Professor Sehar Ansari

I belong to a family that has produced some great names in literature. Moulana Ismaael Meerthi was the father of my maternal grandfather. My maternal forefathers belong to Meerth while my paternal forefathers belong to Muradabad. I was born in Aurangabad, Dukkan where I received my primary education. I received education in a very nice environment. Our teachers included Sikhs, Hindus, and Christians. I had interests in paintings initially. We were also taught English, Persian, Arabic, Hindi etc. The school that I studied in used to be held from morning to evening. There we used to learn carpentering, sewing and knitting etc., so it was a very compressive education system. We used to extremely enjoy our education. At home, our family had great interests in literature. My brothers used to have their separate collection of books. We used to sit around a table and would read different pages of a novel or other book one by one. By doing this, we used to correct our pronunciation and other aspects of language. So this is the sort of environment which I received in my initial days.

We migrated to Karachi in 1950 before living in Bombay for 1 year. I did matriculation from Karachi. I took science and did BSC with Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics being my subjects. Then I did 3 MAs; in English, Urdu and Linguistics. I started my career in teaching from Baluchistan University in 1973. Then I joined the Karachi University in the end of 1974. Then in 1995 to 1998 I remained head of department. Afterwards, for 2 years, I remained chief editor and secretary in Urdu Dictionary Board. I have also been the Chairman of Literary Committee of Arts Council. The government of Pakistan awarded me Tamgha-e-Imtiaz in 2005. I have represented Pakistan in 17 counties. I have also taught Urdu in China and Japan and did research as well in these countries.

As regards my family, I have 3 daughters. One of them is a well-known poetess and critic. She has also represented Pakistan in India and UAE. My wife has done MA in Urdu and then she did a course in Homoeopathic and now she is running a clinic.(Kalpoint)