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Some of Pakistan’s most celebrated poets gather for the fifth edition of Serena’s annual mushaira<\/p>\nSome of Pakistan’s most celebrated poets gather for the fifth edition of Serena’s annual mushaira<\/p>\n
[ISLAMABAD], 31 October 2026 \u2013 Serena Hotels hosted the fifth edition of Mehfil-e-Sukhan on Saturday evening, bringing together some of Pakistan’s most distinguished poets for its annual mushaira at the Islamabad Serena Hotel. Held under Serena’s Cultural Diplomacy Initiative, the evening honoured one of the region’s oldest literary traditions, and the enduring power of Urdu verse to bring people together across generations, regions and backgrounds.<\/p>\n
Presided over by Abbas Naqvi and Shakeel Jazaib, the mehfil featured Kishwar Naheed, Iftikhar Arif, Anwar Shaoor, Abbas Tabish, Izhar ul Haq, Hamid Ateeq Sarwar, Haris Khaleeq, Ahmed Salman, Wasi Shah, Adnan Baig, Shakeel Jazib, Ashfaq Nasir, Saima Aftab, Rehman Faris, Zarnigar Abbas and Saba Uddin Hunzai. Spanning the classical and the contemporary, their readings reflected the range of Urdu poetry and its continuing ability to speak to the present.<\/p>\n
“Poetry has always been a meeting place. For five years, Mehfil-e-Sukhan has opened Serena’s doors to the poets who give voice to Pakistan, and to the audiences, from Pakistan and beyond, who come to listen. At its heart, cultural diplomacy is simply that: an invitation to sit together and share in something enduring,” said Mr. Aziz Boolani, Global CEO of Serena Hotels.<\/p>\n
Since its first edition in 2022, Mehfil-e-Sukhan has become a fixture of the capital’s cultural calendar: a setting in which celebrated poets and appreciative audiences meet in the spirit of the traditional mushaira. Its fifth edition reaffirms Serena’s commitment to keeping Urdu’s literary heritage alive.<\/p>\n
Mehfil-e-Sukhan forms part of Serena’s wider support for literature and the arts across Pakistan, including the Lahore Literary Festival and the Quetta Literary Festival, which give writers, poets and thinkers a platform to share ideas with wider audiences.<\/p>\n
Through its Cultural Diplomacy Initiative, Serena opens its spaces to Pakistan’s artists, writers and thinkers, and to the communities, at home and abroad, who come to meet them. It reflects a belief that understanding between people often begins with shared culture, and that Pakistan’s rich and plural heritage deserves to be celebrated, preserved and heard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some of Pakistan’s most celebrated poets gather for the fifth edition of Serena’s annual mushaira [ISLAMABAD], 31 October 2026 \u2013 Serena Hotels hosted the fifth edition of Mehfil-e-Sukhan on Saturday evening, bringing together some of Pakistan’s most distinguished poets for its annual mushaira at the Islamabad Serena Hotel. Held under Serena’s Cultural Diplomacy Initiative, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":70286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70285"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70287,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70285\/revisions\/70287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}