Sindhi-Engineers

Rajab Al Murajab 2010 Mubarak

ashiqaliazhar — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 11:24:09 +0000

To all the Muslims…

the Holy Islamic month of Rajab al Murajab Mubarak

this month bears many sacred events like 13Rajab, 22Rajab & 27Rajab

thanks

Salam… Greetings…. Namaste

ashiqaliazhar — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 11:00:23 +0000

Hi friends, long time no blog message here on our own weblog named as sindhi engineers group..

wish you alllllll the best

Moderator

Sindhi Engineers Group

Rabbana Aatina Fi Dunya Hassanatan wa fil aakhirat hassantan wa kina azaaba al naar

ashiqaliazhar — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 04:52:43 +0000

Shaaban 1430 AH Mubarak

ashiqaliazhar — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:42:23 +0000

Shabaan 1430 AH Mubarak!!

Eid e Milad un Nabi SAWW 2009

ashiqaliazhar — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:31:57 +0000

Eid ul Azha Mubarak!! To All

ashiqaliazhar — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:57:07 +0000

Eid Mubarak!!!

Amar Jalil’s English book

ashiqaliazhar — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:48:14 +0000

Amar Jalil’s English book

KARACHI: “Love, Longing and Death,” an anthology of English short stories by popular Sindhi fiction writer Amar Jalil has recently been published in New Delhi (India) by Bibliophile South Asia publication house.

The book contains around 20 short stories mostly revolving around the pangs of the partition and mystic musings. Nine of them have already been published in abridged from in Amar Jalil’s weekly columns Mystic Notes published in daily Dawn.

The writer has 11 collections of short stories and one novel in Sindhi language to his credit.

Indus identity of Sindhis: Indian authors

ashiqaliazhar — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:37:57 +0000

Indus identity of Sindhis: Indian authors- DAWN

By Iqbal Khwaja
THATTA, Nov 25: Indian TV producer, playwright and writer Jetho Lalwani and poet and research scholar Hero Thakur have said that Sindh is not merely a name of an area confined within predefined territorial limits but it refers to Indus Civilisation and its people identify themselves with the River Indus.

They were speaking at a reception-cum-dinner given in their honour by the Sindh Tourism and Culture Department at Keenjhar Lake on Monday.

They said that irrespective of the part of the world they lived all the people speaking Sindhi language and their ancestral relevance to the river were recognised as Sindhis. They said that hundreds of thousands of people belonging to different castes and creeds lived along the Ganges and Jamuna rivers in India but none of them identified themselves with rivers such as “Gangoo” or “Jamunoo”.

The guests who were accorded rousing reception by Sindhi writers, poets and intellectuals termed partition of subcontinent a tragedy, which had forced the sons of soil to bear its brunt.

They said that those who were compelled to leave the motherland had after a great struggle succeeded in getting Sindhi language officially recognized by Indian government in 1967. They said that wherever Sindhis were serving they always remained true and loyal to their motherland.

Jetho Lalwani said that Sindhi Hindus in India organised Sindhu Darshan Mela regularly at the descending site of the River Indus in Kashmir in order to keep the new generation informed about their past. Both the guests expressed confidence about future of Sindh.

Sindh Minister for Culture and Tourism Sassui Palijo said that one’s love for the land had always proved to be stronger than the love for a beloved and this reality had made itself widely felt after the partition.

She regretted that Indian intellectuals and writers frequently poured into the Punjab without any obstruction but Indian Sindhis visits to Sindh and vice versa had always been obstructed under the pretext of security concerns.

When Ms Benazir Bhutto met Rajiv Gandhi in India it was called a security risk whereas Gen (Retd) Pervez Musharraf’s visit was welcomed by all, she remarked.

She said that bureaucracy was the real obstruction to bringing people of both the countries closer. Indian Sindhis had created a mini-Sindh in India, she said.

She said that time was ripe for creating an atmosphere of brotherhood among nations.

She said that she felt proud to announce that President Asif Ali Zardari had handed over the Archaeology Department to provincial government. Her ministry would take steps to improve culture and heritage with the help of suggestions and recommendations from intellectuals, writers and poets, she said.

Agha Salem, Qamar Shahbaz, Nasir Mirza, Rochi Ram, Dr Fehmida Hussain, Taj Joyo, Dr Nawaz Ali Shouq among others also spoke at the reception. Allah Dino Khaskheli and other singers enthralled participants through nationalist songs.

16 Dhul Quaad Urs/Annivarsary of Fakir Qadir Buksh Bedil – Rohri

ashiqaliazhar — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 09:29:56 +0000

BEDIL QADIR BUX (Sindhi b 1814 d 1872) Fakir Qadir Bux better known by his nom de plume “Bedil” (one bereft of heart) , was the son of Khalifo Muhammad Mohsin, who was a disciple and an ardent admirer of the Sindhi poet Sachal Sarmast, one of the great trinity of Sindhi poetry – Shah, Sachal & Sami.

After this famous trio of Sindhi poets, other two stars that shone on the firmament of Sindhi poetry and who could measure up to them in excellence, were the father and son – Bedil and Bekas. They wrote poetry both in Sindhi and Persian.

Bedil was well versed in a number of languages, Sindhi, Persian, Urdu, Arabic and Hindi. He has written poetry in Sindhi, siraiki, Urdu, Persian and even in Hindi.

The burden of his poetry is Sufis tic which cult he inherited from his Murshid – Sachal, but he was not a rebel like the great Bard and did not offend Mullahs and Moulvies as Sarmast did. He was a staunch Muslim who moulded his life strictly according to the laws of Shari at. He was very simple and frugal in his style of living and gave away whatever he received, to the needy.

He followed the path of Ishqu Majazi (physical love) to attain the heights of Ishqu Haqiqi (spiritual love) as dictated by Sufis tic doctrine.

He was a devotee of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar of Sehwan also. Although he had deformity in one foot, yet he undertook long journeys to Sehwan to pay his homage to the Saint’s Shrine. He went to Jhok Sharif to pay homage to shrine of Sufi saint Shah Inayat Shaheed and also to Daraz, to visit the shrine of Sachal. He compiled as many as 23 books on prose and poetry written in Persian, Sindhi and Urdu more known being Masanavi Riyaz Alfugr, Diwan-e-Sulook-ul-Talbin, Diwan Minhaj-ul-Haquiqat-a, Rumuz al Qadri, Masanavi Nahr ul Bahr (Persian poetry), Punj Gunj (Persian prose), Diwn Musbah al Tariqat (third collection of Persian ghazals), Vahadat Namo (couplets in sindhi), Sarud Namo (kafis and couplets in sindhi and siraiki) and Diwan e Bedil (collection of Urdu ghazals).

Among his poetical compositions we have his famous elegy (Diwan e Bedil), written on the death of Sachal Sarmast immortalizing the master and incidentally himself too. Some of the verses from this elegy are “Wonderful was the magic of love in Daraz, my friend Sachu was there, the intoxicated seeker and the Gnostic. Heavy was the shower of rain, of yearning of that hero. The pangs of separation were there, visible and invisible. Inherited he was, truly, with the rapture of oneness. Verily he was another Mansoor, love itself incarnate. He was attar (perfume) himself in fervour and sentiment. Commander he stood in the ranks of those given to love. Bedil haunts the door of the donor for the gift of his ardour. About himself he proclaims in the mood and style of Sachal; “I am what I am. Put on the various garments, and again divert myself of them” (Diwan-e-Bedil).

Khanqah is the shrine (in Rohri city district Sukkur Sindh Pakistan) where thousands of his Murids (followers) throng every day to pay the homage to the great saint poet – Abdul Qadir by birth and Qadir Bux by his choice.

From: Encyclopedia of Indian literature vol. 1

By various

Burning bridges in Sindh

ashiqaliazhar — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:01:59 +0000

Burning bridges in Sindh

By Bina Shah
I HAVE been reading Alice Albinia’s excellent Empires of the Indus, which is compelling although she veers too often from a balanced, objective view of Pakistan’s history and culture into the worst of wide-eyed European orientalism.

Chapter One, ‘Ramzan in Karachi’, takes an unflinching look at the position of lower-caste Hindus in Karachi, consigned to clean our sewers and toilets for what seems like all of eternity. Albinia’s judgment of this social class system is severe, and asks an unspoken question: why don’t we feel like cleaning out our own muck, literally as well as figuratively?

Even more compelling was Albinia’s description of what happened after Partition to many of the Hindus in the city. After Muslim refugees stoned and set a Sikh temple on fire in retaliation for violence visited on Muslims in the Punjab riots, spontaneous rioting erupted all throughout the city.

“Hindus — hitherto secure in their homes and mixed-faith neighbourhoods — now took refuge in their temples…. Sindh had been championed as a paradigm of inter-faith harmony. Following the riots, the government estimated that three thousand Hindus a day were taking their belongings down to the docks, and purchasing a passage to India.”

The riots were not as bad as those in Punjab, Bengal or Uttar Pradesh, but Sindhi Hindus saw the signs and many took the decision to leave before things got any worse for them.

Sindhi friends in London tell me that the exodus from Sindh did not occur overnight; many Sindhi Hindu businessmen had emigrated for economic reasons to Hong Kong, Africa, Bombay, long before Partition. Those who left sold their houses for reasonable prices, others stayed on through the 1950s and 60s, leaving only when Zia arrived on the scene. Their migration was to North America rather than India. Not all in Sindh were sorry to see the Hindus go, as exploitative Hindu moneylenders were thought to have a stranglehold on Sindh’s economy. But there was plenty of sympathy for most of the emigres, and Muslims could be seen helping their poor Hindu neighbours load up camel carts with meagre luggage before setting off for India.

After “Sindh’s famously rich and ‘venturesome’ Hindu mercantile class left for India”, where did they go? How did they rebuild their lives after leaving Sindh? How are they keeping in touch with their Sindhi culture and traditions, and how are forthcoming generations going to do the same? And finally, what do they think of Sindh today, as it exists in Pakistan?

Dr Shivkumar Israni, a Sindhi Hindu living in Mumbai, wrote to me, “We are no more connected to the land of our forefathers; some of us who were born there and are still alive today, for them also Sindh is but a fading album of black and white pictures that has the capacity to bring tears to the eyes.”

This is a familiar lament from any population that has been dispossessed and forced out of its homeland, which has led to the creation of art, music and poetry that expresses the soul’s desire to go back. Even Benazir Bhutto wrote poetry inspired by Shah Abdul Latif’s tale of Marvi when she lived in exile, away from the land that nurtured her and in which she is now buried; perhaps she could have identified with Sindhi Hindus similarly cut off from the land of Sindhu.

According to Lavina Melwani in an article for Hinduism Today, the Hindu Sindhis are “a people who overcame adversity to become one of the most affluent communities in India, and perhaps the world. Disclosed and traumatized by the partition of India in which their beloved homeland of Sindh was swallowed up in the newly created Islamic country of Pakistan, the Hindu Sindhis were turned into world-wandering refugees. They fled with their lives and just a few belongings from the bloodshed and religious persecution. With few resources beyond guts and creativity they sailed to the far corners of the world, to seek their fortunes.”

The Sindhi Hindus made it their business to survive, and relied on their sharp business instincts and trading skills to truly thrive wherever they went. And money isn’t the only thing on their minds: they have established schools, temples, institutes of Sindhology, magazines and newspapers, all in the name of preserving the culture that they left behind in 1947.

They hold cultural programmes, celebrate their births and marriages with the traditional Sindhi-Hindu rites, and engage in philanthropy unrivalled by any other South Asian expatriate community. They worry that their children won’t be able to speak Sindhi; they worry about the plight of their Hindu brothers left behind in Sindh, subject to discrimination and insecurity as minorities in a land that is growing more strictly Muslim day by day. And they worry about Sindh itself, which they see as suffering greatly under leader after leader, regime after regime, none of whom care much for the fortunes of Sindh or the Sindhis.

There is resentment about the loss these Sindhis had to endure, and their feelings towards Pakistan are not exactly friendly or forgiving. They see Sindh as an endangered land, oppressed by ethnic forces that are alien to the culture that spawned the civilisation of Moenjodaro and the Indus Valley. Their websites are full of anti-Pakistan rhetoric; they accuse the government of erasing the pre-Muslim parts of Sindhi history from the textbooks.

The bitterness felt by those who left Pakistan in 1947 is felt by their sons and daughters and will be felt by future generations, who have no good memories of living in Sindh to counteract the anger they feel at having had to give up their heritage and start all over again in India and elsewhere. Many Hindus who migrated to India immediately joined Hindu nationalist parties like the RSS — L.K. Advani being the most well-known example.

Rather than glean all my information from the Internet and books, I wanted to speak to members of the Sindhi Hindu community in other parts of the world for their views. I was given the name of a prominent Sindhi Hindu businessman, and I wrote to him with this aim in mind, asking him to write back soon so that I could include his views in this column. He never replied. Perhaps he was busy, or perhaps he never received my email. Still, I can’t help but think that his silence is symbolic of the vast gulf that lies between the Sindhis in Sindh and the Sindhi Hindus abroad.

Will anyone ever be able to bridge that gap? Or have all the bridges between the Sindhi Hindus and Sindh been burnt forever?

The writer is a novelist.