Speaking at the reference, Prof. Dr Fateh Muhammad Malik, a veteran literary critic and intellectual, said that Ahmad reminded him of the great poet Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi because of Ahmad’s regular contributions for Qasmi’s literary journal “Funoon”.

“Khalid Ahmad was a proud gem of Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi’s school of thought,” Malik said. “He is the representative poet of the generation of poets that succeeded Qasmi.”

Ahmad, 70, died in Lahore on March 19. He was diagnosed with lung cancer towards the end of 2012.

Born in Lucknow in 1943, Ahmad was the youngest brother of famous Urdu fiction writers Khadija Masoor and Hajra Masroor. Ahmad published five collections of poetry during his life including “Tashbeeb” and “Daraz Palkoun Kay Saey”. He was awarded the Pride of Performance for his contribution to literature in March 2011.

Malik said that he remembered Ahmad to be pleasant and cheerful even when he was passing through tough financial times in his life.

Ahmad also wrote plays, songs and columns for newspapers. Malik said Ahmad’s columns should be published in a book form, because the strength of Ahmad’s prose and sense of humour in his writing will be great additions to Urdu literature.

Haleem Qureshi, a senior poet and old friend of Ahmad, said that the writer was a free man and his freedom was evident in his poetry.

“Khalid Ahmad was not bogged down with any ideological oppression,” Qureshi said.

He said that Ahmad was so fond of literary gatherings that once he even insisted that poets gathered from different parts of Pakistan for a mushaira in Wah to sleep on the stage just so they could get more time to chat.

Chairman PAL Abdul Hameed said that the late poet absorbed the complete essence of Punjabi Sufi poetry and transferred it to his Urdu works. Other speakers said that Ahmad always encouraged young poets and writers.

Towards the end of the reference, some of the participants expressed their dismay that Jalil Aali and Prof Yusuf Hassan, who were extremely close friends of Ahmad, were not invited to speak at the reference.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 30^th, 2013. 

KARACHI: Saad Shafqat, a neurologist by profession and a reputed cricket critic, recently made a bold entry into the world of fiction with his book, Breath of Death. The medical fiction thriller, set in a private hospital in Karachi, has received wide acclaim from readers – with the first batch of books being reportedly sold out in just 24 hours after their arrival at Liberty Books.

Speaking to a packed room at the official launch of his book in Pakistan, held at the T2F on Saturday, Shafqat explained that the main idea behind the book was to entertain the reader. In order to keep the reader engaged, he chose to keep an ambiguous writing style. “Being an avid fan of Robin Cook’s thrillers, I aspired to adopt a style similar to Cook which would keep the reader’s attention at every page,” he said.

When asked about his busy schedule, Shafqat modestly said that the only reason which kept him from writing before was his shy nature.

He figured it would be a daunting task to get his work published. “But if you feel strongly about something, you automatically find the time to do it.”

Thrilling experience

Shafqat wanted to relate a physician’s life, which according to him, is full of drama through his book. He started writing the book around the year 2004 and he finalised his manuscript in 2009. During that time, Shafqat said he followed his impulse to write whenever he could and often wrote only one page at a time.

Finding a credible publisher was a challenge, he told the audience. Being an amateur writer, he depended on the advice of peers and finally managed to find a suitable publisher in India.

When asked why he didn’t choose to go with a publisher in Pakistan, Shafqat opined that English fiction by a Pakistani author was a relatively new concept. “There have been wonderful thrillers written in Urdu, but this is the first example of a fiction thriller in English by a Pakistani author,” he claimed. He hoped that the coming years would prove to be better for the genre.

“I’ve kept my writing style relatively reader friendly – with most medical terms expressed in such a way that the reader would not have difficulty in understanding their context. Writing neurology in an accessible way is a challenge,” he remarked.

Shafqat has dedicated the book to his wife, who he says, has been a steadfast support through his journey as an author.

He hoped the book will be a success and would like to see it adapted into a TV series some day.

As for projects in the pipeline, Shafqat expressed his desire to write more fictional pieces in a medical setting. He hinted that his next book might be a dark comedy.

He shared that he would also like to write a book on cricket, particularly on the relationship of Javed Miandad and Imran Khan in what was known as the golden era of Pakistani cricket.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 1^st, 2013.

Mohsin Hamid pretends to be a ‘helper’ in his forthcoming novel How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. It takes off as an essay mocking Rising Asia and lands as a hard andstoic fable. The title is apt, and the main story never really deviates from it. The novel’s goal is to provide the reader with an insight into the world of Asia that is rising amongst the debris of corruption, poverty, unemployment, piracy, hunger and deaths.   

Rhythmically, the chapters are also titled in a similar fashion, like little pairs of eyes setting upon their targets in big cities, moving to the cities and making pots of money. Mohsin Hamid experiments with the second-person narrative in a casual conversation with the reader. The characters are unnamed and so are the cities. It could be any city in Asia: Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh.
In all of Hamid’s novels, we find a love story. Here the protagonist, a village boy, goes to a city, gets an education, falls in love with a pretty girl who, like the rest of the characters in the novel, is unnamed. The village boy and the pretty girl meet several times in their lives — he a business tycoon and she a model, he an old man living in a hotel and she an old woman living in an apartment.
Each chapter in the book is a story within a story, a phase of the protagonist’s life. The portrayal of seven to eight decades of a man, from to birth to his death can only be achieved by a writer of Hamid’s stature. The story is broken into parts — the boy lives in the village with his whole family, except his father who visits him from time to time. He moves to the city. To survive in a city, he acquires education. He works and falls in love with a pretty girl. He marries a woman much younger than him and has a son. His wife divorces him. His son is in another country available only on online chats. He meets the pretty girl once again, rekindling an old acquaintance. Then he grows old and dies.

The book details the life of a man who became a big business tycoon, it documents his rise and fall. It is an average man’s story, not a success story.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, March 31^st, 2013.

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Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, according to its author Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, is a “sort of a feminist manifesto” which she hopes “inspires men as much as it inspires women”. Whether it becomes an inspiration has yet to be decided, but if it is a feminist manifesto, it is a rather strange one. Sandberg’s is, if you will, a mellow feminism heavily laced with practicality. It is a feminism which is does not believe that referring to women as ‘womyn’ will make gender equality a reality. It demands — and this is one of the chief reasons Sandberg is catching a lot of flak — that women ‘lean in’.

Enough with whining about things they have no control over, women need to believe in themselves, be ambitious, speak up more often and be prepared to take on more challenges. One of Forbes World’s 100 Most Powerful Women, Sandberg understands too well how difficult it can be to overcome gender stereotypes, so she peppers each chapter with advice. For instance, in ‘Success and Likability’ (chapter 3), she explains, quoting the results of the famous Howard/Heidi experiment, how success and likability are inversely proportional for women. “If a woman is competent, she does not seem nice enough. If a woman seems really nice, she is considered more nice than competent”. Her advice here is, ‘Think personally, act communally’. She asks women to be “delicately honest” rather than being “brutally honest”.

Sandberg admits in the introduction that the book is most relevant to women who “have choices about how much and when and where to work”. But Pakistani female medical students should definitely buy a copy. After these future doctors have read how it is possible to achieve a work-home balance, they should go back to page 13, and reread Judith Rodin’s words (“My generation fought so hard to give all of you choices. We believe in choices. But choosing to leave the workforce was not the choice we thought so many of you would make.”).

It is also a helpful read for anyone struggling in the corporate world as Sandberg talks as a successful business leader. People need to be less risk-averse, more involved, less afraid of learning something new. Sandberg’s revolution is not a soldier marching to destroy mankind; it is more like a bride walking down the aisle, one step at a time. And then one day this kind of sexist comparison will seem outdated.

Women on top? Not really

Sheryl Sandberg was big as the COO of Facebook but the Ted Talk in December 2010 catapulted her to a new level of fame. In its 15 minutes and 30 seconds, Sandberg drew on her experience at Google, the World Bank and US Treasury Department to speak on why we have too few women leaders in this day and age. The harsh truth is that, “Women are not making it to the top of any profession anywhere in the world,” she said. They systematically underestimate their own abilities. They do not negotiate for themselves in the workforce. Men attribute their success to themselves, and women attribute it to other external factors.

Our three refreshing picks of women who say it like it is

1. Bossypants

Move over David Sedaris, this is the book by the funniest woman on the planet who is as famous for her Sarah Palin impersonation as her series 30Rock. This is the read about how Fey became such a success while being so irreverent. No lectures on feminism here, just advice not to eat diet food during a meeting. And you have to see the joke on salted peanuts on page 4.

2. Down came the rain

Published a year after Tom Cruise criticised her for using anti-depressants after having a baby, this book by Brooke Shields is a must-read for any woman who needs support which tends to be scant at this crucial juncture in their lives. Shields is honest about the crippling depression and details her recovery through medication, talk therapy and time.

3. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

One of the original feminists, Wollstonecraft wrote this dense treatise in 1792. While it is not light reading, it is worth the hard work as Wollstonecraft put forward some notions that are perhaps relevant in Pakistan today. For example, she argued that a confined existence makes women frustrated and transforms them into tyrants over their children and servants.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, April 21^st, 2013.

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Published by the popular online comic-strip team ‘Kachee Goliyan’, Umru Ayar: The Awakening is the promising first installment in an excitingly new Pakistani comic book franchise. Artist Ramish Safa reimagines the iconic Umru Ayar for a new generation, who will see the roguish hero battle powerful djinns. It is to team KG’s credit that The Awakening does not cheapen the original character for the sake of cheap thrills.

It would have been easy, after all, for artist Saad Hassam to draw Umru with a chiseled body and a handsomely square jaw in an attempt to appeal to the masses. But instead, he gives the character a more reasonable physique and shrewd eyes that instantly lend the hero an original and authentic look.

The artwork in the comic book is gorgeous, with some influence clearly drawn from stylised illustrations seen in Pakistani drawings from earlier generations. The colouring by Lucid Concept is phenomenal, featuring succulent shades of red in the book’s desert landscapes. There are some minor consistency issues however, in the drawing of Umru’s face, where it doesn’t always look the same. In fact, on one panel of The Awakening, Umru resembles the djinn he is conversing with, which did seem confusing.

The story opens with the djinns, who are Umru’s sworn enemies. They seek him out to earn his services, much to his curiosity. Here lies Umru Ayar’s greatest strength, in realising that his primary weapon in battling powerful mystical adversaries is his intellect, rather than his brawn.

Unfortunately, the dialogue in The Awakening is the comic book’s weakest suit, with even some grammar gaffes. Umru also occasionally uses modern diction which feels out of place with the book’s historic setting. Meanwhile, the Urdu version of The Awakening suffers from composition problems — it flows oddly from left to right like an English book.

These minor grievances aside, this comic book is an engaging piece of art that is definitely worth a place in your collection, especially if you take a moment to consider its dirt cheap price of Rs300 (Order via Facebook). But there is one more reason to get a copy: to encourage the young artists to keep ’em coming.

Our top 3 comic book heroes

1. Commander Safeguard

This animated Pakistani superhero has a clean reputation and helps kids fight germs. But here is some dirt on him: Did you know that he has been fighting germs overseas as well? In 2005, he was adopted in the Philippines as Captain Safeguard. In 2007, in Mexico he became Capitan Escudo. You can even find him in Kenya.

2. Dr Faiza Hussain

She goes by the superhero name of Excalibur and she is a British doctor of Pakistani origins. This Marvel character has the ability to heal patients on the subatomic level. Like all super beings she has a weakness, however, and can’t use her powers on magical beings. We can’t all be perfect.

3. Simon Baz

OK so he isn’t Pakistani, but he is an American Lebanese hero and we are partial to that combination. Baz is the latest Green Lantern in the comics published by DC Comics, and this is a man who really knows how to wield the magic ring. He has been known to have picked a fight or two with Batman. We love you Baz, but don’t overestimate yourself. It’s Batman after all.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, April 28^th, 2013.

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Depending on the Pakistani press is a risky business. At times, it seems the media can’t get enough of fluffy human interest stories even as the world explodes around them. And in a country where election season is marked by religious extremists killing the leaders of secular parties, and secular terrorists bombing the convoys of conservative ones, we are subject to rivers of ink attacking Articles 62 and 63.

Sure it’s an issue; poor Musarrat Shaheen has had her character questioned enough. The criteria for candidates are pointless but succeeded in giving returning officers the biggest power trip of their lives. It needs to be fixed, but that’s really all there is to it. The thousand and one op-eds dedicated to the issue say otherwise.

Which is why, it’s always more exciting when Pakistanis put pen to paper in ways more rewarding. In times when banalities make the headlines (with our real problems too scary to think about), the Pakistani novel is the safest place to take refuge. The rise of Pakistani fiction in English is one of the most exciting things happening in the country, besides beginning to command the wider world’s attention as well.

That doesn’t mean departing from reality; in fact, just the opposite. Hard truths are our storytellers’ unique selling point. Being grittier than their Indian counterparts has both created a brand and hasn’t hurt sales either. Daniyal Mueenuddin put it best when he said, “We’re not lying in a bath of warm water and reflecting upon our sort of quirky, funny families. There’s an edginess to our writing, I believe, which is distinctive”. His collection of short stories stands as testament. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is a thing of beauty, set though it is in a southern Punjab practically sweltering with cruelty.

This recent hunger for local literature, which the media too should be commended for promoting, comes at a good time. Successive governments have treated the promotion of the arts at best with indifference, and at worst, as too dangerous to adopt. Our citizenry shares the blame; speaking in glowing terms of the richness of Ottoman and Persian history, but pretending as if the thousands of years of civilisation that walked the Indus Valley never quite happened. Promoting Pakistani writings, in turn, promotes our cultural heritage far better than harping on about the Mughals, the buildings they built, and the courtesans they wanted. It projects a Pakistan that is vital, dynamic and too heterogeneous for Fox News to have the last say on it.

But the journey to this point has been a long one and today’s aspiring authors have a few people to thank. Though she wasn’t the first, Bapsi Sidhwa blazed the trail at a time when the literary scene had little of today’s gloss. Her third novel on the tragedy of Partition, Ice Candy Man, won her great praise, but it’s her first book The Crow Eaters, tinged with the virtues of Parsi life in the subcontinent, that should be required reading for anyone interested in South Asian fiction at its best.

Finding it “an intensely romantic city”, Lahore formed the setting of most of her writings, and it was a fictional Lahore again, painted in garish hues by Mohsin Hamid in Moth Smoke, that helped usher in a second renaissance of storytelling onwards from 2000. Whereas The Crow Eaters gave us Faredoon Junglewalla, upstanding émigré-turned-arsonist, Moth Smoke’s hero Daru Shehzad was equal parts boxer, banker, drug-dealer, and all-around mess. That might say a little about Pakistan changing too fast for comfort: Faredoon was a hero from a gentler time (try as he might to murder his mother-in-law), a time before Partition, and certainly before terms like “loadshedding” and “nuclear tests” entered the lexicon as they did with Moth Smoke, set in the dry heat of 1998. Is great art born from great upheaval? Indicators would point to yes.

Because there’s no dearth of great art. Going beyond the prizes and grants showered on Pakistani authors, the literary merit of their work itself is something to behold. It’s contained in the elegance of Musharraf Ali Farooqi’s prose in Between Clay and Dust, bringing to life a vanished time and the glory that faded with it. It’s contained in how Mohsin Hamid redefines the relationship between reader and narrator with each novel, and how Kamila Shamsie makes weaving different races, borders and epochs into a single narrative look effortless. Whatever appreciation our authors receive is inadequate.

With the advent of Pakistani fiction in English though, there have been some common criticisms. There’s the complaint that our writers help stereotype the country by writing mostly along western preoccupations like Islam, war, bombs, and plenty youngish guys angry at the world. These critics just don’t read enough. They have yet to notice just how broad the spectrum of Pakistani fiction has become, or how deft it’s been even when handling such topics, like 9/11 in HM Naqvi’s Homeboy.

Accessibility is the biggest problem. Efforts must be made regardless in producing books that are cheaper than the ones selling today, but the question remains: is this writing by the elite for the elite? Besides the obvious caveat, that those complaining are English-readers who refuse to write in Urdu themselves, the setback is still obvious. These books are in a language the majority of people don’t understand. Translating these works into Urdu for local audiences, and translating our very own excellent Urdu works for foreign ones has to be focused upon. And our Urdu works deserve as much of the media glare as do our English ones.

Finally, the clearest issue is that people just won’t read. The teams behind the literary festivals in Karachi and Lahore have done us all a major service. Reading, rather than lawn fashion lines, should be made the priority as a national pastime. It’s tragic that, in a country wracked with illiteracy, those privileged with the ability to read should choose not to.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 30^th, 2013.

We guiltily loved Madeleine Wickham aka Sophie Kinsella because of her best-selling six-book Shopaholic series. Since Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’ Diary in 1996, chick lit had no better champion. It was a well-lacquered critique of consumerism balanced expertly on the Louboutins worn by a single 30-something.

Thus we came to expect from Kinsella loveable, clumsy heroines. We followed them through their compulsions, confessions and credit card defaults. However, in Wedding Night Kinsella disappoints in the creation of the protagonist Lottie. After one reading, it saddens me to say that my closeted love affair with Kinsella may have come to a screeching halt.

This work is Kinsella’s first attempt at narrating the story from two different points-of-view — that of Lottie, and that of her older sister, Fliss. The difference between the voices of the women is jarring, their actions too different. Lottie is young, idealistic and longs for romance, whereas Fliss is a recently divorced mother of one, who cannot help being bitter about love.

The result of this severe dichotomy is that neither woman is easy to relate to, neither seems real.

Furthermore, the central plot of this novel doesn’t have enough meat to to support almost 400 pages: Lottie is devastated when the love of her life, Richard, does not propose when she expects him to. At this point, a summer fling from fifteen years ago makes a convenient return, proposes marriage, and she says ‘yes’. She instantly lets go of her long-standing visions of what a wedding should be, and jets off to Greece for her honeymoon.

The ensuing hundred-plus pages illustrate the tragicomic attempts of the newlyweds to consummate their marriage. Obstacles are put forth by Fliss, who wants the marriage to be annulled, the best man Lorcan, and, of course, Richard, who suddenly realises that he does want to marry Lottie, after all.

Don’t expect any twists and turns — the end, too, is rather predictable. Over all, this book loses out on many fronts. The one-dimensional characters and the insipid dialogue make for a slow read. Granted, there are awkward situations and funny moments, but moments of true hilarity are few and far between. I’d go shop for another author.

Our three picks of romantic novels in which friendship evolves into love

1.   The Last Boyfriend by Nora Roberts

This is the second book in her Inn Boonsboro trilogy. Nora introduces you to the Montgomery brothers — Beckett, Ryder and Owen — who bring an intimate bed-and-breakfast to life in their hometown. Like the Wedding Night, this book is also about a friendship turning into a romance which is believable, authentic and deep-felt.

2.    Runabout by Pamela Morsi

When Tulsa May is jilted by her fiancé at their engagement party her best friend Luther comes to her rescue. Soon enough, she realises that, as Luther says, “Friendship can turn to romance in the blink of an eye.” Set in an unusual historical era, early 20th Century Oklahoma right before WWI, Runabout is a friends-to-lovers book that will leave you spellbound.

3.   A Place in This Life by Julie Rieman Duck

Natalie Miller is anything but experienced with boys. But when Todd comes into her life, all of that changes. A Place in This Life captures beautifully what it feels like to be a young girl on the verge of womanhood, wrestling with budding desires and falling in love with a friend who is struggling with leukaemia. It is the first of several books written by Julie Duck that commands the interests of young adults.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, May 5^th, 2013.

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There’s no doubt that Tapu knows his way around the camera. But he feels an artist’s work needs to be archived so trends can be remembered for generations to come. “I’ve been archiving photographs for years; dying with them is pointless. So I’ve made a book out of it.” He requests his fellow photographers to do the same. “Archive your work. It’s very important, not just in Pakistan but in any country.”

“Starting from 1984, the book is about my journey in fashion,” he continues about Tapulicious 2. “It’s a tongue-in-cheek book. It’s my cutting edge work that I’ve done over the years.” The book shows fashion trends which have been a part of the scene in Pakistan overtime. “Fashion has not stayed the same — the post-martial law periods, the Benazir [Bhutto] era, the shalwar era, shirts [lengths] going up and down and of course, the demise of the sari … I hope it comes back,” he says.

“The good will survive — the rest, we won’t ever know about it. And one needs to survive,” he adds.

The book affair

It was a sight to witness. Several photographers, including long-time fan and photographer Amean J and guests gathered to show their support for this photographer’s work.

“What I like about his work is that it’s fun,” says writer Kamila Shamsie who was deeply engrossed in a collage which was exhibited at the launch. “What you see, is that there is an artist at work — that’s actually what you see in his entire range of work.”

Tapu feels it’s important for artists to archive their work. PHOTO: PUBLICITY

Socialite Nazneen Tariq seemed rather mesmerised by Tapu’s work as well. “He knows how the magic is done when he has a camera in his hands,” she says, admitting that he snapped pictures of some of the outfits she designed years ago.

“I have been so lucky.” curator Sameera Raja, who was also present at the book launch, says, “Tapu is just fabulous. He captures it all in the right manner. He’s a risk-taker.” She feels he isn’t scared of releasing his own books and they do make it to his list of victories.

Kiran Aman from Markings Publishing, the book’s publisher, reveals the Magnum- branded book is an archival collection.

“The book is a mix of fashion, profiles and personalities he has taken pictures of over the years,” she says.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 8^th, 2013.

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In theory we want our children to grow up to be fearless and adventurous. We wish we had a little more spunk and didn’t scare so easy ourselves. A film like The Croods reminds us of those noble aspirations in a time when the instinct of Pakistani parents to protect their children keeps them from discovering the world.

At the centre of this animated 3D comedy is the feisty broad-faced girl Eep (Emma Stone), whose character is worlds apart from the stereotype of the slender heroine with a well-coiffed do. Eep’s thirst for adventure sets her at odds with her father Grug (Nicholas Cage) who puts safety at the top of his family’s needs — no one leaves the cave or does anything new.

As history has taught us, this philosophy of life worked in prehistoric times, which has been lusciously recreated by the team at DreamWorks who worked with writer-directors Chris Sanders and Kirk DiMicco. The problem is that your comfort zone can become a cage.

Luckily for Eep, an earthquake marks the start of her adventure as it forces her father Grug to abandon the cave with his family and embark on a road trip that will change the course of their lives forever. Thus The Croods is a story of survival, discovery and adventure packaged with slapstick humour and plenty of action. It is perhaps the story of today as well for are not all families trying to cope with change and a generation gap.

Natural calamity is not the only twist in this adventure. Guy (Ryan Reynolds) enters the picture. His relatively modern lifestyle, which includes animal skin shoes, eating from a plate and the ability to light a fire, give this primitive story an additional spark. Combined with his survival instinct and a mind full of ideas, Guy gives the Croods a lesson in embracing change without fear.

Though full of fun, this visual marvel does drag at certain points with repetitive hunting sequences and apart from Grug, Eep and Guy the other characters (Ugga, the attractive mom, Thunk, the chubby middle child, Sandy, the toddler with an insatiable appetite and Gran, Ugga’s mother) contribute little to the overall plot. This is a small price to pay for an important lesson though.

Watch out for these animation movies

1.Monsters University

The much-awaited prequel to 2001’s Monsters, Inc, is finally set to release in June. Set about 10 years before the events of Monsters, Inc, this film will show Mike Wazowski and James P Sullivan as an inseparable pair, wasn’t always the case. Monsters University unlocks the door to how Mike and Sulley overcame their differences and became the best of friends.

 2. Epic

We never tire of the good old-fashioned battles between Good and Evil. This time-tested formula was used by the creators of Ice Age and Rio, to tell the story of a teenage girl who finds herself magically transported into a secret universe, which she ends up saving with help from a team of whimsical characters.

3.Planes

Cars created quite a buzz in 2006 so we’re hoping Planes can soar high as well. After Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure, director Klay Hall introduces you to Dusty, a crop-dusting plane who dreams of competing in a famous aerial race. But, what’s stopping him from realising his dreams is well, a fear of heights.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, May 12^th, 2013.

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Fans of books about the boy wizard will have a chance to bid on a unique first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, annotated by the author, at a charity auction this month, the English PEN organisation said on Friday.

The book contains Rowling’s handwritten thoughts and commentary about the book and the film adaptation, as well as 22 hand-drawn illustrations including one of a sleeping baby Harry and another of Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

It includes a 43-page “second thoughts” segment from the author, with phrases such as, “I wrote the book … in snatched hours, in clattering cafés or in the dead of night. For me, the story of how I wrote Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is written invisibly on every page, legible only to me…”

The book will be one of 51 first editions annotated by authors at an auction on May 21 that will include Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding, Northern Lights by Philip Pullman and Roald Dahl’s Matilda with original illustrations by Quentin Blake.

The Harry Potter fantasy series of seven novels, based on the adventures of a boy wizard, has become the best-selling book series ever and has been adapted into a multibillion-dollar film franchise.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was first published in 1997, and is the rarest of the series as only 500 copies were printed.

In an October 2007 auction, a first edition of the book sold for 19,700 pounds ($29,878) and the auction at Sotheby’s in London is likely to fetch high prices for the unique copies.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 19^th, 2013.

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Eve Ensler is lying on top of Coetzee. Roth is cheek by jowl with Rilke. Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K. The students greet each other with comic cries and sodden collapse. Their summer has been bloated with criminal pleasures. My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning)…

This is the world that awaits anyone who walks into The Last Word, Aysha Raja’s independent bookstore. It is not the place to go if you want the latest Paulo Coelho or a Sophie Kinsella. Only those used to the onomatopoeic somersaults of Tom Wolfe and the kind of syntax that emerges from German translations will feel at home here. E-book fans. Don’t bother.

Of course, Pakistan has a selection of solid, serious bookstores from Quetta to Islamabad (see box), but what sets this one apart are Aysha Raja’s likes and dislikes.

“Like any self-respecting independent book[store], [The Last Word] is informed by my tastes and preferences,” she says unapologetically. “A lot of publishers I work with often say that by their standards I have a very intellectual readership.” They have commented on how highbrow her customers’ tastes are.

This debunks the myth that Pakistanis don’t read or that we don’t enjoy a little Leviathan post our postprandial constitutional. “I never seem to have enough copies of Infinite Jest,” Raja explains, “but I will struggle to sell a single copy of the Twilight series. My business runs on my taste so I have to be really careful while choosing the right kind of books.”

And thus, while she prefers having a range of titles in fewer quantities to a handful in large quantities, this means higher costs and the risk of running out of certain copies. “But at least the book shop is in a position to constantly yield gems to discerning book buyers,” she adds.

Selfish motives

PHOTO SHAFIQ MALIK

After having moved to Lahore in the early 2000s, Raja found herself returning from occasional trips to Delhi with suitcases full of books. “I couldn’t fathom why we didn’t have the same variety across the border. I was always envious of their bookstores,” she says. “Accessibility to books with ease is a fundamental right.”

And then, in 2005, when she was pregnant with her daughter Leila, she visited a bookshop in Istanbul called Robinson Crusoe 389 on the hip stiklal Caddesi. “It was the perfect embodiment of a small independent book shop and served as the inspiration [for my own],” she says. The name The Last Word summed up her ambitions. She wanted the book shop to be the destination for cutting-edge, definitive works of fiction, non-fiction and the creative arts.

Raja, who was a lawyer for eight years, started out by opening her home to readers with a small exhibition that relied on their interest and her coffee table more than anything else.

“You can do such things in Pakistan with ease. It is an unregulated society, where there is no need to seek permits and loans. I never felt the limitations taking on a huge endeavour here.”

She is candid that the business plans that were drawn up for her would have in all probability turned her off the idea except for the fact that she was committed. Guts made up for a lack of business sense.

PHOTO SHAFIQ MALIK

She invested heavily in the inventory before publishers extended her credit and after starting out in her own house she was lucky to get space at PFDC. “I am eternally grateful to Seher Saigol for allowing me the opportunity to set up shop with no overheads whatsoever,” she says. The Last Word eventually found its home at The Hot Spot in Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore and recently moved to Roadside Café in Karachi. She is going to open at Mocca café in Islamabad by the end of May or in June.

The big break came when a Random House editor urged her to promote Mohammed Hanif’s A Case of Exploding Mangoes. “The manuscript was amazing and I was sure that this book would create ripples in the literary landscape,” she says. “I never had imported from India [though]. It was my first time, and there were obviously problems because of the animosity between the two countries. The people at the customs office were suspicious about the name of General Zia on the book.”

It has been names like Hanif’s that has made reading sexier in Pakistan in the last decade or so. It also helps that in the sub-continent we are still in love with the feel of the weight of a book and the smell that nestles in its spine. Bricks-and-mortar bookstores still have plenty of cultural currency in Pakistan.

“I remember talking to Hanif Kureishi about the turnout on the reading gathering which is merely fifty abroad,” recalls Raja. “He was amazed that we can easily gather 200 people at any reading gala. It shows that there is a lot more intellectual curiosity over here.” For Raja this means that it is more and more important for publishers to target this part of the world.

PHOTO SHAFIQ MALIK

Aside from benefiting from a serious reading population, Raja’s success lies in stocking what she is curious about herself. “I tend to enjoy more left wing literature, by that I also mean non-fiction.” This means increasingly buying from Verso (Tariq Ali) to stocking the shelves with works on the movement of the Arab Spring. It is at The Last Word that you will find Jane Jacobs, the Hummingbird Bakery’s Home Sweet Home, Jeanette Winterson, Oliver Sacks, Phaidon’s art books, Le Corbusier, The Velveteen Rabbit.

She has close to 5,000 titles in stock from publishers ranging from the big six, including Random House and Penguin, to the smaller imprints such as Verso, Persephone, Hesperus, Quirk and specialist publishers such as Phaidon, DC Comics/Vertigo, and Gollanz. “Being a boutique book shop we largely air-freight our titles in to keep the wait time as little as possible,” she explains. And readers are free to interact on their Facebook page if there are any special requests or recommendations. Her range of fiction is heavily influenced by customer preferences and feedback. These days, Mohsin Hamid’s How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia and Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilaka are flying off the shelves.

On her bedside table, metaphorically speaking, is Come to the Edge by Joanna Kavenna, one of Granta’s recently heralded Young British Authors, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore that will hit the shelves in June, and Sex and the Citadel by Shereen El Feki. “I read a lot and yet not enough,” she admits. And like any serious reader, she is usually juggling two to three books at a time. She reads every day, in the car, at home, in waiting rooms. Forget TV and Twitter. You’re more likely to find her behind a book.

Although she prefers 20th century works to the more contemporary literature coming out today, most of what she reads is usually published within the last 12 months. (She abhors chicklit). She is drawn to explications of the human condition and the art of writing. “I find it imperative to read [about] how superficial and base we’ve become. That’s what literature does; it puts our values and ideas under the lens and shows us how flawed we are. We could do with the constant reminder[s].”

Don’t ask to borrow a book. She doesn’t lend them to friends because she becomes “unbearably passive aggressive trying to secure their return”. And while she can’t bear to damage a book, somehow they always end up ravaged by the time she is through with them. She only recently started annotating the ones that she was reviewing. Now Leila’s school permission slips, shopping receipts, flyers are morphed in bookmarks.

As for perhaps writing her own book some day, Raja knows it is unlikely. “I cannot open myself to be scrutinised that much.” She would rather read about the lives of others.

Kitabain.com

Founded by Usman Siddiqui and Jawad Yousuf, this website provides an online marketplace for independent sellers of new and used books, as well as rare and collectible titles.   (021) 32426851

Gosha-e-Adab, Quetta

Housed in the historic, Kabir Building off Jinnah Road, Gosha-e-Adab was founded in 1962 and is one of the oldest and most prominent bookstores in Quetta. The place to go for books on Balochistan and its society. (081) 2820375, 2843229 goshaeadab.com.

We also recommend Bookland on M.A. Jinnah Road  (081) 2824295 and New Quetta Bookstall on Jinnah Road  (081) 2842882

Ferozsons, Lahore

This bookstore is over a 100 years old. It was founded by Al-Haj Maulvi Feroz-ud-Din. (042) 111-62-62-62

 Readings, Lahore

Readings opened in 2006 and claims to be the largest bookshop in Lahore that provides a large range of old books at affordable prices.   (042) 11-11-26657

Thomas and Thomas, Karachi

The oldest surviving bookstore in Karachi, Thomas & Thomas has been standing tall since before Partition and was run by a British gentleman before it was bought in 1948 by Mohammad Yunus’s family.  (021) 35682220

Saeed Book Bank, Islamabad

The well-stocked Saeed Book Bank was founded in 1955 by Saeed Jan Qureshi with the aim of “making books assessable and knowledge affordable”. It has expanded to Peshawar as well. Phone: 92-51-2651656-57-58

Liberty Books

Established in 1961, Liberty Books is best known for distributing new titles. They deliver to your doorstep as well (libertybooks.com).  (021) 111-117-323 

The Strand, New York City

If you are ever in New York, do visit The Strand at 828 Broadway (at 12th St.). It opened in 1927 and has 18 miles of books or over 2.5 million used, new and rare titles.

Foyles, London

London is full of beautiful bookstores but we thought we’d mention Foyles because of the one-of-a-kind Ray’s Jazz cafe on the first floor. Open up the new book you’ve just bought, take a seat at one of the rough hewn wooden tables and lose yourself for hours.

Daunt Books, London

Even if you don’t buy anything here, you have to see Daunt Books at Marylebone High Street once in your lifetime if simply for its Edwardian interior. You will never want to leave the long oak galleries that are bathed in sunlight filtering in from the graceful skylights above.

Primrose Hill Books

One of Aysha’s favourite spots. PHB has been called one of the best small bookshops in London. It is located on a quiet Victorian terrace — the best natural vantage point in London for a spectacular view of the whole city.

London Review Bookshop

According to Snipe’s Kate Weston, LRB’s classy dark exterior opens into a small yet spacious, light and well stocked bookshop. It opened nine years ago to bring people a range of literary and academic titles.

Robinson Crusoe 389, Istanbul

Whether you’re looking for a specific book, or just want to browse, Robinson Crusoe 389 is perfect with its floor to ceiling book stacks. Twenty-minutes away from Taksim Square, it’s the most well-known English language bookstore in Istanbul.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, May 19^th, 2013.

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At a time when Indian society struggles to find ways to clamp down on rape, Shobhaa Dé’s new book Sethji opens with this crime. Sethji’s youngest son Suraj has raped a young girl. The wily old man finds a way to make Suraj disappear and his daughter-in-law Amrita deftly handles the media.

We are thus introduced to Sethji and his family that has been living in Delhi after gaining a political foothold in Uttar Pradesh. Sethji is the patriarch and everyone else is a dog. We first meet him near naked in all his oiled corpulence on the massage table. His wife Leelaji is dead. His two grownup sons Srichand and Suraj are worth less than the soles of Sethiji’s white rexine sandals and it is only the ravishing daughter-in-law Amrita in the low-cut choli who merits attention. In fact, too much attention. As it turns out, Sethji has more than a roving eye.

Dé does complete justice to her signature style of peppering the plots with chaska and masala. While the immediate disaster is averted, Sethji and Amrita are kidnapped in the aftermath of the rape and what unfolds is their fight to freedom. This drives the plot’s suspense that is laced with romance (plenty of salty language) and a power struggle. The uncompromising, ziddi (stubborn) relationship between the daughter-in-law and the father-in-law keeps the pages turning right to the end with other minor characters often popping in and out of the pages.

Pakistani readers, who already love Dé for gracing the Karachi Literature Festival, will perhaps find it refreshing to read the Hindi/Urdu words worked into the dialogue that make the story all the more real. “You know how women are — all women, no exceptions, not even you,” Sethji comforts Amrita. “They see a powerful, good-looking man and they have only one thought in their heads — how to phasao him.”

As with all her books, we sometimes wonder how much they are based on real life. While at the Karachi Literature Festival in 2012, she gave her adoring audience a sneak peak into what we now know was the book Sethji she was writing at the time: “It is about an oily, sleazy, despicable politician in Delhi,” she said. “I want my future novels to be even raunchier than the old ones.”

Three picks on power, patriarchs and pushing back

1.  My Feudal Lord (1996)

By Tehmina Durrani

When it hit the literary scene everyone read it in Pakistan. We loved it because a beautiful, well-pedigreed and intelligent woman had decided to head butt the male order. This is the story of Durrani’s 14-year marriage to Mustafa Khar until she filed for divorce. A must-read for any woman trying to maintain a glamorous façade in an abusive relationship. Available at Liberty Books, Readings and Saeed Book Bank for about Rs545

2.  Mafia Queens of Mumbai (2012)

By S Hussain Zaidi

Only a crime reporter of Zaidi’s talents could have brought us possibly the most exciting look at the women of Mumbai’s underworld who are uniquely placed to run drug networks. They slip in and out unnoticed in burqas but don’t be fooled, they are just as ruthless. Available for Rs676 at Liberty Books.

3.  Daddy-Long-Legs (1912)

By Jean Webster

A young orphan’s life is changed when an anonymous benefactor offers to pay for her college provided she writes him letters — which he will not reply to. All she saw of him was his shadow, which was long, leading to the nickname she uses for her correspondence. Daddy-Long-Legs, which has since grown to become a classic, is the story of how she wins him over. Available free on Project Gutenberg

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, May 19^th, 2013.

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I often come across poorly composed and rhythmically imbalanced verses on Facebook. They are attributed to famous poets like Ghalib, Iqbal and Faraz. Whenever I see such posts, I make a point of setting the record straight. Most of the time, I am viewed as a troll and advised to appreciate the wisdom of the words rather than being critical of their form.

When I first started reading Paulo Coelho’s latest book Manuscript Found in Accra, I resolved to follow this advice. I can safely conclude that the book is full of worthy musings and quotable quotes on a variety of subjects — from solitude and love to beauty and miracles. Like all his other works, this recent book by Coelho also has its moments of glory when the earnestness, simplicity and clarity of its prose start touching your soul and transforming your thoughts.

Manuscript Found in Accra seems to echo the writings of Khalil Gibran and sometimes also Osho, the Indian mystic. In its style and form, the book appears to be a subdued imitation of the Dialogues of Plato, the gospels and, ironically their counterpart, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A book for All and None. However the merits of Accra do not redeem its obvious defects and contradictions. Coelho attempts to disguise his string of musings by blending historical facts with fiction. In this case, the titular manuscript is an ancient document written in 1099 by a 21-year-old man on the eve of the Crusaders’ invasion of Jerusalem. It recounts his dealings with a mysterious Greek man, referred to as the Copt, who counsels a group of men and women on their most pressing questions. The back-story serves little purpose, except for making Coelho’s thoughts sound like the knowledge of Jerusalem.

Coelho’s attempt to structure his thoughts by introducing a frail superstructure story seems to have failed. The Manuscript Found in Accra is essentially a book of quotable quotes with a message of self-reform rather than revolution.

Who do you think you are? Three picks on self discovery

1. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Recently retired Harold Fry is surprised by a letter from a dying friend, Queenie Hennessy, who he hasn’t heard from in twenty years. He becomes convinced he must deliver his message in person to Queenie. So he sets off without hiking boots, rain gear, maps or even a cell phone. Available at The Last Word for Rs1,250 (Hardcover) and Rs695 (Paperback).

2. Into the Wild

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given his savings to charity, abandoned his car and invented a new life for himself. During his adventure, he encounters several unique people that change his life before he faces the dangers of the wilderness.

3. On the Road

On the Road chronicles Jack Kerouac’s years travelling the North American continent with his friend Neal Cassady. The two roam the country in a quest for self-knowledge and experience. Kerouac’s classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be ‘Beat’ and has inspired every generation since its initial publication more than forty years ago. Available at Liberty books for Rs832.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, May 19^th, 2013.

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Fans of books about the boy wizard had a chance to bid on a unique first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone annotated by Rowling, which sold for a record £150,000 at a London charity auction, auction house Sotheby’s said on Tuesday. The 1997 book contains 43 pages of handwritten thoughts, Rowling’s commentary of the book and the film adaptation, as well as 22 hand-drawn illustrations including one of a sleeping baby Harry and another of Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

The auction house said the sale room fell silent on Tuesday as buyers engaged in a bidding war for the coveted book, which eventually went to an unidentified buyer bidding over the telephone. The full sale featured 51 first editions, all unique one-offs featuring annotations and commentary from authors, as part of the “First Editions, Second Thoughts” sale to benefit charity organisation English PEN, which promotes freedom of expression.

Other top sellers included Roald Dahl’s Matilda with new illustrations by Quentin Blake for £30,000, Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day for £18,000 and Julian Barnes’ Metroland for £14,000. The total sale fetched £439,000.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was the first in a series of seven novels by Rowling, about the adventures of a boy wizard living in a world of ‘muggles’ and magic.

Only 500 first editions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone exist, making them the rarest of the series, which has become the best-selling book series ever and was adapted into a multibillion-dollar film franchise.

It includes a 43-page “second thoughts” segment from the author, with phrases such as, “I wrote the book … in snatched hours, in clattering cafés or in the dead of night. For me, the story of how I wrote Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is written invisibly on every page, legible only to me …”

Published in The Express Tribune, May 23^rd, 2013.

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Comedian Jim Carrey, who is famous for his roles in The Mask and Liar Liar, is known for leaving his audience in fits of laughter. The latest news, however, is that he is exploring his talents further and is stirring up a surprise for his young fans.

Carrey will publish a children’s book called How Roland Rolls in September, his publisher said on Thursday. It’s about a wave named Roland.

Sabrina McCarthy, the president of Perseus Distribution Client Services, described Carrey — known for his zany characters and comedy routines — as the perfect person to write a children’s book.

“He is such a vibrant and dynamic actor who brings amazingly vivid characters to life, and I think children will respond to the energy and enthusiasm he has brought to How Roland Rolls,” she said.

He is admired by children around the world especially because of his role in The Grinch and they cannot wait to read his first ever publication.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 2^nd, 2013.

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Touching upon social issues, Kadir tells the reader stories of people who break free mentally or physically from their suffocating lives. “The idea of writing came after a friend suggested that I should write, and since the skill was there, the stories seemed to flow out of me,” he said. “The sources of these stories have been the people I’ve met or something that I’ve seen that triggered the plots.”

Set in modern-day Pakistan, Clifton Bridge is a light read, inclusive of 10 fictional stories about love, power, and the search for a meaningful life. The characters range from a feudal landlord and remorseful talib to beggars, bureaucrats and women of all nature. While most of the stories leave you wondering of what happens next, the author makes his characters come to certain realisations. And as each story unfolds, a new emotion surfaces, combined with love, which helps the characters feel liberated.

The most heart-gripping stories have to be ‘Clifton Bridge’, ‘Queen’s Garden’ and ‘Through the Lattice’. In each story, the protagonist is extremely disturbed by the events that have taken place. From the beggars who try to escape their master in ‘Clifton Bridge’ or the religious and moral realisation of a talib in ‘Queen’s Garden’ to the unjust treatment of a servant girl in ‘Through the Lattice’, the author succeeds in emotionally charging the reader.

The book also shows women in powerful roles whether she’s a poor servant, a classical singer or a wealthy wife. In ‘All in the Family’, the money-hungry wives will go to any lengths for their husband’s wealth, and ‘Unfinished Mural’ brings out the classic case of a possessive mother who haunts her son even after dying.

Diva’s character is especially close to Kadir. “Diva was inspired by the singer Noor Jehan,” he explained. The first time he met the famous singer was when she was 16 and then he saw her years later when she was much older. “She spoke about the burdens an artist bares. She told me her talent pressed her,” Kadir recalled. “She said ‘I’m in a world of my own, and when I sing I respond to the call of nature. I had to completely balance the two, but singing is primary in my life. I can never tell my family that, it’s a tussle that will go on till the day I die’.”

The story ‘Diva’ takes the reader through the life of a passionate singer, while ‘A Touch of Humanity’ revolves around a widow who heads an NGO and has no time for romance.

As the reader gets addicted to reading one story after another, Kadir conveniently fits in social issues of survival, corruption, frustration and taboos. Overall, the book is an easy read, with detailed stories and realistic characters that leave you with an afterthought.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 5^th, 2013.

Inferno is 461 pages of predictable, formulaic, unbelievable, breathless action that starts with Robert Langdon, our invincible Harris Tweed-clad academic, who sprints injured from a hospital bed in what he discovers is not New England but Florence, Italy. Only, this time he also has amnesia!

This book’s plot is overly ambitious even by Brown’s standards. Yet, more than 200 million copies of his books have already been sold. Indeed, the writer continues to command a fan-base for whom he is a demagogue. Hence, what critics think may be one of his worst works is already a chart-topper.

Brown’s readership is already acquainted with Langdon, art historian cum symbologist cum iconographer cum world-saviour, all in one. He lands in the most unthinkable situations with the world’s most gorgeous, brainy and spirited women (in Bond 007 fashion), and together they solve hidden mysteries, connecting the dots of symbology, just in the nick of time to ward off an apocalypse plotted by crazed men. With the blonde doctor, Sienna Brooks, the lucky-in-love Langdon finds himself racing through Florence, Venice and Istanbul. Istanbul clearly steals the show from Italy here.

Brown’s books are inspired by some of the most influential individuals, cults or books of the past. This time, as the name suggests, it is part one: “Inferno” of Dante Alighieri’s 14th century epic poem Divine Comedy.

In a standard Dan Brown 24-hour time limit, Langdon with his beautiful side-kick races to find a weapon of mass destruction created by a mad scientist as a solution to over-population in the world that is threatening the human species with extinction. This weapon is created to cut down a major chunk of the human population. Here, we see dark and twisted reflections of the neo-Malthusian theory at work.

Despite all the predictability, Brown’s art reigns over boredom. He manages to keep the reader glued.

His earlier books brought to life the Illuminati and the Holy Grail. This time round, global interest in Dante’s Inferno has re-surfaced. Dante has risen yet again, which more than the book itself, might be an off-shoot contribution from Brown. In a world that is quickly losing touch with epic poetry, the return of classics to the sphere inhabited by the mainstream reader is a good thing. It has certainly helped revive tourism in Florence, as Dante fever grips the city beside river Arno.

In Inferno, we see Brown struggling with his malapropistic tendencies, having fallen into the rut of predictability. But as long as Brown has a die-hard readership that enjoys the conspiracy theory formula, he is still in the running, and some of the flack he gets is a bit unfair, as his novels are fun reads.

The Divine Comedy by Dante Aligheiri

Divided into three Canticas (hymns), The Divine Comedy is a poem about Dante’s journey through the three domains of the afterlife; Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory) and Paradiso (Paradise). The first Cantica, Inferno sees Dante descend into the depths of Hell. Guided by Virgil’s ghost, he goes through nine circles of Hell. The poem is a literal and allegorical attempt to find God and seek redemption.

The Psalter by Galen Watson

An ancient manuscript, the Psalter, is discovered by Michael Romano, a sceptical custodian of the Vatican library. An ancient manuscript expert, he is known to be inquisitive and meddlesome, traits the Church Inquisitors do not appreciate and for good reason. The manuscript leads Father Romano down a path of secrets and betrayals. It also brings to light medieval secrets that have long been buried.

The prophetess by Barbara Wood

Set in the Sinai Desert at the onset of the millennium,
The prophetess, narrates the story of archaeologist Catherine Alexander who has just discovered six ancient scrolls. These scrolls contain secrets that governments desperately want to know. There is however a missing seventh scroll concealing an even more important secret. Catherine battles super powers and intelligence agencies to get her hands on this scroll before they do.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, June 9^th, 2013.

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The facility in question is the historic Hasrat Mohani Library, the biggest and oldest reference library in the city. Founded in 1905 as the Holm Stead Free Readers Hall, it is situated adjacent to the Pucca Qila and the historic Mukhi House. With its collection of over 40,000 books, the library attracts college students as well as those preparing for the competitive exams.

The building, which has Victorian features, comprises over half-a-dozen rooms and a huge reading hall. The building is spread out over more than 18,000 square feet and the rest of the compound’s 1.5 acres contains a lush green lawn, a parking space, a mosque and some monuments. In 1967, the building was renamed after a revolutionary freedom movement leader, renowned poet and member of Indian Constituent Assembly – Syed Fazlul Hassan Hasrat Mohani.

The downward spiral

For a large part of its existence, the library has been occupied by several government departments. After Partition, the regional head office of Radio Pakistan was set up in the library and operated there till 1967. Over the next four decades, it housed several government departments while the library was restricted to only one room.

The library’s plight eventually drew the attention of the former district government, which spent around Rs26 million to spruce it up in 2008-9. The former district Nazim Kanwer Naveed Jamil also sanctioned an annual budget of Rs2.5 million for the library.

But this financial stability did not last long. According to the library’s administrative officer, Muhammad Aamir, it received two timely budgets. “After the end of the local government system, we gradually began plunging in the same state,” he said. The library’s budget for 2011-12 was released in April 2012 – 10 months late. The budget for the fiscal year 2012-13 has yet to be released, he added.

At present, paying utility bills and employees are not the only worries hanging over the minds of the library’s administration officials – the purchase of new books has also been on hold for quite a while now. The staff has shrunk from 31 people to just 18. Of them, 14 have been hired on contract while four from the City taluka municipal administration have been appointed under steady jobs. The administrator, Syed Yousufuddin Ahmed, said, “We don’t even have a librarian or an assistant librarian. The two library sciences graduates who worked for us for Rs10,000 got more lucrative offers and left.”

He wants the library to be handed over to the provincial culture department. “We have written to the culture department…we hope the taluka municipal administration will issue the no-objection certificate for the transfer,” said Ahmed. “We also badly need new books. So far we had been dependent on donations.”

The culture department’s libraries director, Bashir Abro, said that he recently began the process of acquiring the library. “It’s not just a library but an idyllic heritage place. We can’t leave it unattended.” He said he had met on June 5 Hyderabad’s deputy commissioner, Muhammad Nawaz Soho, to discuss the procedure. The library’s staff will be asked in a few days to submit details about employees, books, assets and expenditures so that the acquisition can take place.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 11^th, 2013.

One of the most compelling images in Khaled Hosseini’s new novel comes early on: loving siblings, two-year old Pari and her older brother, Abdullah, make their way across the desert from the fictional village of Shadbagh to Kabul with their father, Saboor. Upon reaching Kabul their worlds are changed forever. Pari is given away and the reader is hooked. Will the two siblings ever meet again? Will Pari find the yellow feather her brother has painstakingly acquired for his sister’s prized collection of feathers?

As time passes, Abdullah continues to pine for his sister but Pari under the spell of her adoptive mother, Afghan-French temptress, Nila Wahdati, is whisked to places of her mother’s choosing. Decades later in the narrative we experience similar heartbreak over the rupture of separation when Saboor’s youngest son, Iqbal comes home from Jalozai. The place where once the sweetest grapes grew has been razed and a “narco palace” has been built on top of his ancestral home. Pari and Abdullah are eventually re-united but not before they travel various parts of the world and meet with other pairs of characters: friends and siblings, cousins and strangers, masters and caretakers, all of whom define how family may be shaped and re-shaped.

With this novel, Hosseini attempts at a sweeping tale covering the continents of Europe, the Americas and Asia. However, the storytelling is at its best when the narrative is grounded in Afghanistan. Most interesting of the peripheral narrative arcs is the camaraderie between the teenagers Adel and Gholam, but their friendship is short-lived as each is essentially his father’s son. Their relationship highlights inter-Afghan relations between exploiter and exploited. Beautifully rendered is the story of Nabi and his employer, Suleiman Wahdati, for whom Nabi becomes not only the household driver but also a caretaker, a companion and a partner of sorts. While some of the peripheral arcs seem to digress from the central narrative, this is a novel of absences and of reconstructions. Just as Pari’s exclusion from her father’s home creates a void for her siblings, Thalia’s face being bitten off by a dog leaves behind only the suggestion of a face. Roshi’s face disfigured by her uncle allows Hosseini to address not only Taliban-spearheaded violence but also domestic violence. Second generation Afghan-Americans, Timur and Idris, are borne out of Hosseini’s own experiences as an Afghan returning home after a long hiatus in the West. Overall the book engages both in the range of storytelling and in the core examination of the bonds of siblinghood.

Postcards from the edge

A Fort of Nine Towers

by Qais Akbar Omar (2013)

As homes were looted and rockets launched in Kabul during the Afghan civil war, Qais and his family were forced to take shelter in the abandoned Qila-e-Noborja. Narrated by Qais, this is a brave coming-of-age memoir. It is a story of living through personal and political hardship but emerging stronger and more determined in the end.

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

by Marjane Satrapi (2003)

Persepolis is a graphic novel in which Satrapi recounts growing up in Iran during the Islamic revolution from ages six to 14. With a wonderfully precocious way of looking at the world, Satrapi’s book is not only humourous but also points to a society under transformation in which public life and private life are performed quite separately from each other.

A Bed of Red Flowers: In Search of My Afghanistan

by Nelofer Pazira (2005)

Pazira is an Afghan-Canadian film-maker and journalist. This memoir documents her life and that of her family in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in the late 1970s, their crossing over to Pakistan and later being given refugee status in Canada. Post 9/11, Pazira returns to Afghanistan in search of her childhood friend, Dyana.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, June 16^th, 2013.

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When Tanzila Khan and her friends would watch Hillary Duff in the show Lizzie McGuire, they yearned for her adventure-filled life. The next best thing, figured Tanzila, who has had to use a wheelchair all her life, was to create stories full of adventures.

Tanzila, now 22, started writing when she was 16. Her first novella A Story of Mexico was published by Topical in 2008. She kept at it and Ilqa Publications has just backed her latest foray into young adult fiction: The Perfect Situation — Sweet Sixteen. And even though Tanzila was initially inspired by Lizzie McGuire, she realised that she had to write something closer to home as the cultural divide between Lizzie’s lifestyle and life here in Pakistan was too great. The Perfect Situation seeks to bridge that gap and inspire teenagers here to live fulfilling and entertaining lives.

The book is set in Lahore where Tanzila grew up. Javayria Khan or ‘Jay’ is approaching her 16th birthday. In an attempt to be the perfect teenager, Jay attempts to take charge of her life and get everything right down to a T. She strives to be the embodiment of perfection for the sake of her future, all the while strongly believing that the habits and values you pick up at this juncture in your life remain with you forever. She eats healthy and studies hard. Needless to say, everything does not go according to plan.

Young readers will enjoy The Perfect Situation for encapsulating and giving voice to their lives. Tanzila makes you feel the heat in the school canteen and smell the crisp, freshly ironed uniform. You hear the playground ruckus during break and can see in your mind’s eye the “pastry-cheeked” principal.

Tanzila denies that Javayria’s character is autobiographical and only accedes that the fictional teenager might be a “better version” of her. In real life, however, self-improvement appears to be one of Tanzila’s prime motivations. She is the brains behind Creative Alley, a production house that nurtures and promotes Pakistani talent through various forms of art and community work. She is also an activist for education with projects such as ‘I Wish Knowledge,’ affiliated with Global Changemakers (British Council). She has taken an interest in The Ramp Movement that works to improve spatial accessibility for people with limited mobility. She also has to her credit an online counseling facility for Pakistani youth called the Angel Network.

Remember this story?

Two decades ago
11-year-old Nayantara Noorani became the author of children’s fiction

Twenty-three years ago there was terrible excitement among young readers in Pakistan with the publication of A Dream Come True. For the first time, someone their age had written a book and it had been published by none other than the giant Ferozsons.

That 11-year-old, Nayantara Noorani, may today be an analyst who only prefers to conjure stories for her children or give guest lectures on writing children’s literature in the US and Pakistan, but for those who read her back in 1990, that story lives on forever.

The story of how a seventh grader came to write a book is as fantastical as the work itself. Ferozsons had approached Nayantara’s mother, a school teacher, to write a children’s book in English. She politely declined, having never done that kind of writing but an ebullient Nayantara took on the project.

The first chapter was handwritten and eagerly presented to her father. It eventually landed in the hands of Gul Afshan of Ferozsons whose young daughter read it and declared that she wanted to know more.

Nayantara aka Nayna and her sister were voracious readers of Enid Blyton. It is no wonder then, that her book was inspired by the original demigod of children’s fantasy. Nayna had, however, never been to a circus but she still doggedly pursued the story of a girl named Sarah who runs away with one. She befriends another girl her age and is adopted by her parents.

The Noorani family played a part in helping Nayna, whether it was typing on the newly purchased PC, or proof-reading ten pages each. An ‘h’ was added to Sarah’s name and Nayna had to accept the pet dog Bobo’s death in an accident and not from a poisonous bone, which she was told didn’t exist. Otherwise, the story was hardly edited.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, June 16^th, 2013.

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