Agreat many Punjabis have abandoned their mother tongue and climbed the bandwagon of Urdu poets. However, there are still a number of writers who have resisted the temptation of the national language and opted for Punjabi. Bushra Naz is one such poet. Born into an Urdu speaking family with a taste for literature, she consciously opted for writing Punjabi poetry, inspired by its dialects and rich literary tradition of Sufi legends.

She was born in Karachi to a railway contractor. Her family moved to Faisalabad when she was in junior school. “I had a rich childhood enjoying outdoor sports and cycling,” she recalls.

“I was a pampered child. I used to wait for the sunset so that I could go to bed, close my eyes and be lost in the imaginative world of my own.

“The experience was so exciting that I started writing these figments of imagination as rough drafts for short stories which remained incomplete most of the time,” she says.

Her teacher, Amina Hashmi, encouraged her to write and send them to children’s magazines. They got printed and that was quiet an excitement for the young writer.

Inspired by the poetry competitions in a TV show, she started composing poetry that shifted her focus from short stories to poetry.

“I got married into a Punjabi family. My mother-in-law was a very soft spoken lady. She was my first inspiration to learn and adopt the language.

“The poetry of Mian Muhammad Bakhsh made a lasting impression on my mind,” Naz reveals.

Eight years back, she reluctantly presented her poems in a Mushaira. They were well-received and appreciated and since then she is a regular part of literary circles of Faisalabad.

She remained an office-bearer of ‘Punjabi Adbi Sevak’, a literary organisation working for promotion of Punjabi language, for four years.

Her first collection of poetry ‘Kandh Asmana Teek,’ printed two years back, was appreciated by the literary circles and was acknowledged with numerous awards including the Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Award.

With a little experience of writing prose, she is reluctantly gathering energy to venture into short story writing, as well.

“I am born with a keen eye to observe and ponder on what I see around while living in Ghulam Muhammadabad, an old neighbourhood of Faisalabad. I am in touch with the life of the common people. I have a lot of stories to tell, especially those I gathered from the housemaids, coming from remote rural areas,” she says.

“I came across horrible stories and was really afraid how people will respond to the depiction of realities of personal life of the suppressed women. Though we are living in modern times, realities are even bitter than the times of Ismat Chughtai,” she adds.

Bushra Naz is currently finalising the script of her second book of poetry. Her poetry seems like the personal diary of a woman who is mellow, romantic and bitter at the same time. Even narrating the harsh realities of life, she keeps a low tone, whispering into the ears of the reader. She playfully knits her poems with mundane diction that carries a touch of both contemporary folk and classic. She is among very few modern Punjabi poets who write in the genres like ‘Bolian’ and ‘Tappay’, which were once very common and popular among the Punjabi folks.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2015

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