Hilal – first publication where I started writing
Monday, 24 October 2011
Pakistan Armed Forces Monthly Hilal is a very popular magazine read by every one from Javan to General. My own association with this esteemed publication started in 1977 when I was commissioned as a second lieutenant and posted to an artillery regiment in Lahore. Our commanding office Lt Col Ghafoor was to open our tree plantation drive by planting a sapling in the unit ground. He desired the event be covered for Hilal. I was the ‘baby of the unit’ so I was asked to do the needful. That is when I asked about Hilal. Our unit head clerk gave me a complete file of previous issues of Hilal to read and familiarize myself with the then weekly magazine.
It is in Hilal and my first article sjarkari (tree plantation) appeared. Mr. Iqbal (then editor Hilal) asked me to write more and I became regular in contributing. I kept contributing during my service in artillery regiment as well as during my six years deputation in Inter Services Public Relations till I switched to writing in English and lost track. Recently one of my friends Hussan Qazi told me that Hilal has come a long way since the time I used to write there. Hilal now is an A class bilingual publication; content, paper, quality of printing and good media practices are in consonance with this information age and it covers a lot from civil military relations to tips (and announcements) about how to join armed forces and a whole lot in between. Hence, I pitched my first idea to the Editor Lt Col Zeeshan Faisal Khan, the Editor Hilal - a man of vision who thinks out of the box. And here is my story.
By the way, interested readers can read Hilal online here.
Labels: Hilal, Personal, Urdu Blogs
posted by S A J Shirazi @ Monday, October 24, 2011,
3 Comments:
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At 5:54 AM PKT,
jalalHB said...
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That is nice. I wish you had preserved that Hilal with your first post and shared.
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At 3:33 PM PKT,
Yasir Imran said...
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So you should continue your journey to Urdu as well. I think you can write awesome in it.
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At 8:29 PM PKT,
Durrani said...
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Well very nice hear about it. I believe this is the right time that you should start writing in Urdu again.
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