Jamaluddin Abro, ( sd, جمال الدين ابڙو - ur, جمال الدین ابڑو ) also known as Jamal Abro (2 May 1924 – 30 June 2004,

Larkana Larkana ( ur, , translit=lāṛkāna; sd, لاڙڪاڻو, translit=lāṛkāṇo) is a city located in the Sindh province of Pakistan. It is the 15th largest city of Pakistan by population. It is home to the Indus Valley civilization site Moh ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

) was a Sindhi writer. He was born in Sangi, a small village in

Mehar Taluka Mehar Tehsil ( sd, ميهڙ , ur, میہڑ) is an administrative subdivision (tehsil) of Dadu District in the Sindh province of Pakistan. It is famous for the production of Henna or Mehndi. The Tehsil has a population o460,000(2017 census). Major ...

, then part of

Dadu District Dadu District ( sd, ضلعو دادو), ( ur, ) is a district of Sindh Province, Pakistan. With headquarters the city of Dadu, the district was created in 1931 by merging Kotri and Mahal Kohistan (later Jamshoro) tehsils from Karachi District a ...

Life

Abro studied in a number of schools in Larkana and

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

. He passed his

matriculation Matriculation is the formal process of entering a university, or of becoming eligible to enter by fulfilling certain academic requirements such as a matriculation examination. Australia In Australia, the term "matriculation" is seldom used now ...

from

Bombay University The University of Mumbai is a collegiate, state-owned, public research university in Mumbai. The University of Mumbai is one of the largest universities in the world. , the university had 711 affiliated colleges. Ratan Tata is the appointed ...

in 1941 and later, became a student at the Bahauddin College in

Junagadh Junagadh () is the headquarters of Junagadh district in the Indian state of Gujarat. Located at the foot of the Girnar hills, southwest of Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar (the state capital), it is the seventh largest city in the state. Literally t ...

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

. In 1944 he went to

Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

and worked as a volunteer at relief camps for famine affected areas. He also worked as an activist with the Khaksar Movement. He took a degree in law in 1948 from Shahani Law College in Larkana and started working as a lawyer. Abro entered public service in 1952 and was posted as sub-judge in a number of places in Sindh. In the latter part of his career, he served as a judge in the labor court and as secretary to the

Provincial Assembly of Sindh The Provincial Assembly of Sindh ( ur, ) is a unicameral legislature of elected representatives of the Pakistani province of Sindh, and is located in Karachi, the provincial capital. It was established under Article 106 of the Constitution of ...

. He remained active on the literary front with the

Sindhi Adabi Sangat Sindhi Adabi Sangat ( sd, سنڌي ادبي سنگت) is an organization of the writers of Sindhi language that has branches in Sindh, Pakistan and abroad. There are two opinions as regards the origin of Sindhi Adabi Sangat: some believe that th ...

(the organization of Sindhi writers with members all over Sindh).

Work

Abro's first short story was published in the year 1949 and was followed by a some others. ''Pishu Pasha'' aroused much debate and discussion, and this was the name given to the collection of nearly a dozen short-stories published in 1959. This nearly brought to a close Jamal Abro's work as a short story writer and was followed by a long gap of silence. An invitation to contribute a story for a university magazine being edited by

Shaikh Ayaz Shaikh Ayaz SI ( ur, , ) born Mubarak Ali Shaikh ( ur, , ) (March 1923 – 28 December 1997) was Sindhi language poet, prose writer and former Vice Chancellor of University of Sindh. He is counted as one of the prominent and great Sindhi po ...

, (the leading

Sindhi poet Sindhi may refer to: *something from, or related to Sindh, a province of Pakistan * Sindhi people, an ethnic group from the Sindh region * Sindhi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them People with the name * Sarkash Sindhi (1940–201 ...

who was a close friend) led him to write his first story in fifteen years. This story focused on ''karokari'' (the ritual murder of a woman accused of immorality), written as only the author of " Pirani" could have. It was followed by a story, written during the Writers' Conference,

Islamabad Islamabad (; ur, , ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's ninth-most populous city, with a population of over 1.2 million people, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital T ...

, in the days of General

Zia ul-Haq General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq HI, GCSJ, ร.ม.ภ, (Urdu: ; 12 August 1924 – 17 August 1988) was a Pakistani four-star general and politician who became the sixth President of Pakistan following a coup and declaration of martial law in ...

Martial Law Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory. Use Marti ...

; it describes the conference as a setting for an encounter with the angel of death.

External links

*https://web.archive.org/web/20150801155410/http://jamalabro.com/
Literary event in Abro's honour
* https://web.archive.org/web/20100608061558/http://www.chowk.com/articles/4147 {{DEFAULTSORT:Abro, Jamal 1924 births 2004 deaths Pakistani writers Pakistan Movement Sindhi people