APROPOS the letter ‘Future of libraries’ (Feb 28). The writer’s views remind me of the English proverb: “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink”.

The explanation to the decaying culture of libraries, has been provided by the writer himself when he says: “They prefer to ‘access’ books on the Internet from the comfort of their homes”. Besides, they get to read the books, which will never be available in our libraries.

During the golden era, people would visit and utilise the libraries not only for preparing for exams, research papers, writing articles or just for reading pleasure etc but for various other purposes.

Before the formation of Bangladesh, the federal government as well as the cultural organisations in West Pakistan, would hold various events to acknowledge the services of Kazi Nazarul Islam, who was the national poet of the then East Pakistan.

In 1969, the Alhamra Arts Council, Lahore announced the holding of Nazarul Islam’s poems recitation competition, in which I also took part. While all the other participants recited their poems in Bengali, I did so in Urdu. In order to get the Urdu translation of Nazrul’s poems, I went to the Punjab University Library and got hold of this beautiful translation by Ilyas Ishque of one of his poems; “Ashk tumhari ankhon mein hein, daman mein hein phool; soch raha hoon dono mein se kis ko karun qabool”. (There are tears in your eyes and flowers in the lap, am wondering what I should accept).

I composed the tune for this poem and recited in the competition, winning the first prize. I still have pleasant memories of this occasion and my participation in the event would not have been possible without a visit to the library of a great institution.

Parvez Rahim
Karachi

Published in Dawn, March 25th, 2020