Bahawalpur Main Ajnabi: a book review by Javed Khan

By Javed Khan

Believe it or not, man is a traveler from eternity. He is on travel from his birth to the next destination.

And this was a common belief not only in Semitic religions but also Aryan. According to those religions, we all will go to heaven after death.

Such belief is continuing to this day. The philosophy of transmigration of souls says that man has many births and he comes and lives in different forms in different births.

It is a fact that man is extremely attached to his past. Countless human beings have come and gone on this shell (earth), and some are passing.

Many have yet to pass. Many civilizations have risen on this earth and been buried in the dust.

Curious to find them around, people of later times kept wandering on this earth.

The proof of this search is in many forms of collected knowledge such as old manuscripts, huge piles of books, impressions, libraries, and historic buildings standing on the chest of the earth.

Why the mankind loves the past so much? Maybe, curiosity, passion, and quest often cling to it.

This knot will probably be solved by someone in the future, it could be another Freud of his time.

I have got this book titled “Bahawalpur Main Ajnabi” in my hands which is written by Mazhar Iqbal Mazhar. The book is divided into two parts.

The first part is based on the author’s brief stay in Bahawalpur, which includes a tour of the present city of Bahawalpur.

It mainly features the old city which he himself calls the city of Nawabs- the royal family of the state of Bahawalpur.

And the second part consists of two beautiful short stories. If I could say from the heart, these two short stories (afsanay) are also flowing in the spirit of the first half of the book namely journey.

Man is a mixture of emotions. For him (author), the flow of emotions and thoughts is also a journey.

Misery and poverty in society, caste system, ups and downs of a peculiar mindset, economic inequalities, civilization, and culture; all these external factors create a sea of ​​contradictions as they rake up in one’s self.

These contradictions create a commotion.

It is the character of a sea that can bear the brunt of its own tumultuous nature.

Yet, it is not possible for a sensitive human being to face such an unrestrained flow of emotions without having an impact on his own personality.

All these external factors bind a sensitive person. Then they find a direction for him and set out on a journey. This journey becomes a journey of creation.

Mazhar’s journey of creation is predictable. He writes about what he sees in the life around him.

Such as, in the short story titled “Aik boond pani”, it is the journey of his soul that witnesses the sighs of sobbing humanity and dying wells in the villages spread all over the map of the Thar desert.

He portrays the true passions of the Eastern civilization in his short story ‘Dil Mandir’.

In the journey to Bahawalpur, the author travels alone but he keeps his homeland with him.

The childhood memories of Kashmiri pears, Kashmiri students in Bahawalpur, the identity campaign of the Bahawalpur region, and the destiny of the Seraikis and Kashmiris.

Pick any topic from this book and you will find a loving reference somewhere to his ancestral land.

His memories are fragrant with a deep sense of belonging to his homeland as he instantaneously paints a grim picture of those memories.

The author, occasionally, makes strong and blunt references to the shackled history of Kashmiris.

Such as there is a bitter truth in this sentence and it is a very strong thought.

“Apart from nationalism and patriotism, the singers of Islamism, Annexism ( the annexation of Kashmir), communism, and countless other ideologies are still receiving praise for their committed and melodious tone”. Not everyone can swallow it easily.  

Bahawalpur has many colors. Inside Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur’s sweet Seraiki language, culture, Nawabi era architecture, cultural heritage, and the Sarafa (Jewellers) market, all these colors have been presented by the author in his book by painting a glorious picture of this city.

By reading the book, it seems as if you have reached the Nawabi era of Bahawalpur.

The red-brick buildings of the Nawabi era, luxury lifestyle, stories of the Nawabi era, everything in this book takes you on a journey.

Even after reading the two stories in the book ‘Dil Mandir’ and ‘Ek boond Pani’, it seems that the impression of desert life is deep in the author’s subconscious.

Especially the story ‘Dil Mandir’ is full of romantic and eastern atmosphere.

There is such a strong focus on detail and painting in every scene that not a single place in the story can be counted as just fiction, it’s more than that.

About the writer

Javed Khan is an author, environmentalist, and teacher.

The reading that makes a real difference | By Professor Khalid Akbar

Reading paves the way for learning

Reading is an important skill of language rather than life itself. It paves the way for learning, cognitive development and mind empowerment. 

According to John Milton, reading is food for thought and gives life beyond life. We cannot nurture our thinking till we do study regularly and systematically.

The famous English dramatist Bernard Shah says: only two percent of people think genuinely, three percent pretend to think; whereas ninety-five percent do not think at all.

In this perspective, the study plays a vital role to improve this situation. It fires the imagination and forms our thinking habits genuinely.

According to a scholar, a sound write-up has the power to unleash the springs of mental vitality and break up the shackles of inertia and sluggishness.

Noam Chomsky, a great linguist and a leading contemporary political thinker has aptly described a crucial fact about reading which merits attention. He says reading a book does not mean to turn pages. It involves thinking about what we have studied. Similarly, it includes identifying those parts that you want to go back; and ask yourself how to place it in a wider context, and pursuing ideas. He declares reading as an intellectual activity that stimulates thoughts, questions and imagination.

Noam Chomsky (Photo Credit: Left Voice

This aforementioned account implies that just go through the book, turning pages and let the stuff pass through the mind does not do anything substantial. It also entails that we need to work with hard copy or book when we resort to reading for leading. 

Reading effectively, we need to underline, highlight, and write points, and so on- an established practice done by great creative figures. This is what is not possible to do with E- stuff or screen reading. The significant implication we draw out from this discussion is the organization of study which makes our reading effective and productive.

Without knowing the ways and means of effective reading and organization of knowledge, we cannot churn out creative figures like scientists, poets, authors, writers musicians, professors, doctors, engineers, or leading persons in any walk of life. Therefore, it is vital and worth noting to follow certain steps to reach the actual crux of reading for reaping optimal benefit from it.

At least two hours of study in the respective field consistently for ten years is a must to transform an ordinary mind into a genius or creative. 

Malcolm Gladwell, a renowned Canadian scholar states that in one area of study whether it is business, industry, science, and technology or fine arts, one to two-hour studies are essential persistently for seven to ten years to be innovative, creative, and inventive.

Malcolm Gladwell (Photo Credit : Changing Minds )

Similarly, to turn pages and let the stuff pass over does not bring about any potential change or transform you into a national or international figure of worth importance. While reading, there is a consistent need to take notes of important parts of reading stuff by identifying them relevant. Malcolm Gladwell holds that a grave reader is supposed to organize and archive the knowledge manually or electronically in a systematic manner.

This process of organization makes the mind coherent, disciplined and confident. It prepares us for problem-solving besides improving language skills namely listening speaking reading and writing. All the great men of genius like scientists, authors, poets, musicians and artists have been doing this in one way or another.

In this global world of science and technology, in order to become smarter, innovative and creative, it would not be sufficient to be well-grounded in academic curricula or rest with random information provided by social, electronic and print media. 

Exposure to the highest minds and elite figures in your specific fields of interest is crucial to get excellence and meeting the desired goals. It would fuel imagination and nurture our logical, cognitive, and metacognitive abilities in our personality. It is what emphasized and endorsed by all the greatest scholars of the world.

It is also recommended by the learned authorities that in your specific area of interest, it is worthwhile to attend seminars, symposiums and conferences, and so on to keep yourselves abreast of what is happening presently. It is also advisable to benefit from audio-video kinds of stuff of your respective field for further enrichment and reinforcement regularly for quite a considerable length of time.

Last but not least, it is enlightenment which is a crucial factor to get benefit from the studies and go ahead in life. It involves rooting out all sorts of prejudice, negativity and partisanship when we pursue studies to get excellence in our field of interest. If we are congested, prejudiced and partisan, any type of study would be merely enlarging our narrow-mindedness and negativity. The religious seminaries in our country speak volumes of this type of mindset and negative state of affairs.

Although they consume a considerable time in instruction and grooming their students yet their produced lot predominately becomes bigot, myopic and congested. A great scientist David Boehm states that many people think they are studying and thinking but actually they are involved in enlarging and rearranging their prejudices.

In this age of globalization, we need high brains that raise the societies and bring them out from backwardness and regression by their innovative ideas, discoveries and inventions. We need no taboos that exude prejudice and negativity and subsequently propagate it to the new generation.  It is heartening that we are using this objective and dispassionate approach in the scientific field. However, we are still lagging behind in social sciences where this broader outlook and rational vision are inevitably needed to break the shackles of narrow-mindedness, backwardness and religious jingoism.

To conclude, we can say that a considerable time on a regular and consistent basis ought to be specified for study. Similarly, organization and archiving of knowledge are crucial to making the mind coherent and creative. Benefiting from all possible ways and means to enhance and reinforce our area of interest without any bias and grudge is equally significant in this regard.

If we follow these steps we can become scientists, authors, poets, artists, or whatsoever we intend to become in our life. Remember! There is no royal road to success. Without sweating and hard grind, we can’t think of becoming a master genius in our field of interest. There is the dire need of the hour to go ahead and reach excellence in our career to bring about the potential change in a backward society like ours.

The writer is a freelance contributor.