Our gora complex goes deeper. For example: Being disconnected from Urdu books is also a side-effect of being socially conditioned to only value Western content above native content. What's in English is automatically worthy of respect, time & money. What's in Urdu is not.

The whole issue with disconnect between our learning and activism and real life is that our readings & learning for academic or even entertainment purposes is shaped by Western thought & words; we can't read or understand native languages. Ajeeb untethered log hain hum.

Someone I know spent 12k on buying books on a Western literary award's shortlist but refused to pay 1500 for a rare classic Urdu text cos "too expensive for an Urdu book" - despite knowing it is rare, unlike the award shortlist books.

It isn't just one person. It's a whole generation & class of people who go on to hold leadership positions. Who shape our social and cultural narrative. Who are responsible for how our children are educated in the future.

The disconnect is rooted in feeling ashamed about what's ours, in our languages. And yes, the quality has deminished significantly, but only because our best thinkers are NO LONGER capable of writing & philosophizing in Urdu or native languages!

Everyone wants to have a GLOBAL audience, be published by a GLOBAL publisher with a big marketing budget. No one wants to create a pool of local intellectual works in native languages, that serves to enlighten and educate our own people.

When there is such disconnect linguistically & academically, is it any wonder that we are where we are right now? We aren't reading what the masses are reading & the masses are reading whatever the chancers are feeding them.

Anyway, this is my morning rant because someone just asked me why I was "wasting money" buying Urdu books because "what purpose do they serve".

Also, people of a certain class and privilege who perpetuate this BS aren't even ignorant or sorry about not working to fill information & educational gaps. They enjoy their superiority & have no interest in creating a pool of knowledge in local languages. They don't give a shit.

And this rant is also partially inspired by the fact that I got an email about a book that was originally written by a native Indian author in her native language and now it has been translated by someone famous & republished by a big publisher. Write native stuff worthy of this!

اُن حضرات کے لئیے جنہیں درد ہو رہا ہے کہ یہ تھریڈ اردو میں کیوں نہیں ہے:

عقلمند کو اشعارہ کافی ہوتا ہے۔ جن تک بات پہنچانی تھی وہ انگریزی ہی سمجھتے ہیں۔ اسی لئیے یہ سب انگریزی میں لکھا۔ مزید بات کرنے کے لئیے بے شک آپ اردو میں سوال کریں میں جواب دوں گی۔

اور اردو ہی نہیں پاکستان کی تمام زبانیں میرے لئیے محترم ہیں اور مجھے عزیز ہیں، انگریزی سے کہیں زیادہ۔ کہنے کا مقصد یہی تھا کہ اپنی زبانیں اردو سمیت ہم بھول کر کوئی جھنڈے نہیں گاڑ رہے بلکہ آہستہ آہستہ اپنی قومی حیثیت کو خود ہی تباہ و برباد کر رہے ہیں۔