January 25, 2004

TIME is money in the West. It is too precious to be frittered away. During my visits to the US, I have noticed that people are avid readers of books. They read while waiting for the trains in the subways, or in the doctor’s waiting room or while travelling in planes.

This observation prompted me to look around to see what are the reading preferences of Pakistani women living in the US. Despite their hectic schedules, the American women throng bookshops and regularly visit the well-equipped libraries.

So many Pakistani friends have also to attend to odd jobs, do laundry, cook, clean the house, take the children to school, go for groceries and what not. In their spare time, however, they prefer watching movies, television programmes or making odd social calls. The women who pursue successful careers read books but mostly those relevant to their fields of work.

A majority of them have a strong urge to read religious books that Mrs Qadir calls a blessing. “I feel an inner peace by reading books about Islam.” Such books based upon extensive research are available in big bookshops in Chicago, New York and Washington.

Quite a few Pakistani women in the US are quite inclined to reading fashion magazines like Vogue, recent editions of which are available in the old bookshops at dirt cheap prices. In one of the houses, I saw piles of Stardust, the Indian movie magazine. The woman of the house loves reading juicy articles and spicy stuff on the popular Indian stars. The Pakistani magazines like Women’s Own and She are also widely read as the very titles suggest these magazines are for women readers. Through them the readers catch up with the latest fashion trends in their homeland. They become conversant with the news and views about the social, political and economic scenario in Pakistan.

Mrs Tanveer smilingly told me, “I bring back quite a few issues of Akhbar-i-Jahan with me whenever I visit Pakistan. I have loved reading this magazine ever since my girlhood.” She liberally lends her collection to her friends and neighbours.

Yet many other Pakistani women do not have any particular choice for any author or magazine. They just read compulsively at bedtime as reading lulls them to sleep. One cannot fail to notice the penchant of many women for recipe books. When one of them visits Pakistan, the others request her to bring back recipe books by Kokab Khwaja that helps them in entertaining their guests with Chinese and Pakistani cuisine. They cannot imagine severing their ties with the Pakistani traditions.

Surprisingly, these women who don’t read many books themselves buy, without any exception, books for their children. The shelves in the children’s room are overflowing with books ranging from Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty to Mr Stich. Many mothers try to get story books in Urdu for their children to keep them familiar with the heroes of Islam and in touch with their national language. But most of the children born and brought up in the US cannot, however, read Urdu and some of them cannot even communicate in this language.

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)