I may not belong to a family of writers and poets, but I opened eyes among books and book readers. Almost everyone of my maternal relatives is an avid reader. My grandparents had a library full of books on a variety of subjects. Although my grandfather was a banker and my grandmother a housewife, both used to read history, philosophy, psychology, religion, literature and what not.
Being part of such a family, I was also expected to show similar enthusiasm, and I did. Although I was born in the age of computer.
I remember my pre-school days, when I used to read those big and colourful pop up books with very nice pictures, alphabets and numbers.
In those days we lived outside Pakistan, but I was not restricted to only English books. When I started reading, I had abridged and colourful editions of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, stories by Hans Christian Anderson and of Aesop fables.
By the time I was nine, I had started reading the unabridged versions of these English books, along with Urdu books like Umro Ayyar Kay Karnamay, Dastan-i-Amir Hamza, Qissa-i-Hatim Tai and other timeless tales. The magic, the magicians, the heroes, the villains and the interesting names of the characters fascinated me. I also noted down all the names I found while reading, to look up later their meanings in the dictionary. People like Sheikh Chilli, Mulla Nasruddin, Hatim Tai and Umro Ayyar seemed to me more than just characters.
In English, I was a fan of Enid Blyton. The Famous Five, Secret Seven, Five Findouters, Twins at St. Clare’s, elves, goblins and fairies were my best friends. Within a year, Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys also joined the crime solver gang.
At that time, I never cared where these books came from. All I knew was that I just had to mention them to my mother, and she magically made them available to me from somewhere.
Books were very expensive in the country we lived in. So I made it a practice to do book shopping on my family’s annual visits to Pakistan. I remember, when an aunt gave me a book of Umro Ayyar Kay Karnamay, I was so fascinated by it that on my next trip I bought the whole series of 10 books and Dastan-i-Amir Hamza from a bookstore in Saddar.
In class eight, I started reading works of Ismat Chughtai, Azeem Baig Chughtai, A.R. Khatoon, Zubeida Khatoon, Ibn-i-Insha and so many other Urdu writers, and the classical English writers like Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Charles Dickens, Jules Verne. All my aunts and uncles, noticing my interest, gave books to me as present.
When I started working, I kept Rs400 every month to be spent on books only. My first job was in a publishing house, which also facilitated availability of books to me. I used to spend lunch hour in the shop browsing through the endless collection of books.
The book reading culture, which is so common outside Pakistan among children and adults alike, is a rarity in our country. When I see relatives of my generation, I feel sorry that they are depriving themselves of doing something so worthwhile. Some say: “They can’t afford it” or “They have no time for reading”. But on the other hand they spend a lot of money on clothes and on other useless items.
Not only there is an absence of reading habit, there is also a dearth of bookshops and public libraries, where people can quench their literary thirst. The so-called XYZ bookstores that can be found in all localities carry only textbooks and stationary items. The locality that we live in does not have even a single bookshop within the radius of 5km. And as for library, I have no comment on the ones that are there physically. With so much “encouragement”, how can one expect to cultivate this habit in this society?
In addition to this lack of proper resources, the attitude of adults also affects the young. May be it is easy for them to let children watch TV or play computer games. Unlike today’s children, when we were studying, most of our extra time was spent in playing outdoor and reading, with strict timings to watch television.
Frankly speaking, the restrictions were annoying at that time, but now I feel proud to say that thanks to my parents’ strictness that I have kept up with reading both English and Urdu books.
Intellectuals rightly said that books are keys to wisdom’s treasure; books are gates to lands of pleasure; books are paths that upward lead and that books are friends .
