Taking time out after a hectic day and then sitting down to indulge in your pastime, is something that eludes me. Especially when it’s getting down to reading your favourite work of literature, Urdu or English. Still I have managed to read a few of the famous names and have kept myself abreast of the latest developments in the literary world. But you know what’s the best part, I have been able to do all that free of cost, courtesy of the Internet.
True I have trolled around, buying books off Amazon. But I am quite sure most of you will agree with me when I say that getting things for free, without having to bother your credit card, is indeed a very pleasing experience. And one of the first places to enjoy this experience is Kitaab Ghar, the self proclaimed home of free Urdu books and literature http://www.kitaabghar.com/. This online library has books that can be read online or can be downloaded for offline reading.
A project of the Urduistan Network, Kitaab Ghar’s mission is to bring published and un-published Urdu books online for the masses. This is especially helpful for those who are residing in territories where Urdu books aren’t easily available or are simply not available altogether.
The very first book that was presented here was a collection of short stories by Trannum Riaz. In all there are 38 books available that include names like Dr Gopi Chand Narang, Professor Jamil Azar and Kaleem Ahsaan Butt. Excerpts of their work are available in the photo format and if you like what you read, then you can download the whole thing in its PDF format.
This site claims to have a panel that has been setup for the selection and ‘procurement’ of Urdu books as these people hope to bring together hundreds of books absolutely free for all.
Another site that is working on the same lines, though not as vigorously is Eurdubazaar http://www.eurdubazaar.com/. The people here claim to have with them, online, 100 of the best books of Urdu literature. Links here include the likes of ‘Shairi’ that helps you discover more than 350 years of Urdu poetry, from Wali Dakni to Parveen Shakir. Brighten up with ten of the most hilarious books ever written in Urdu in the Humour section while there are Travelogues, Short Stories and Novels, all here. There is also the Web Museum that takes the reader back in time with a lot of Urdu’s firsts including the First Known Sentence of Urdu language, Urdu’s first ghazal, afsana and travelogue. The History of Urdu as penned by Zafar Iqbal Syed can also be gone through here. Aesthetically a very well made site that is pleasing to the eye, seven of the language’s greatest authors are within easy reach of the mouse on the main page of the site.
Though there’s controversy over some aspects of his life, but all are in unison when it comes to Allama Iqbal’s genius as a poet. The site Iqbal Urdu Cyber Library http://www.iqbalcyberlibrary.net/ is a digital or virtual library of the Urdu language. And though the people here claim that they want to provide free electronic book reading facility to Urdu lovers and are determined to upload more than 500 Urdu books, totally free, by 2008, most of work here is Iqbal related. But as the folks here quite rightly point out, one of the most spoken languages (Urdu) has a very sparse presence on the web. And that is what they are trying to correct. Another thing that needs to be corrected is the viewing problem on the website, that occurs with the Urdu here.
Iqbal Cyber Library is owned and governed by Iqbal Academy Pakistan and is a project that was inspired by Project Gutenberg (yet another free book online project).
However, the Downloads link was disappointing as I was expecting links to downloads of free books. Rather, a click here exposed me to a few cheesy desktop wallpapers and a couple of screensaveers that I was too afraid to download for fear of giving my computer a virus!
Moving away from Urdu, I would like to take to probably the best source for free online literature, in all possible languages. Free e-books http://www.e-book.com.au/freebooks.htm is the place where many books in the public domain may be accessed, as well as some other books under specified conditions. However, the people here make it clear that they cannot legally offer access to any copyrighted titles unless the publisher or the copyright owner has so permitted.
This is basically a search directory for a whole lot of free digital libraries around the world. Divided into sections, there are:
• Best Free Digital Libraries — Australia
• Best Free Digital Libraries — World
• Other Free Australian Books
• Other Free Book Sites / Pages in English
• World — Other Languages, Regional and National
• Individual Topics / Miscellaneous
• Sacred Texts and Religion
Sadly though, there aren’t any links to Urdu works of word that one could have gone through. Neither is there anything on Pakistan. Still, this is really one very great site to browse through, loads and loads of reading material from around the world.
While prowling through the Net for some of the better reading material around, I found a really neat site for my nephew. Getting him to read books had been a laborious task. Therefore getting him to a computer and making him read the stuff was a lot easier. Children’s Storybooks http://www.magickeys.com/books/ from Young Children, to Older Children to Young Adults. Most of the stories here are illustrated, but a few of them also come Flash enabled and are therefore integrative.
Book reading is vanishing art form. But thanks to the computer and the Internet, it has received that much-needed boost and pulled people back to the world of knowledge.
Taking time out after a hectic day and then sitting down to indulge in your pastime, is something that eludes me. Especially when it’s getting down to reading your favourite work of literature, Urdu or English. Still I have managed to read a few of the famous names and have kept myself abreast of the latest developments in the literary world. But you know what’s the best part, I have been able to do all that free of cost, courtesy of the Internet.
