New Punjabi fiction

Kazy Javed, The News: April 20, 2007

Maqsood Saqib's Suchet Kitab Ghar is more than a publishing house. It has become sort of a Punjabi cultural centre in Lahore where many intellectuals and writers gather for exchange of ideas. In addition to publishing dozens of Punjabi-language books during the past ten years or so, the Suchet Kitab Ghar also regularly brings out the quarterly Punchem which is generally rated as the best Punjabi journal published from our part of the Punjab.

Okha Kum and Naushahi Phul are the two recent publications of the Ghar. Okha Kum is a collection of twenty Hindi short stories rendered into Punjabi by Javed Boota. It is probably the first collection of its kind in Punjabi. The translator and compiler is not known to many readers and the book, unfortunately, tells nothing about him. Similarly, the Hindi fictionists, whose pieces have been included, should have been introduced.

Notwithstanding these shortcomings, it is a wonderfully interesting volume worth sparing some time for.

The other book, Naushahi Phul, carries Maulvi Siraj Din's poetry composed in devotion of his murshid. Maulvi Sahib is village prayer-leader and Mudassir Bashir has collected his verses, having all the traits of the classical Punjabi poetry, at the insistence of Najm Hosain Syed.