Nasreen Anjum Bhatti, poet, political activist and broadcaster, lost her fight against cancer in Karachi on 26 Jan 2016. She published two books of poetry 'Neel Karaaee-yaan Neelkan' (1979) and 'Athhay Pehr Taraah' (2009).
The particular strain of resistance that Bhatti belonged to had its origins in the hanging of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto during the Martial Law regime of Gen Ziaul Haq.
A bilingual poet, Nasreen was born in Quetta in 1943 while she spent her childhood in Jacobabad, Sindh. She did her Master’s in Urdu from the Oriental College in 1970 in Lahore before joining Radio Pakistan the following year. She studied art in National College of Arts for two years but did not get a diploma. She later did MA in Punjabi while working with the radio.
“The pro-people poets, especially Bulleh Shah, Shah Hussain and Latif Bhittai, became permanent source of inspiration and energy for me and collective pain and pleasure of the people became my romance,” she once said in an interview.
Bhatti was awarded Tamgha-i-Imtiaz in 2011. Besides serving Radio Pakistan as producer, broadcaster and deputy controller, she remained resident director of the Shakir Ali Museum in Lahore as well.