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January 19, 2003
CHILDREN’S BOOKS: Iqbal made interesting
With all the customary fanfare, the year 2002 was declared the year of Iqbal by the concerned authorities. It was a sad, lacklustre year. What could have been an occasion of appraisal and re-assessment was a non-event, a commemoration that was not-to-be. The same hackneyed and tiresome verbose tributes were dished out again like yet another serving of the barely warmed up left-overs.
Apart from Dr Manzoor Ahmed’s collection of articles, one looks in vain for good new books which can show the state of new developments in Iqbal studies or initiate a new discussion on the life and thoughts of the poet-philosopher whose work now needs to be critically appreciated and re-interpreted in the post 9/11 world where theories resound about the “clash of civilizations”. The year made me afraid that we may have finally succeeded in reducing Iqbal to be merely a part of the national furniture.
I remember reciting “lab pay aati hai dua...” in school daily. Even this is not common any more. What efforts, if any, have been made to win over new and younger readers for Iqbal?
A welcome and refreshing approach to Iqbal is taken in this series of five workbooks for children. Beautifully designed and neatly produced, these books are cased in an attractive box. The first book is meant to be a supplementary reader for class four and in this systematically graded series, the fifth is meant for students of class eight. The objective of the series is clearly stated as inculcating the love of Urdu poetry in the young readers and familiarizing them with Iqbal. The series is designed to meet this objective.
A brief note gives the “how-to-use” of this series explaining how the poems were selected, how various projects can be built around the reading, how the glossary is to be used, how to phrase questions, how to direct written work, etc, which teachers as well as parents will find useful. Surely a good deal of thinking and planning must have gone in this effort. These activities for students are bound to be more rewarding than the simple-minded reproducing of a few poems which so many other books on Iqbal for schoolchildren have been. A friendly approach is taken towards the subject which children will easily relate to.
The first book talks about Iqbal’s “ammi” and “abu” and a box explains how Iqbal was called “Bali” by his mother and how he would rush about to meet her. Instead of a continuous text, the books include boxes with anecdotes, historical and personal background and other details. Simple explanations about reading and writing are clearly stated.
Not being an educationist, I can only speak as a common reader and say how fascinating I found this series to be taking me back to my introduction as a child to Iqbal and how I wish we had something like this in the days we had only the dull and drab books churned out by the textbook boards. I am also very pleasantly surprised that the Sindh textbook Board is involved in something so colourful and interesting as this series.
Mera Iqbal (series of 5 books)
Compiled by Zubair Hussain Shaikh
Edited by Salman Asif Siddiqui
Illustrations and design by Romana Hussain
Sindh Textbook Board and Educational Resource Centre, A 735, Block H, North Nazimabad, Karachi.
Email: Erdc@cyber.net.pk
ISBN 969-8638-00-8,969-8638-01-6, 969-8638-02-4, 969-8638-03-2,
969-8638-04-0
23pp. 32pp. 36pp.
40pp. 52pp
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