Vintage Cowasjee: A Selection Of Writings From DAWN 1984-2011

by Ardeshir Cowasjee, Amina Jilani (Foreword)

Vintage Cowasjee is a selection of some 200 columns from the writings of Ardeshir Cowasjee that have appeared in Dawn over the past twenty-plus years. Focusing on issues as diverse as politics, environment, human rights, judiciary, Karachi, his friends and other personalities he has known, these articles are as pertinent today as they were when they were first written. They offer a record for our times and for all that ails the country. For easy reference, the work has been divided into sections and is a representation of the work of the columnist depicting some of the issues that he held especially close. This book will remain a source of reference for all interested in Pakistan and a reminder of the work done by a tireless and indefatigable campaigner working towards what he believed to be right.

800 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2012

About the author

Ardeshir Cowasjee was a renowned Pakistani newspaper columnist from Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. His columns regularly appeared in the country's oldest English newspaper, Dawn. He was also the Chairman of the Cowasjee Group which was the financier of many scholarships for students wishing to pursue higher education. These included grants for both local and overseas education. Due to his philanthropic activities he became widely regarded as an old "guardian" of the city of Karachi.

Cowasjee owned a family run shipping company that at the time of Partition was Karachi's largest, but was later nationalized by the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto regime. Bhutto later appointed Cowasjee as Managing Director of Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) in 1973, but then also jailed the author for 72 days in 1976 for which no explanation has been given to date; some suggested it was for Cowasjee's increasingly vocal critique of the Bhutto regime.

Cowasjee subsequently started writing letters to the editor of Dawn newspaper, which led to him becoming a permanent columnist. Since then, his hard-hitting and well-researched columns on Sundays continued to expose corruption, nepotism, and incompetence in different local, provincial, and national governments. He was summoned to the Supreme Court for contempt following one such publication, but the author's unapologetic defence led them to drop the issue.

In 2012, Cowasjee died at the age of 86 from a chest illness.

Reviews

[Bilal]

well knowing writer

[Azar Ali Zain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published just before the death of Cowasjee, the more happy I was to get the book, the more sad I am. Mainly because this book tells the painful decline Pakistan in general and Karachi in particular has gone through since Jinnah left.

I thought it would just be a collection of articles, but the categorization in the book is a bit helpful and makes it a reference book for me in a way, when I want to recall the past as perceived by Ardeshir Cowasjee.

A very good work by Tyaba Habib and his team at SAMA books to make this collection.