‘Lauh’ emerges as a perfect document of Urdu literature

KARACHI: The latest issue of Urdu quarterly ‘Lauh’ has upheld its tradition as it maintained in two of its previous two editions.

The quarterly edited by Mumtaz Ahmed Shaikh has covered each and every aspect of contemporary literature and literary trends. It has published as usual Urdu poetry, short stories, travelogues, some parts of novels of several noted writers, poetry of renowned poets, articles by famous writers on all important topics and issues.

Besides it has provided an opportunity to many promising writers and those who are relatively not well known but they have presented more worthy and meaningful writing and this thing shows the acumen and insight of the editor to judge the actual worth of the writings and publish them on merit and according to the worth and status of the writings and not the writers in spite of the fact that they are less known in comparative to other famous writers who have been published in this issue as well.

In other words one can say that Mumtaz Ahmed Shaikh is so serious in making his quarterly a perfect document on literature instead of publishing people without caring merit and worth of the writings and writers and certainly this is an appreciable act.

The latest issue of ‘Lauh’ also experienced presentation of writings on famous foreign writers besides presentation of their translations in Urdu language.

Another aspect of the latest issues is the discussions it raised on different important question on literature, art, culture, music and other formats.

The editorial itself sounds very nice and rather innovative. Mumtaz Shaikh has underlined his objective to publish ‘Lauch’ in a manner that it could be helpful for the students of the literature in completing their thesis (of MPhil and Ph.D) and certainly this is a great aim and shows the actual zeal behind the publication of ‘Lauch’.

Many important issues on literature such as ‘impact of Hindi language’ on Urdu ‘ghazal’, ‘Maa ba’ad jaded culture ki jamaliat’, ‘Nazm mine jidato qadamat ka qazeeya aur teesri lehr’ ‘Shah Turab Ali Qalandar and unn ki Urdu shairi ki kaaynaat’ Munsha Yaad k afsanon ka aik zimni mo’azoo’ have also been covered by Dr Abdul Waid Tabbasum, Dr Iqbal A’afaqi, Dr Ashad Mehmmod Nashaad,  and Muhammad Hameed Shahid respectively.

The issue in terms of content and presentation sounds more meaningful and perfect beyond doubt.