Is Urdu our ‘second mother tongue’?
On September 5, 2021, an article titled ‘Language beyond Politics’ written by an experienced teacher Syed Nomanul Haq appeared in Dawn. Though many of the points raised by the learned…
Doctors and Urdu literature -Part II
In the first part of this article, we discussed the contribution of some medical doctors to Urdu literature and briefly talked about doctors Asif Farrukhi, Hasan Manzar, and Shershah Syed.…
Doctors and Urdu literature
In the past 50 years or so, Urdu literature has seen some extraordinary writers whose primary profession has been medical practice. Three of these names stand out: Dr Asif Farrukhi,…
The love-hate with Urdu
THAT L.K. Advani and some other leading lights from the Hindutva repertory were praising an Urdu musical play made me sit up. They always undermined it as a language of…
Animals in Urdu: Part I
One of my readers, and a fellow columnist for Dawn, Shahzad Sharjeel, has written to me suggesting that I also write about the role of horses and other animals in…
Animals in Urdu: Part-II
Perhaps the best Urdu short story involving a bird is by Nayyar Masood. ‘Taoos Chaman Ki Mynah’ (The Mynah of the Peacock Garden) is set in the Lucknow of the…
Economics in Urdu
A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. But there are words and then there are words. Take the case of Begum Nusrat Bhutto who was a member of…
Is Pakistan’s problem Urdu?
For Pakistan’s founders, Urdu was to be the glue cementing together the new country. The pre-partition Muslim League rejected suggestions that English, Hindi, or Hindustani be the official language of…
An elegy for Urdu
In its latest issue, India’s Outlook magazine has come up with a charming photo essay about the disappearing tribe of Delhi’s katibs or Urdu calligraphers. Those haunting images of old…
Urdu is not going anywhere
That in my humble view is the conclusion of the conference in Karachi on the state of Urdu language, literature, journalism and performing arts held last week. Urdu is not…
