IN THE LANGUAGE OF COMPUTING

THE LEGENDARY FOUNDER OF SINDHI COMPUTING AND DESKTOP PUBLISHING, ABDUL-MAJID BHURGRI HAS REVOLUTIONIZED VIRTUAL COMMUNICATION IN THE SINDHI LANGUAGE. HE SPEAKS TO TINA THAKRAR FROM SEATTLE, NARRATING HIS EXPERIENCES OF SOFTWARES AND SINDH, CULTURES AND COMPUTERS, AND LOVE AND LOSS

- TINA THAKRAR

Countless people use the Internet today; in fact, it’s what has kept things going during this pandemic. It’s connected people and places, from Seattle to Sindh and everywhere in between, irrespective of their culture, language or education. It’s also been a mode of communication for Sindhis across the globe, to read and write in their mother tongue, all due to the efforts of one man who, without any formal education in computers, and with life experiences worth documenting, dedicated 33 years of his life to developing it.

Meet Seattle-based Abdul-Majid Bhurgri, fondly referred to as Majid and formally as the founder of Sindhi computing and the first Sindhi Unicode font, which revolutionized the Sindhi publishing and virtual communication industry. His life story takes us across geographies, from Sindh to the USA, and across professions, from taxation to computer technology, while it tries to wrap its head around a range of emotions, from grief to exuberance, and settles itself in the warmth of love, family, and acceptance.

Majid is recognized globally as the man who brought the Sindhi language to the world of personal computers and the Internet. His story is rooted in man’s most basic need - to earn a livelihood. We cut to the year 1987, when he was almost 40. Majid was preparing to set up a desktop publishing business in Karachi with a partner, who bowed out at the last minute, leaving him burdened with a Macintosh personal computer and laser printer that he didn’t know a thing about. When he learnt that it was possible to publish Urdu from a desktop, he wanted to try the same for Sindhi.