احمد بشیر کی مکتوب نگاری

Ahmad Bashir’s Letter Writing

Abstract

Ahmad Bashir was a renowned journalist and a literary icon of Urdu. He wrote essays/articles and columns equally in English and Urdu. Among several of his journalistic and literary facets, sketch-writing, novel-writing, and editorial writing are worth mentioning. He got an education in filmmaking from America and started filmmaking and direction in Pakistan. He produced a few documentaries and made the first and last to date belly film of Pakistan "Chirree Kahaani" which achieved an award at the Belly Film Festival of Iran. He chose journalism to make his livelihood and learned journalism from Chiragh Hassan Hasrat in the daily "Amroz". He was called the founder of Urdu feature writing. He wrote his debut feature on Gamma Pehalwan. After the daily "Amroz", he started writing for the weekly "Qandeel". He never stuck long to a newspaper owing to his truthfulness and ideological thoughts. He exhibited his writing power, along with editorial writing, in both English and Urdu journals and newspapers like: "Chatan", "Lail-o-Nahar", "Nawa-e-Waqt", "Jang", "Musawat", "Friday Times", "The Muslim", "The Star", "The News" and "Frontier Post". His last writing, featuring journalistic, political, analytical, and ideological characteristics, continued to be published in the monthly "Naya Zamana" from Lahore. His style held truthfulness and candidness. He had to write under different false names due to the atrocities of the government. For this purpose, he adopted the names of Bullhey Shah, Shah Inyat, and Ahmad Khan Kharal. He never let journalistic and literary values fall prey to worldly strategies and impurities. He was a staunch socialist and flag-bearer of social justice.