The Wings of Times

The book is an attempt by the author to rediscover her father Dr. M.D. Taseer the eminent poet critic teacher and administrator. Taseer was orphaned at the age of three when his entire village in Ajnala District East Punjab was wiped out in an epidemic of bubonic plague. He was sent away to Lahore to be brought up by his mother’s sister Muzaffar Begum wife of Mian Nizamuddin of Barudkhana Haveli. She was a beautiful Kashmiri lady who nurtured one of the leading literary figures of the Punjab. During his distinguished career Taseer attracted around himself a bevy of brilliant intellectuals who filled the existential void that existed within him due to his aloneness. We are also told of Taseer’s wife Christabel George whom he met at Cambridge and who was descended from a talented Huguenot family on her maternal side. She lived a happy married life until his untimely death in 1950 after which she brought up her three children in the most praiseworthy manner. The book describes Taseer’s unique contemporaries who exemplify the irreplaceable literary milieu in which he lived. That milieu has vanished forever so the story is ultimately a tragic one.