Adil Najam
A friend sent these to me as examples of Pinglish. Supposedly, they are examples of actual language used in letters and applications of various types. Even if they are not real, they are funny.

A candidate’s application:
“This has reference to your advertisement calling for a ‘typist and an accountant–Male or Female’… As I am both for the past several years and I can handle both, I am applying for the post.”

An employee applied for leave as follows:
“Since I have to go to my village to sell my land along with my wife, please sanction me one-week leave.”

Student writing to headmaster:
“As I am studying in this school I am suffering from headache. I request you to leave me today.”

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Adil Najam

(ATP Note: On July 11, 2008, Samad Khurram broke his public silence on this episode in an op-ed published in The News. This post has been updated to include the op-ed in full, at the end of the post).

Islamabad, from where I write this, is abuzz with talk about Samad Khurram, the Pakistani student currently at Harvard University, who snubbed the U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson, by refusing to shake her hand or accept an award for Pakistani students from the Roots Academy – a top-notch private school – who are studying in leading U.S. universities.

Washington should also be paying close attention to what Samad Khurram is saying. Because what he is saying is reflective of the public mood in Paksitan much more than what they are hearing from the government – either from Gen. Musharraf or from Asif Ali Zardari and Co.

Owais Mughal

Our home in Karachi had a cricket ground next to it. Being a ‘puraana chaawal’ (seasoned rice) of the area, I became manager of this ground in early 90s. My duties included assigning the cricket ground to different local teams as well as arranging a match or two on special occasions.

Once I arranged a match for a neighborhood team but the local players didn’t show up on time. After doing a typical eleventh hour calling and rounding-up of players, I was able to field a ‘pakaR dhakaR XI’ (rounded-up XI). It was a very colorful team in a sense that eleven players spoke at least five different languages and yet understood each other very well.