LARKANA: Academicians and writers believe new generation’s aloofness from books has caused negative trends among youths and book festivals can prove to have a healing effect on them by making books look attractive to them and helping them create reading habits.

They were sharing their views with media while visiting the five-day Benazir Bhutto Book Festival jointly sponsored by the Sindh government and Sindhica Publishers that got under way at Jinnah Garden on Thursday. The festival would run till Feb 8.

Prof Ihsan Danish, Prof Badar Dhamraho and Aziz Qasmani, who had books to their credit on Sindhi literature and research, said that it was a good omen to hold book fairs these days but advised to regularly organise such events and invite students to these offering more discounts on books.

They said book festivals would not only encourage publishers but also help establish a linkage among publishers and readers.

Larkana assistant commissioner Ahmed Ali Soomro said that books were a person’s best friend which not only provided useful company but also served as fountain of knowledge.

In modern age of computer and digital media, everybody could gather information on desired subjects on internet but in reality books offered solid information, he said.

Shuaib Umrani, who wrote his journey through glaciers in Sindhi, said that he failed to find original books on stalls. Instead, pirated books especially in English were kept in the festival, he said, but added in the same breath that whatever books were available were being offered at reasonable prices in these times of high inflation.

Kamran Ibrahim and Babar Sikandar Kalhoro, organisers of the festival, said that they had contacted many publishers and invited them to participate in the festival but everyone had their own reasons to refuse. The idea behind such events was to divert peoples’ attention back to books and nurture among them reading habits, they said.

Mehran Dhamraho of Jawad Kitab Ghar said the response to the fair was not up to their expectations perhaps due to poor publicity by sponsors. The number of visitors might swell with passage of time as the festival would continue for five days and students had yet to turn to the fair who were late in coming because schools had just opened after prolonged lockdown.

Bookseller Saeed Leghari of Murk Publications said the response was normal on the first day and hoped more book lovers would turn up in the days to come. He had been participating in similar book festivals in Karachi, Hyderabad, Nawabshah but it was his first time in Larkana, he said.

He said that visitors were mostly found to be interested in purchasing books on history, English novels, travelogues, poetry of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, Shaikh Ayaz, Ustad Bukhari, Sachal Sarmast and others. The publishers had offered up to 50 per cent discount on books, he said.

The festival was formally opened by the Larkana assistant commissioner, ASP Ahmed Faisal Chaudhry, additional deputy commissioner-I Sonia Kaleem, Larkana Press Club general secretary Murtaza Kalhoro and PPP’s Aijaz Shaikh.

Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2021