April 14, 2002

SITUATED in an over-crowded narrow lane of Peshawar, Malick Nawaroz Market houses an unusual bookstore — the only one of its kind. Offering a rare collection of books on Afghanistan, the Farhad Anwari Kutub Khana (bookstore) can well be described as the best example of an endeavour to preserve a war-ravaged country’s literature, art, culture, official gazettes, survey reports and above all its history.

Small and medium sized bookracks, showcases, cash counter and large-sized wooden shelves touching the roof of the small shop contain a wide-range of books, including some rare pieces of Afghan literature and history. Surprisingly, the majority of the books are priced much less than their market value, mainly because they are second-hand.

The first to meet your eyes is the picture of an Afghan girl clad in traditional Kuchi dress. It adorns the front cover of a paperback with the title The Afghans. On the back cover is the picture of horsemen playing Afghanistan’s national game, buz-kashi. The 183-page volume gives the reader basic knowledge about the Afghans, their way of life, their thoughts and aspirations.

Printed at the Punjab Educational Press, Nabha Road, Lahore by Kabul University’s Prof Mohammed Ali in 1965, the book gives a quick introduction to the geography, culture, customs, traditions, weather, people, tribes, races and terrain of Afghanistan.

“In a heterogeneous community like the Afghans, some of whose traditions are lost in remote antiquity, it is easy, to find practices among certain sections of the people that might be revolting to a modern mind. At the same time it can be seen that they are heirs to institutions and schools of thought which have elicited admiration from all,” notes Prof Ali.

The book has a hundred Kabuli Persian proverbs (Dari) with their English translation at the end, making it a reading asset worth keeping in one’s personal library.

The windowpanes erected on the face of the small shop to protect the stock from dust make little impact on this dusty lane of Peshawar, which has over the years turned into the second most polluted city of Pakistan after having been regarded once as a city of gardens.

Hardly would there be any book or even a pamphlet in this treasure displayed on the racks, which would not wear a thin layer of dust, requiring the bookstore owner to clean every book a customer asks for. The owner of this remarkable bookstore, Farhad Anwari, a middle aged Afghan of Tajik origin, has been in the book business for the last several years.

Six years back when infighting among the belligerent Mujahideen groups forced him to flee his hometown Kabul, he brought with him to Peshawar the stocks of his well-established bookstore in the Makrurian locality of the Afghan capital. Being educated and with a love for books, Farhad opened his bookshop in Peshawar.

“Several Afghans sold out the books, official gazettes and reports they had brought with them from Afghanistan to Pakistan,” Farhad said while explaining the source of his supply of books on Afghanistan. Many Afghan intellectuals and academicians who migrated to the West disposed of their book collections before embarking for their destinations in Europe and America.

A guide to the Kabul museum, jointly authored by Ann Dupree, Louis Dupree and A.A. Motamadi, still contains, in Dari script, the address of the bookseller, “Farosh Gah Kitab Farhad [Farhad Bookstore], Makrurian-Saum [3rd], Kabul).

Several other books, too, contain the same stamp reflecting the owner’s love for his bookstore in Kabul.

“Certainly, I would not wait for a second to go back to the place I belong to, if peace and tranquillity reign supreme in Afghanistan,” Farhad said about his plans to return to his country.

The price at which precious reading material is offered is amazing. Nancy Hatch Dupree’s famous book An historical guide to Afghanistan is available for only Rs200 against its market price ranging from Rs500 to Rs600.

Here one is transported into a world of a bygone era. There is the Republic of Afghanistan, published by the Afghan ministry of information and culture, the annual report of 1978 focusing on Mohammed Daoud, described as the founder of the Republic of Afghanistan. There are his pictures with Bhutto and Vajpayee. Even more fascinating is the report of a Loya Jirga held some 70 years back. Written by one Burhanuddin Kushkaki, from the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, this book is of great value for scholars. Other gems are the books Hayat ankat, Sultan Mehmood Ghaznavi, the collection of Shoora and Jirgas of Kabul, Humayun Nama by Gul-Badan Begum and Amir Khusro Dehlavi’s Shireen wo khusro, the third five-year economic and social plan and a report on education in Afghanistan. One can see that Afghanistan was a different world before the civil war ravaged it.

Even after 23 years of war and civil strife in Afghanistan, Farhad Anwari firmly believes that his country would soon be on the road to progress. He offers Afghanistan — the great game revisited, edited by Rosanne Klass, to a young customer. The contents are ominous: “Long term Soviet economic interests”, “Afghan mineral resources and Soviet exploitation” and “Afghanistan and Soviet global interests”. So the great game is still on.

The soft spoken bookseller believes that the only difference between the Mujahideen’s and the Taliban’s rule was that the latter ensured peace in Afghanistan.

“If peace were to be the only criterion for adjudging the success of any government, then a prison happens to be the most peaceful place,” Farhad said, adding “the Taliban converted Afghanistan into a big prison where there was no respect for human rights and personal freedoms”.

Though the Taliban are no more there, Farhad, like many other refugees, is reluctant to go home to his country at this juncture, owing to the uncertainties about the future of the Hamid Karzai-led interim set-up.

The point of concern for Farhad, apparently, is not the question of his return to Afghanistan, sooner or later. He seems to be much more worried about his dwindling sales as his small business concern has not remained unaffected by the impact of 9/11.

“I wish the situation gets normal soon so that I can make the two ends meet,” says Farhad expressing concern about his own future!

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)