Adil Najam

I am very glad that some of our readers did recognize Prof. Jaganath Azad in our recent ATP Quiz. I am not surprised that others did not. As I had mentioned in the post, I would not have done so had it not been for a wonderful post by Zakintosh on his blog.

I am ashamed that until recently I did not know who Jagan Nath Azad was, or what he did. I am glad that I now know. I hope you are too.

First, the basics: Jagannath Azad (1918-2004) was an Urdu poet, a Punjabi Hindu, and a scholar of Iqbal’s poetry who, on the direct invitation of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, wrote Pakistan’s first national anthem, which remained Pakistan’s official anthem for its first year-and-half and whose first lines were as follows:

Aé sarzameené paak
Zarray teray haéñ aaj sitaaroñ se taabnaak
Roshan haé kehkashaañ se kaheeñ aaj tayree khaak
Aé sarzameené paak

Adil Najam

We regret not having a better picture of this man to use in this ATP Quiz. But that is the very point of the quiz.

Why don’t we have a better picture of this man? Maybe because too many of us do not even know who he is. I myself did not until fairly recently.

Do you? Do share what you know about this man. And we promise to write up whatever little we know.

(Similar posts: here, here and here).

Adil Najam

The first time I heard about ‘Life’s Too Short’ – the Short Story Prize and Competition for Pakistani authors – I remember thinking, “What a great idea.” Every time I have thought about it since then – and I have thought about it often – it strikes me that this is an even better idea than I first thought it was.

The sentence structure of that opening paragraph demonstrates why I should not be submitting an entry for this competition. But I do hope that at least a few people reading this will do so, if they have not already. The submission deadline is June 30, 2009 – so if you are an aspiring short story writer of Pakistani origin, do submit soon!

First, the basics. Life’s Too Short is a short story (n English) competition for Pakistani authors: the top three authors will be given prizes of Rs. 100,000, Rs 20,000 and Rs. 10,000 respectively and – and this is far more important – the ten best stories selected by the judges will be published as an anthology.