BEFORE me is Roos Ki Aik Jhalak, a travelogue written by Salma Awan. As the title of the book suggests the author, after a travel to Russia, depicts the land as she has seen it and aims at providing readers glimpses of the country. But as I started reading it I soon felt that the book is more than a mere travelogue.

Before I proceed further, I feel it necessary to introduce Awan as a writer. As her writings show she is endowed with a passion for journeying to distant lands, exploring each land with curiosity and then writing about her experiences related to those lands. With a number of such writings to her credit she had earned the reputation of being a travelogue writer in Urdu.

But while going through the pages of Roos Ki Aik Jhalak I felt that her initial involvement is with the Russian writers of the pre-Revolution period. After developing an attachment with them, the land of Russia attracted her even more. In Moscow she is seen visiting one square after the other where Decembrist Square (now Senate Square) attracts her attention. The name is taken from the 1825 Decembrists revolt, and it was the suffering of the protestors that provoked Pushkin to write revolutionary poems. From here Awan visits the house of the author Alexander Pushkin.

However, most inspiring was her visit to the apartment in Petersburg where the writer Fyodor Dostoy­evsky was living with Anna, his wife. Awan seemed very excited to be in the house where her favourite author spent many years in the company of a young girl who had joined him as his stenographer, and eventually chose to live with him as his life partner. Awan sees with curiosity each and every thing arranged and starts visualising as to how the two souls were living here. In these intense moments she recalls a significant event from the life of Dostoyevsky. On his last day he says to Anna, “Today is the day when I am going to say goodbye to this terrestrial world. Please bring the Bible to me”. And then she hears him saying “Anna, are you listening. Let it be so now”. Then: “he closed his eyes. The great writer had passed away”.

The whole chapter as written by Awan is an intensely-felt narrative providing glimpses from the life of Dostoyevsky as visualised by the author. That shows her deep devotion to the great writer. And now we come to know the real reason of her excitement for this tour which may be called a devotional journey.

Of course throughout her whole journey to Russia she feels very inspired, noticing each and every spot that comes in the way, stopping here and there trying to absorb all that she experiences — each monument related to a writer attracts her attention.

While in Moscow she is seen wandering with no particular purpose in view. Historic places just come out of the blue and she feels wonderstruck. Lo, this is the house of Pushkin, which has now been converted into a museum attracting a great rush. This was Arbat Street. So many ways and subways, lanes and alleys branding out of it here and there. Each of them appears to have earned a name because of an association with some distinguished writer.

Wandering from one street to the other she finds herself in Tolstoy Square. Here stands his statue, an old man with a long beard lost in deep thought. Such are Awan’s interests. She is much inspired by Russia because of its writers. And the greatest among them, according to her, is Dostoyevsky. 