Nusrat Ali’s skill at mimicking leaves the audience in stitches

Someone in the audience clapped. “Thanks for that single clap,” said Ali without even looking up. The audience started laughing and from this point onward, it hardly stopped as Ali threw punchline after punchline at them during a session titled ‘Kalaam e shair ba zubaan e shair’ on day two of the fourth Karachi Literature Festival.

One of the funniest jokes of the session was perhaps the one on polygamy. “A man had a habit of getting married,” said Ali, and before he could even get to the punchline, the audience burst out laughing. “Wherever he went, he married before moving to the next destination. One day, one of his sons came to him and said: ‘Abba mein Amjad’ (Hey dad. It’s me, Amjad). ‘Abay kon Amjad?’ (Which Amjad), the man asked. ‘Amma ka naam toh batao’ (Tell me your mother’s name).”

The audience also roared with laughter and cheered as Ali then imitated many great names in Urdu poetry, including Jigar Moradabadi, Khumar Barabankvi, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Zameer Jafri, Behzad Lakhnavi and Jagannath Azad, as he read out their work.

Ali, who has worked for Radio Pakistan, used the occasion to list a few of the words most misused on air these days. “Never before in my whole life have I seen the words ‘categorically’, ‘scenario’ and ‘sovereignty’ being misused on television as they are now.”

Earlier, writer Fehmida Riaz read a few couplets penned by Persian poet Shaikh Saadi and then translated them into English for the audience. The couplets were chosen from a new book on the poet titled ‘Our Shaikh Saadi: A selection from Gulistan and Bostan’.

“There is so much corruption that copies of this book should be sent to all the politicians and leaders,” she said while using Saadi’s work to scrutinise problems plaguing society. Riaz said that Saadi’s book, Gulistan and Bostan, was taught in schools a few generations ago. “It’s a very valuable thing.”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 17^th, 2013.