LARKANA: Speakers showered praise on Dr Zulfiqar Siyal at the launch of his 26th book titled Wadhu, katu, wand ain zarb (plus, minus, division and multiplication) at local press club here the other day.
Mukhtiar Malik, poet and former broadcaster who presided over the programme, said that by the time they had started writing Dr Siyal had been a mature writer. “I had attended launching ceremony of his first book in 1972,” he recalled.
He said that Dr Siyal was a former secretary of Sindhi Adabi Sangat (SAS) where he had had some issues with him. “In an election in the SAS in which I was also a candidate, many votes cast in my favour had been cancelled and what’s more I was not even allowed to observe the process of vote count,” he said.
He said that it was then that the SAS had bifurcated. “But despite having differences over various issues with Dr Siyal we share the same platform for the greater cause of the promotion of literature,” he said.
Dr Bashir Ahmed Shaad, writer and poet, said that Dr Siyal’s poetry had been sung by many prominent singers of the country like Mehdi Hassan.
He was a very active writer in different fields of literature, he said. He activated the SAS in Larkana in 1974 when it had become almost dormant.
Among others who also spoke were Azad Anwer Kandhro, Hizbullah I. Soomro, Qadir Jagirani, Nayab Sarkash Sindhi, Lalan Channo, Ghulam Mohammad Ghazi, Rauf Abbasi, Prof Jam Jamali and Jeal Oad.
Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2022
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