Most of the English columns written in Pakistan and India, which I read, are bland, repetitive and quite useless.
KARACHI: This is with reference to Tazeen Javed’s article of May 19 titled “The art of writing an Urdu column”. Those who write in the Urdu press know how to write good columns, even if it means that at times they provide historically incorrect data in their articles. Most of the English columns written in Pakistan and India, which I read, are bland, repetitive and quite useless. The fact is that we only have a handful of brilliant, original columnists such as Ardeshir Cowasjee (now sadly retired), Irfan Hussain, Pervez Hoodbhoy and Sami Shah — and this makes it even more irritating because I wonder why others can’t write better. On the other hand, most of the Urdu columnists and feature writers have an excellent style and display originality in their work.
Ameer Hamza
Published in The Express Tribune, May 22nd, 2012.
