Transitions: Quraish Pur, the man of letters is no more

Famous linguist, who mesmerised his audience with his words, passes away aged 80.

KARACHI:

He was so grief-stricken at the death of Obaidullah Baig that all he said was “Every single word he uttered was a source of wisdom”. Little did the country know that a day would come when it would be repeating the same phrase about Quraish Pur.

Let alone the enlightenment of his ideas, Quraish Pur was a linguist par excellence  who soothed everyone by the mere delivery of Urdu words until Monday, when he passed away after a  protracted illness. According to Daily Express correspondent Pervaiz Mazhar, he was 80 years old.

Quraish Pur, along with Obaidullah Baig, Iftikhar Arif and later, Ghazi Salahuddin, were the collective identity of one of the longest running programmes on Pakistani television called ‘Kasauti’.

Despite working for quite some time for Urdu and Persian radio, ‘Kasauti’ was where the generation of the 1970s first noticed this impeccable genius and from there on he never looked back.

“[Quraish] Pur was a man of letters,” one of the founders of PTV Aslam Azhar told The Express Tribune.

Quraish Pur was a well known commentator who enthralled everyone with his commentary on national day celebrations.

Quraish Pur never got married and lived with his sister in Muslim Quarters in North Nazimabad, Karachi.

His burial took place after Maghrib prayers in the Paposh Nagar Graveyard, Karachi.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 6^th, 2013.