“Being published by the Oxford University Press is rather like being married to a duchess: the honour is almost greater than the pleasure”, said G.M. Young (1882-1959), the famous English historian. Mr Young forgot to mention the royalty though being published by Oxford should also mean getting paid nicely, I am sure.

But it must sound somewhat familiar to the writers of Urdu: there is little honour and even lesser pleasure, if at all, in being published in Urdu — and one hardly gets paid. In most cases, being published in Urdu is more like being married to a dethroned, penniless, old queen: the honour is almost negligible, the pleasure is nonexistent and you have to bear all the expenses.

Why? Read Geoffrey Cotterell’s (1919-2010) quip about writers: “In America only the successful writer is important, in France all writers are important, in England no writer is important, in Australia you have to explain what a writer is”. Well, I wonder what Cotterell would have said about writers who write in Urdu. But it reminds me of an interview with Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi (1916-2006) that explains it. In the interview, Qasmi sahib had narrated what happened when he was arrested for writing something that the then government thought was ‘not fit to print’. It was in the 1950s. By then, Qasmi sahib had become quite renowned for his poetry and short stories in the subcontinent. But when he was brought to a police station after his arrest, the officer in charge asked what his occupation was. According to Qasmi sahib, the officer was educated having a master’s degree in some discipline and when he told him that he was a writer, the officer could not get it for a while and asked Qasmi sahib what he did for a living. One can well imagine how Qasmi sahib felt at that moment about being published in Urdu.

In another interview, Qasmi sahib narrated that when he visited China with a delegation way back in the 1960s, he was introduced as one of the leading writers of Pakistan. Upon which, the hosts asked about the print order of his first editions.

Qasmi sahib, for the sake of our national pride, multiplied the figure by 10 and informed the hosts that it ran into 10,000 copies. The guests informed him that even the books of first-time writers in Chinese sometimes got a print order of 100,000.

Ah! those were the days, 1950s and 1960s, when an Urdu book had a ‘huge’ print order of 1,000. These days the first editions of many new Urdu books contain 300 copies or even fewer. Among them, most fall in the category of what is known as ‘vanity publication’ in the West, that is, self-published to satisfy one’s vanity. In the case of Urdu, these are the collections of either poetry or short stories by new writers. Hence, they don’t sell and most copies are presented as a gift to friends who pass it on to another friend without bothering to cut the pages that are not cared for by the printer’s devil. So, little pleasure, no honour and they bear all the expenses. Other Urdu books that come in this class of 300-or-less copies are the ones concerning research and/or criticism. Though they do sell, criticism and research is a ‘slow item’, to borrow the booksellers’ slang.

I know of quite a few well-established publishers who charge you a hefty amount if you want to realise your dream of becoming a writer. And believe me these publishers include some very old and semi-governmental publishing houses or literary organisations, too. Some will charge a big fee, print your book and ask you to haul the consignment away at an early date so as to make room for another one. Translation: their job finishes as soon as the book is printed; selling it is none of their business. However, if you insist, as you will have to since there is no more room for books in your attic, they will apparently unwillingly keep the stock and will let you know, say in six months, that three copies have been sold and payment for those three copies would be made if and when the cashier arrives (who will never appear as long as you sit in their office). Then they will start telling you that nobody buys books these days, without mentioning that book fairs in Karachi and Lahore are becoming increasingly successful every year.

In fact there are many writers whose books sell well and run into many an edition, each edition containing no less than 1,000 copies. Aside from accomplished prose writers such as Intezar Husain and Mustansir Husain Taarar, this includes even poetry by classical poets as well as modern ones such as Ahmed Faraz (1931-2008). Books by Ibn-i-Insha, Shaukat Siddiqi, Qudratullah Shahab and some other writers have run into 20 and 30 editions. There are Urdu writers who get paid quite well and publishers actually ask them for manuscripts. But they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. However, it is quite heartening to know that a publisher like Oxford (Pakistan) has entered the field of Urdu publishing in a big way and one has the feeling that in addition to other Urdu publications their series on selections from Urdu poetry, too, is doing quite well (and it is indeed a pleasure and honour to be published by them and they do pay well). Sang-i-Meel Publications has been doing a roaring business and it would not be an exaggeration to say that they have published thousands of titles so far.

Some unscrupulous publishers have been publishing unauthorised (read: pirated) editions of some popular Indian writers.

For instance, you would find books by Krishan Chandr, Qurrat-ul-Ain Hyder and some scholastic books only academia would be interested in, such as PhD dissertations, published by some Karachi and Lahore publishers (who is pirating Ladybird books and who is reaping windfalls with the pirated versions of Harry Potter series, this I will tell you some other day).

Another interesting aspect of Urdu publishing in Pakistan is that publishers have discovered a goldmine in the form of books on history, religion and philosophy published half a century ago or so. It not only gets them rid of almost ineffective copyright laws but printing these books by photocopying them on tracing paper is cheaper as well. And they don’t have to pay a penny to anybody, not even the proof reader, since they don’t need it. What is painful, however, is the malpractice of changing the name of such books without letting the reader know that it is a second or third edition and earlier the book was published with another title.

The funniest part in this tantalising tale is that it is the publisher who earns the most and it is the publisher who whines most about publishing and bookselling. Strangely enough, it is the publisher who always keeps on complaining about ever decreasing reading habits and huge fall in the sales of books and, at the same time, gets away with the largest portion in the pie. Everybody associated with Urdu publishing — right from composer and proof reader to bookseller, even the book binder and the boy who folds the printed sheets — gets paid, except the writer. The writer sometimes has to pay a penalty for the sin of writing committed in a weak moment.

The moral of the story: Urdu publishing in Pakistan is the surest and shortest albeit a meandering way to riches.

drraufparekh@yahoo.com