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Feb 10, 2024 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Pti .. |Osama Siddique |Tariq Rahman |Raza Rumi
Reading Muhammad Saleem ur Rehman sahib can be like discovering an old leather-bound volume in some long-forgotten almirah in a locked storeroom no one goes to anymore. I say this because his recently published volume of writings contains a beautifully evocative lexicon that is rapidly being lost to our collective memory and usage.
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Jan 2, 2024 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Osama Siddique |Parvez Mahmood |Ejaz Hussain |Tariq Rahman
Completed within a month of the Fall of Dhaka and offered to a publisher, it took eight years and trips to five different publishers before Tanha was finally published in 1979. An extraordinary novel because of the boldness, objectivity and nuance with which it approaches the sensitive and highly emotive theme of events that led up to secession and sundering of Pakistan, so proximate as its creation was both spatially and temporally to what transpired.
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Dec 23, 2023 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Osama Siddique |Raashid Wali Janjua |Rohinee Singh |Moonis Ahmar
I wonder how long it would take a crow to fly from Dibai to Gorakhpur. Though the two qasbas sit on opposite ends of storied Lucknow in the state of Uttar Pradesh they can’t be that far apart. Yet in many ways what spatial and temporal distances separate the two people germane to the book I review. Intizar Hussain hailed from Dibai in Bulandshahar district.
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Dec 2, 2023 | 
dawn.com | Osama Siddique |Faisal Bari |Wara Irfan |Sitara Arshad
Ghuroob-i-Shehr Ka WaqtBy Osama SiddiqueBook CornerISBN: 978-969-662-517-9575pp. This is Dr Osama Siddique’s first Urdu novel. Previously, his English novel Snuffing Out the Moon was translated into Urdu as Chand Ko Gul Karein Tau Hum Jaanein. Ghuroob-i-Shehr Ka Waqt [The Time of the Setting City] is the story of Khalid, a lawyer. But it is a story of our times as well.
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Oct 27, 2023 | 
en.humsub.com.pk | Osama Siddique
I very recently made a highly memorable trip to Iraq – in September 2023 to be precise. I shared some of my impressions and hope to share more. In this context, I was thrilled when the prolific, respected, and always affectionate Salma Awan Sahiba gifted me a signed and inscribed copy of her Iraq travelogue.
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Sep 7, 2023 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Osama Siddique |Raza Rumi |Adeel Daniel |Murtaza Solangi
There is something RK Narayanesque about Ali Rohila’s interconnected tales. Set in or stemming from the village of Charbagh, simple and unpretentious, they are sensitive, character-driven stories. The characters are drawn in bold and definite brushstrokes; their persona not translucent and their intent not veiled. Hence, they almost never behave out of character; hardwired, path-dependent, strait-jacketed by their gender, class, ethnicity and cultural milieu as they are.
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Aug 22, 2023 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Raza Rumi |Shahalam Tariq |Ishtiaq Ahmed |Osama Siddique
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) on Tuesday expressed deep concerns over the lack of transparency surrounding the continued detention of women associated with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the conditions in which party chief Imran Khan has been kept in Attock Jail.
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Aug 15, 2023 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Osama Siddique
What distinguishes heresy from faith, apostasy from honest belief, infidelity from religious ardour, and blasphemy from true awakening? How does it feel to undergo an intense mystical experience or a deep spiritual crisis that persuades one to cast off long-held beliefs and relinquish the comforting solace of home and hearth? Is the capacity to look beyond what is invisible to all, to be extraordinary and deeply insightful, a blessing or a curse?
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Jun 17, 2023 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Osama Siddique
As the centuries pass a necklace materialises. It is not as if others hadn’t pursued the same journeys. But fickle and faint human remembrance of events relies on what survives on parchment, hide, memory or lore. This then helps to build a genealogy. A mythos. A living and breathing tradition. However, what survives is not just happenstance. There is also an inherent value to it, a jewel-like lustre that doesn’t dim or dull.
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May 27, 2023 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Osama Siddique
Many gifted writers such as Rajinder Singh Bedi, Balwant Singh, Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi, Shaukat Siddiqui, Jamila Hashmi, Mansha Yaad, Khalid Toor, and more recently Ali Akbar Natiq and others have showcased rural Punjab in their major works. Nevertheless, I find Tahira Iqbal to be distinctive due to the unique prose that only she writes and a particular Punjab that only she captures.
