KARACHI: A five-day 16th Karachi International Book Fair (KIBF) organised by the Paki­stan Publishers and Booksellers Association (PPBA) in collaboration with the Nati­onal Book Foundation (NBF) began at Expo Centre on Thursday afternoon.

As soon as the venue was opened to the public, a big number of readers walked into the three halls (I, II, III) of the centre to get their hands on the books they wanted to read. They included people from all age groups (children, adults, elderly). And since they had a wide variety of booksellers and publishers to go to, it was not very difficult for them to find the books that they needed.

As always, it was heartening to see children at Expo Centre. There was a family which bought books worth Rs40,000, most of them were for their young ones.

And they came from all walks of life in society. A Grade VII St Joseph’s student, Naveera, was in search of comics and cartoon books. Sadiq, a young man from the private sector, too, was there to get colourful stuff for his children.

Then there were the middle-aged lot. Wajih Warsi, a renowned poet and writer, is a regular visitor to the exhibition. On Thursday, he was trying to find his teacher Farooq Ahmed’s books, one of which was a collection of stories.

The variety of books in terms of subjects that is available at the stalls is astounding. They range from religious books to children’s material and from pure literature to how-to guides. As far as literature is concerned, for some reason Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi has a prominence presence at quite a few spaces in the exhibition (at stalls that specialise in English literature or with old books’ sellers). William Dalrymple is another author whose paperbacks are readily available.

Another crowd favourites is the Urdu translations. Franco-Czech author Milan Kundera’s novels and his sole short story collection Laughable Loves (translated as Mazhakakhez Muhabbatein) can’t be missed at the fair. A couple of Urdu versions of the famous Arabian Nights were also being flipped through by visitors.

Earlier, addressing the audience at the inauguration ceremony (after speakers such as Anwar Maqsood, Pir Mazharul Haq and Aziz Khalid), Sindh Culture Minister Syed Sardar Ali Shah, who was the chief guest on the occasion, talked about folk Rajput wisdom, saying they (Rajputs) associated themselves [their stages in life] with important events taking place in the world. For example, someone would tell that he was 15 years of age when the Spanish flu hit the world in 1918. The minister called himself a haadisaati siyasatdan (accidental politician) but a poet at heart. His basic relationship, he claimed, is with poetry and books.

Mr Shah said when he was studying at Mehran University, the students there used to hold book fairs as well; they would come to Karachi and request booksellers to take part in the event. Today, people read downloaded books on tablets but it, in his opinion, doesn’t come close to the pleasure of turning the page of an actual book with your fingers. “It is romance, and this romance should remain intact. I wish that a similar event [like the KIBF] is held in other cities such as Larkana and Sukkur.”

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2021