SOME old Urdu proverbs, though using terms now rarely are used or understood, explain a situation succinctly and beautifully. One such Urdu proverb is “takay ki burhiya aana sar mundai”. It means, literally, the old lady is worth a few pennies but shaving her head costs a pound. This is to say that one has to spend more money on something than it is worth.

Every time I send a book to or receive one from India, this proverb reverberates in my mind. The reason is sending a book to India through post costs more than the book is worth. Similarly when our Indian friends send us a book or two, looking at the postage paid make our hearts sink. True, a good book should be weighed in gold, but it does not mean that the weighed gold should go to the postal authorities instead of the author. As mentioned earlier in these columns, the inflow of Urdu publications from India has been reduced considerably and now finding new Urdu books and magazines from India is not easy. It is almost a similar situation in India where Pakistani Urdu publications are now difficult to come by. The reason is same: insanely high postages.

Another possibility of getting new Indian publications is through some traders who import books from India. A few of them set up their stalls at the huge book fairs at Karachi and Lahore that now have become a much-appreciated annual feature at Expo Centres. But realising an opportunity to make some quick bucks, these book traders put prohibitive price tags on the books and one can only buy a few of the new arrivals from India. Indian books are now comparatively more expensive in India too and exchange rate parity makes them even more so. But luckily, or due to the generosity of our Indian friends, we are blessed with new publications from India from time to time. For the readers interested in new Indian Urdu publications, I try to offer a peep in these columns. So here are a few new arrivals from India:

Fehrist-i-kutub: Siddiq Book Depot, Lucknow

Apparently, a compiled list of books published decades ago by some publishers is a work more of a bibliographical nature than literarily aesthetical. But Lucknow’s Siddiq Book Depot was no ordinary publisher. Established probably in the 1930s, the entity used to publish books, too, but their basic business was to sell books published in the width and breadth of the Indian subcontinent. Like many other publishers of the era, Siddiq Sons published and sent to their customers the lists of publications they stocked and sold. Prof C. M. Naim and Dr Abdur Rasheed have come up with a book that consists of two lists of books published and/or sold by Siddiq Sons in 1936 and 1950.

C.M. Naim in his preface to the book has rightly mentioned that such lists published by booksellers are not limited to any specific publisher, circle or taste and these lists (there were many published by different publishers and booksellers in those days) inform us of interests of wide and varied circles. Our literary histories, writes Naim, are incomplete because they do not take into account the “popular” Urdu fiction and especially translations of the works of western fiction. A large number of pieces of popular western fictions, including detective works, had been rendered into Urdu in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and they played a vital role, adds Naim, but our literary histories do not at all tell us what part these translations played in the development of Urdu prose. In fact, many of them remained unknown but were listed in the book lists published. So compiling these lists indeed opens the doors of new information and this book tells us of many books and writers hitherto ignored. Published by Dilli Kitab Ghar, Delhi, the book has a detailed and useful index of writers.

Quarterly Urdu adab , Delhi

A special issue of Anju­man Taraqqi-i-Urdu Hind’s quarterly journal Urdu adab pays rich tributes to the Anjuman’s former secretary general Dr Khaliq Anjum, who passed away on Oct 18, 2016. The editors, Siddiqur Rahman Qidvai, Ather Far­ooqi and Sarwarul Huda, have been able to present some very fine old and new articles elaborating Khaliq Anjum’s life and works.

The contributors include some bigwigs like Shameem Hanafi, Aslam Pervez, Muj­taba Hussain, Raza Ali Ab­edi, Nisar Ahmed Farooqi, Kamal Ahmed Siddiqi and others. The issue (Oct-Dec 2016 and Jan-Mar 2017) includes some other articles by Zafar Ahmed Siddiqi, Ch. Liaqat Ali, Saba Ikram, Dr Naresh, Javed Ahmed Khursheed and some other scholars.

Ghalib aur ghalibiat

Just as Ghalib himself, the admirers and critics of Ghalib never cease to surprise us. The book casts some fresh look at the poet and his works. Written by Prof Abdul Haq and published by Iqbal Academy, Delhi, the book is a collection of 10 articles on Ghalib and his Persian and Urdu poetry. As appendices, the book offers three more articles on Urdu poetry.

Hallmarked with Prof Abdul Haq’s distinctive prose, the articles indeed open new vistas of understanding Ghalib and his poetry.

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2017