Pak Tea House » Entries tagged with "Urdu"
Some Closing Thoughts on Saadat Hasan Manto’s Centenary
Ras Siddiqui Born and raised in a village a few kilometers from Samrala Town, District Ludhiana on the Indian side of Punjab, the late Saadat Hasan Manto (1912 to 1955) left us horrified, speechless and even offended while he scribed for the world the depths of depravity, uncertainty and the many ironies encountered during the partition of British India (into the independent states of India and Pakistan) in 1947. For one of the greatest Urdu short story writers the world has ever known (if not the greatest as he described himself), the personal journey was as troubled as the time in history he drew inspiration from. Manto died in Lahore at the young age 42 but not without sharing his genius. Since 2012 was heralded as the Manto centenary year, this scribe … Read entire article »
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Report: Meetup with Dr Ayesha Jalal
‘Young people in Pakistan need to wrest back their perspective from people like Hakimullah Mehsud’ said Dr. Ayesha Jalal in a session with bloggers at Nairang Gallery, Lahore on 22nd August. It was attended by 20 bloggers and media personnel from Lahore including Cheif Editor Pak Tea House, Raza Rumi, Saroop Ijaz, Mehmal Sarfaraz, Yasir Latif Hamdani, Aisha Sarwari, Saadia Gardezi, Zebunnisa Burki, Adnan Rasool, Awais Aftab, Rabia Mahmood, Sabahat Zakriya, Sher Ali,Aun, Samar Ataullah,Ali Sethi, Rab Nawaz and Abdul Majeed. The purpose for which this meet-up was organized as to discuss How bloggers can make a difference in the political narrative of the country and how should they work to bring back the narrative of Pakistanis. Dr. Jalal initiated the session by pointing out that Pakistan’s perspective is not the … Read entire article »
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Manto: An Author of Tales for Children
By: Josh Shahryar It was with much sorrow that I learned that Saadat Hasan Manto has been posthumously awarded the Nishan-e-Imtiaz, Pakistan’s highest civilian honor. Too late? Maybe. However, that news opened too many old wounds in my heart. Wounds that I had to write something about if I was to find some closure. You see, to the rest of the world, Manto is a fearless story-teller, who spoke to adults, aiming to open their eyes to endemic oppression around them. To me, though, he will forever be a writer who spoke to children. The news of the posthumous – and might I add tragically late – recognition he received from the government of Pakistan took me back down memory lane to the moment I first encountered his words that seemed so out of … Read entire article »
Filed under: culture, Literature, Pakistan, Writers
At Home Nowhere
By Hamza Usman An inevitable question Pakistanis always ask me is, “what are you?” Often, I’ve wondered the same question. Besides ‘Pakistani,’ I don’t know what else to say. I’m not Balochi or Sindhi. I can’t speak Punjabi. In my house, besides English, Urdu is the only other language spoken. When people ask me what language my parents speak, that’s what I tell them. Unlike many of my acquaintances, I don’t come from a town or village in interior Pakistan. Like millions in Pakistan, my family migrated from India. My grandparents’ families originate from Delhi, Lucknow and Aligarh, the bastions of Urdu-speaking peoples in India. In Pakistan, I am merely a ‘Muhajir;” an Urdu speaking migrant from India, now living in Karachi. My family, like millions of others, came to Pakistan believing … Read entire article »
A Souvenir from the Punjab
By Kiran Rezvi It started when my nephew expressed his wish to travel and perform with a dance troupe; the entire family came in to offer unsolicited advice. Some typical macho males were against a boy dancing, others more religious were against the satanic display of music and dance. However, surprisingly enough, the biggest opposition came from the ‘nationalists’, who raised the point that dancing would have been ok, had it not been tap dancing. “Why can’t he join a ‘bhang.ra’ dance group? Our culture is far better than Irish,” came a passionate statement from a cousin. I normally stay away from such debates, but her comments caught my attention, particularly the one that described bhang.ra as ‘our’ culture. Nanaji, my grandfather, was a vibrant character. He used to enthrall us with … Read entire article »
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The tragic story of Urdu
By Raza Rumi What makes translating Urdu literature a rare indulgence has also kept it closeted from global appreciation. Ralph Russell, the legendary British scholar of Urdu literature, whose tireless efforts to explore the Byzantine layers of Urdu will always serve as a reference point for global Urdu-walas, once summed up the eternal dilemma of achieving a perfect translation of Urdu literature into English. He pointed out that the work of Indian and Pakistani translators suffered from a lack of command in either language. “The English-knowing products of what in India and Pakistan are generally called ‘convent schools’ have acquired their nearly (but not quite) perfect English at the cost of losing full command of their mother tongue,” he wrote in 1996. This is not to say that translations of Urdu literature have … Read entire article »
MIND YOUR LANGUAGE!
By Ghazala Akbar : Sigmund Freud would have loved the Pakistanis. 180 million subjects for psychoanalysis on the proverbial couch. There is no other word for it. We are a nation of Masochists. We have developed the act of turning one’s destructive tendencies inward or upon oneself into an art form. Like the tongue that probes a wound or the fingernail that picks at scabs we are constantly on the lookout for inflicting new wounds upon ourselves. Take the latest Bill introduced by a female member of Parliament, for the August body’s urgent consideration: A Language Bill. What! Come again. A Language Bill! Pardon my ignorance but isn’t Urdu our National language as decreed by the constitution? Isn’t there a consensus on this issue? Didn’t the Gujrati-speaking Quaid e Azam himself say that ‘ Urdu and Urdu alone will be the State Language of … Read entire article »
Mukhtar mai Media and Misogyny
By Raza Rumi As if the showering of rose petals on Mumtaz Qadri and the release of a new Urdu book ‘Parwana-i-Shama-i-Risalat’ extolling him were not enough, Mukhtar Mai’s plight in today’s Pakistan is simply depressing. Within hours after the Supreme Court’s split verdict on her was announced, Pakistan once again appeared as a divided polity. The medieval minds in media and intelligentsia were quick to harp on the soundness of the Court’s verdict while those who were … Read entire article »
Filed under: human rights, violence
The Maestro of Urdu verse
By Taha Kehar Although there is no dearth of literature available on Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poetic verse all emerging analyses on the subject present something new to ponder over by recycling old arguments. Such is the emotional energy of Faiz’s literary work. Even the most routine observations of it have the ability to emerge as fresh and stimulating. This has been attributed to the nature of his verse as a unifying factor. Every couplet of his distinguished poetry compels the reader to understand the universal themes of suppression and subjugation. These themes can be identified with on a highly individual level and thus even the most formulaic approaches to Faiz’s work never grow stale. But no analysis of Faiz’s poetry is complete without a clear testament of how it was initiated and developed … Read entire article »
Filed under: Faiz Ahmed Faiz
A city not unlike home
By RAKHSHANDA JALIL A visit to Karachi gave RAKHSHANDA JALIL that elusive connect with India when she was least expecting it. I t appears to be a truism much acknowledged that Delhi and Lahore are soul sisters. Yet, I must confess, I saw no such striking resemblance between the two cities on my first visit a couple of years ago. A recent visit to Karachi, however, struck a chord in my born-in-UP but raised-in-Delhi heart. Here was … Read entire article »
Filed under: Karachi
Karachi Literature Festival: Too many divides to bridge
By Ali Syed ‘Bridging divides’, as the name suggests, was about a certain disparity within the Pakistani society. KARACHI: ‘Bridging divides’, as the name suggests, was about a certain disparity within the Pakistani society, perhaps religion vs secularism, moderation vs extremism, or even the gaps that have grown between Pakistan and India. However, what could not be deducted for sure was what divide would be talked about. Interestingly, when the session went underway, it became clear that it was … Read entire article »
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A question to the common Musalman
A piece in Urdu worth reading … Read entire article »
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Do you speak what your great grandfather did?
By Amrita Yasin The General Administration of Press and Publication in China recently banned the use of English words and phrases in publications, for it was “abusing the language’ and putting its “purity” in jeopardy. The names of people and places and commonly used English abbreviations, all have to be translated to Chinese. Anyone can argue for or against this action on technical grounds, but I do salute the display of self-esteem and self-respect this nation has shown. I feel a tinge of guilt writing in support of preservation of mother tongue in a language that isn’t my first language. Or is it? Considering that as far as I can remember, I have been speaking English as much as Urdu and that I can’t carry a casual conversation in Urdu without using English … Read entire article »
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Jinnah And Urdu-Bengali Controversy
By Yasser Latif Hamdani This is a quick blog to correct a historical fallacy. A false impression persists – thanks to people like Amar Jaleel and the like who in the right royal Urdu press fashion have a hard time sticking to the facts- that Jinnah- who according to Jaleel was drugged or cornered into making the speech in question- somehow told Bengalis to outlaw Bengali language when he declared Urdu to be the state language of Pakistan. This is historically inaccurate. This blog is not to discuss whether Jinnah’s declaration was politically suave or naïve but to set the record straight about what it was that Jinnah said which laid foundations for the Urdu-Bengali discord in Pakistan and led to Pakistan ultimately declaring both Urdu and Bengali the “national languages” … Read entire article »
Filed under: Bangladesh, History, Languages, Liberal Democratic Pakistan
Farewell Haqqani Saheb – forgive your peers and colleagues
Raza Rumi A personal favourite, Irshad Ahmad Haqqani is dead. This is a huge loss to Urdu journalism as he was the last of sane voices in the vernacular industry. I often disagreed with his centre-right views but his tone was measured and he remained a staunch supporter of democracy. May God bless his soul. I stumbled on this post at Cafe Piyala that also talks about Haqqani but the best part of it was what Haqqani’s … Read entire article »
Filed under: journalism, Media, Urdu
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