KARACHI: It was heartening to see Prof Dr Tang Meng Sheng of Peking University engaging the crowd on the third day of the 11th International Urdu Conference at the Arts Council in one of the post-lunch sessions.

His presence on Saturday also mattered because the day before an attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi had saddened book lovers, who were in doubt whether Prof Sheng would carry on with his programme scheduled for the moot.

Dr Jaffar Ahmed was the host of the segment. He first lauded Prof Sheng’s arrival and then put a series of questions to the scholar. Prof Sheng said, in fine Urdu, after the CPEC project a good number of Pakistanis went to China. Before the project, there weren’t more than 100 Pakistani students in China. In five years, the number had risen to 25,000.

Prof Sheng, director of the Centre for Pak Studies at the university, said many Urdu books had been translated into Chinese. They included the novels Udas Naslein and Khuda Ki Basti. Then short stories, such as those by Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, too had been translated into the Chinese language. The professor told the host that he had compiled a book Shahrah-i-Khushhaali, which was about how China attained economic success, adding that after CPEC, Chinese were taking a keen interest in Pakistani society. He underlined the fact that there were a dozen Pak Studies centres in China.

Earlier, the day began with an important session on Hamd-o-Naat. It was a beautiful segment in which, apart from the discussion, poet Iftikhar Arif and Ajaz Rehmani recited their naa’tia kalaam, which was very well received by the audience. One of Arif’s couplets was:

Dil-o-nigah ki duniya nai nai hui hai

Durood parhtey hi yeh kaisi roshni hui hai

[The worlds of heart and vision have refreshed Reciting the durood has illuminated my life]

Children’s literature

The second morning session was about children’s literature. Ibn-i-Aas said the situation vis-à-vis children’s literature wasn’t bad. Nowadays more than 50 magazines were published, and one or two of them had a circulation of more than 100,000 copies. Fantasy still worked for children, which was the reason that stories such as those of Alf Laila were pretty much in vogue.

Salim Mughal said small children (who were barely schoolgoing) were the best ‘target’ of a story because at that age the stories they heard left a deep impact on them. Also, stories tended to stir their imaginations. There was a time when grandmothers used to tell tales to their grandchildren. Not anymore. Today, readers had become watchers –– now they required the visuals to accompany words.

Farzana Roohi said there were three kinds of stories. The first propagated a certain point of view (nukta-i-nazar). The second had characters from everyday life. And the third had a creative element in coming up with characters such as Chaand ki Burhya.

Ameena Saiyid went down memory lane to tell the audience about the late Fahmida Riaz’s contribution to children’s literature. She said she had known Ms Riaz for the last 25 years. When the poet returned from India, she got in touch with her and requested her to work with Oxford University Press (OUP). The poet agreed on the condition that she’d come and leave the office at times that suited her.

Ms Saiyid said Ms Riaz did beautiful work with OUP. She translated the Japanese story The Snow Country Prince and gave it the title of Barf Nagar Ka Shehzada. She also translated Mehnaz Malik’s Mo’s Star which Malik said read better than the original version. Ms Riaz was also a close friend of Dr Hamida Khuhro, who penned children’s books such as A Children’s History of Sindh. She translated that as well.

Renowned author and broadcaster Raza Ali Abidi presided over the session. He said he was proud of the fact that he wrote 19 books for adults but 20 for children. He then in his trademark subtle style of presentation read out a paper about the importance of writing books for children. He said writing material for the young ones felt like praying (jaise ibadat ker raha hun). He rounded off his address by reciting a poem ‘Aik bachi kya soch rahi hai’. The audience liked it very much.

Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2018