
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