Columns ringing with hard truths

Reading Kishwar Naheed's anthology of columns ‘Hazaar Dastaan’ is like chatting with your trusted friend. She speaks the truth about what she knows about life that surrounds her – nicely and scrupulously.

She is a remarkable columnist both in intention and in content. Her tone is never preachy, it is straightforward and without pretense. She believes that the world has meaning and people’s little lives are not immaterial.

Kishwar Naheed is ways ahead of any other columnist of the era. What's interesting about her columns is that they often transcend their times. She has got a gift of writing that is educational, factual, entertaining, interesting, and concise, all at the same time. On account of her spirited attitude her style remains clean of clichés and affectation.

She deftly pulls the rug from under the feet of leaders, politicians, writers, litterateurs, poets etc. She talks about the issues that are currently troubling us and the issues that could be troubling us in the near future. She tries to be very rational, unbiased and logical about the major issues that plague our planet.

Kishwar's writing is fearless and the targets endless: domestic and international politics, literature, culture, art and artists, war, corruption, ordinary people and extraordinary people, women, poverty etc. She pulls no punches and keeps his sense of irritation and indignation firmly intact.

These sharp, amusing pieces with an acutely critical social perspective confirm her status as a columnist so rare worrying about society.

It is absolutely clear that something is really wrong today with the way the world is being run. She has explored the weird scenes of the world she lives in. Her topics are familiar: the tragic culmination of generations of lousy planning, worst management, and sycophantic politics. Things are not all rosy, that’s why her columns like ‘Koi Batlao Kay Hum Batlayain Kia’ exhibit deep anger.

With an extremely unbiased approach she shows no taunting provocative signs of cynical contempt for the money crazy insouciant group of greedy politicians with liberal pieties, rather strides forth onto the writing scene not as an enfant terrible of the contemporary world of journalism but as a supporter of reform.

In most cases, columns are thrown with the newspaper, treated virtually like the past news item, but a well-crafted column is clearly worth-saving and savoring. The refinement and beauty of the best columns offer a way out of this polarised time, where makeshift, forceful yelling often masquerades as eloquent public discussion fobbed off on a public more and more having angry outbursts.

Readers won’t have to put up with phony, run-of-the-mill newspaper write-ups in this collection. Kishwar Naheed is a bright spot within the often dreary world of columnists.