KARACHI: Azher Haroon Siddiqui’s book, a collection of his columns published in an Urdu daily, was launched at Karachi Gymkhana. Main bhi munh mein zaban rakhta hoon, is Siddiqui’s third volume, the other two were Aena Kyun na doon and Dakhal der mahsoolat.

A known writer and columnist, Siddiqui was much admired by such noted writers as Dr Farman Fatehpuri, who presided over the deliberations, Dr Aslam Farrukhi and Professor Husnain Kazmi. The speakers, including Dost Mohammad Faizi, a known figure in the city, recalled Azher Siddiqui’s past career as an important government officer, a soft-speaking, polite and ever-smiling person, yet unbending in his principles. An MA in Arabic and also a Hafiz-i-Quran, as some one disclosed, Siddiqui, being a religious person was pained to see the decline in the socio-political culture of Pakistan and started writing columns with a reformer’s zeal.

Dr Farman found him a fine humorist and a high-ranking writer. Dr Aslam Siddiqui admired him for being an honest, dedicated and bold person while in service and at present as a writer. He remembered the columnist of the past — Chiragh Hasan Hasrat and his able contemporaries — and compared them with the present day’s columnists most of whom indulge in self-praise and psychophancy. Siddiqui, Dr Farrukhi said, belonged to the community of the earlier classical writers.

Dr Farman and other speakers remembered the writer’s earlier book, a brief volume titled Quran Majeed aur Urdu, written for the National Language Authority, Islamabad.

Azher Hasan Siddiqui, also read out a paper, as to how he got the membership of the Gymkhana in the decade of 50s, when the club was ruled under severe Anglicism, and was able to retain his oriental style, the kurta pajama and Urdu.

Earlier, Mohammad Taqi Iqbal, president of the Karachi Gymkhana welcomed the guests. Mr Mohammad Nasim Gandhi briefly recounted the contribution of the gymkhana in the promotion of culture and proudly informed the audience that the club’s library had a collection of around 70,000 books and was the regular buyer of some 35 papers and periodicals.

Mr Rizwan Siddiqui did the compering and was most eloquent in verbose.—HA