URDU? DON’T MIND IF I DU

Yours Truly with a couple of recent arrivals from Karachi.

It didn’t take too many months of exposure to the Bloggy-Sphere before I learned that the world of the Internet is a strange and wonderful place, one that is interconnected in so many delightfully unexpected ways.

Perhaps it was the time an advertising guy in New Zealand contacted me, requesting permission to quote a post I had written about the Honda Element, which vehicle would eventually become the Elissonmobile that has served me faithfully for the past eight years.  He had been writing an article about first impressions, his contention being that despite popular opinion, first impressions are not always the ones that matter.  As support, he planned to cite the initial skepticism that greeted penicillin, French impressionism... and my initial thoughts about the Element.  (I agreed, and as a result I have a magazine from New Zealand with my grinning face in it.)  

Last month, a gentleman from Pakistan asked if he could include a handful of my 100-word stories in an anthology of ultra-short fiction he was preparing to publish.  After exchanging a few e-mails (how many stories? which ones? how did you find my book?), I gave him the green light... and so now I am pleased to announce that you can now read some of my nutty short pieces (and no, that’s not a Fecal Joke) in Urdu, if you care to do so.


My 100-word stories in Urdu - who knew? Namak Paaray, a collection of short-short stories by Mubashir Zaidi.

The author/anthologizer is one Mubashir Zaidi, a Karachi media personality and TV news producer.  His book is entitled Namak Paaray, a reference to a cracker-like snack popular in Pakistan and India... and possibly a hat-tip to the description I wrote for my own book, Shorts in a Wad: “Snack Food for Thought.”  There are a couple of copies right here in my hot little hands, thanks to old-school air freight.

Yes, indeedy - the Internet is surely a strange and wonderful place.  Urdu - who knew?

Update: Here’s a review that appeared in Dawn, Pakistan’s top English newspaper.