



Nobody could have thought that Rasheed Amjad, who once asked Mansha Yaad, the distinguished writer, what a short story was, would one day become a leading short story writer.





Born in Srinagar in Indian Kashmir in 1940, Amjad’s first short story was published in Adab-e-Latif in 1960 which, according to the renowned writer, “did not elicit a positive response from the public.”Amjad continued writing about current events and later switched to a more symbolic form of writing for which he gained fame in the literary circle.Recalling the reaction of readers to the symbolic form of writing, Amjad said readers at that time were accustomed to conventional writing but in time modern symbolic short stories appeared that won mass appeal.“At that time, the progressive writers’ movement was at its peak. Symbolic writing emerged as a reaction to greater emphasis on objectivity rather than on subjectivity — the hallmark of conventional writing.”Gen. (retd) Ayub Khan’s martial law inadvertently promoted elliptical techniques to express ideas that were impossible to convey directly,” he stated.The rulers were afraid of Urdu ghazal as poets expressed opinions against the Raj without being explicit, said Amjad. He believes that words become meaningless if they are continuously written in the same style and that great writers do not stick to established principles, evolving their unique styles.According to Amjad, the 1930s saw the rise of short story writers of great repute. There has never been a congregation of renowned Urdu language writers in any period after that.“From partition to 1960, around 100 short stories can be described as classic. Those which can survive the test of time become classics, he said. In the same way, around 50 short stories may be called literary masterpieces to the present day.”Amjad said he was most influenced by Manto, Ghulam Abbas, Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi, Rajinder Singh Bedi and Asmat Chughtai.He lamented the dearth of good translators who could translate Urdu short stories, some of which have no parallel in world literature.Published in The Express Tribune, October 3, 2013.