Perhaps hints at the deeper resonance of oral pre-literate culture of rural Punjab. Regions comprising Pakistan became majority literate for the first time in all of history from early 2000s.

So scripts are seen not as productions of the art of writing or calligraphy (which is a highly developed form in West or East Asia) but as symbolic of utterance. So one writes as the Shah (Bulleh Shah? / Waris Shah?) speaks… or as the Gurus speak. This seems like a continuation of the old dominant culture of bardic poetry to me.

That is not Urdu.

The original story (attached) is in Punjabi (Shahmukhi script).

All Punjabi literature in Pakistan is written in the Arabic script. Is that correct, Omar? War is Shah wrote his great Punjabi classic ‘Heer Ranjha’ in the Arabic script.

I was visiting a distant elderly relative when I was 11 years old. He had a big book sitting to the side. I asked him what this ‘Urdu’ book was about. He said it wasn’t Urdu. It was the Punjabi classic ‘Heer Ranjha’.

Everyone in my dad’s generation had Urdu as their preferred language of expression. Of course, in our Sikh household, everybody was supposed to know how to read and write Gurmukhi. But almost no one had any knowledge of the Devanagari script. But we youngsters were expected to study both Hindi and Punjabi. Urdu was never taught.

Did ur dad discuss ever the motivation of a Muslim living in Muslim areas (erstwhile Pak and Bangladesh) to support Congress? I think the only person i know or read about who did that was Shah rukh Khan’s dad, who even moved to India.

I could never wrap my head around that. Had i been at ur dad’s place , notwithstanding how much i would have disliked some of League’s position, i would have still sort of supported them.