This article is basing on the book “Dr. Khwaja Muhammad Zakariya: Afkar o Guftar”. It caters scores of interviews of Dr Khawaja Muhammad Zakariya. Starting from a convincing parable of an unstructured telephonic interview which the author himself took over a span of couple of weeks, many an interview hold Dr Khawaja’s talk & reflections on variety of topics including his family & personality, tradition of poetry & poetics, history of Urdu literature, linguistics, linguistic research in Urdu, teaching of Urdu to the foreigners/non-native speakers, language policy, language politics, implementation of Urdu as state/official language, implementation of Punjabi as the provincial language, university & students’ politics, power politics, and the like. As this book contains interviews that were taken in almost half a century, Dr Khawaja’s varying literary thoughts, notions and theories can be well judged through the lens of this very lexis. The author of this article grades the interview taken by Dr Faiza Butt & Rabia Hijab as the most versatile and complete one. In the end the author suggests some additions/corrections that need be taken into account in the next edition of this compilation.

Ahmad, Shafiq, and Muhammad Saleem Mazhar, eds. Dr. Khwaja Muhammad Zakariya: Afkar o Guftar. Lahore: Punjab University Press, 2021.

Azurdah, Mirza Muhammad Zaman. Mirza Salamat Ali Dabeer: Hayat aur Karname. Delhi: National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, 2002.

Hali, Khawaja Altaf Husain. Hayat-e-Javed. Muhaqqaq Edition. Lahore: Urdu Academy Pakistan, 2020.