“Meray aapne” is a book by Sukhdev Siddhu, recently brought out by Sanjh Publications, Lahore. Judging from his writing one can say safely that Siddhu does not pretend to be a typical professional writer. He was born in Jalandhar in East Punjab, India, and is now settled in England.

The book is interesting in the sense that it can be enjoyed as memoirs, sketches or a quasi fictional narration inspired by the real life experiences. The phenomenon of migration has an indelible imprint on the psyche of the Punjabis. Partition of India in 1947 which resulted in a forced mass migration shook the people with its indescribable traumatic effect -- emotional and psychic.

In recent decades we have seen another kind of migration what in common parlance is called economic migration in search of greener pastures.

Expatriate now in millions though ensconced in the comfort zones of the western world are usually kept uncomfortable at emotional level by the haunting memories of their native homeland despite the fact that past is another country, uninhabitable.

Sukhdev in his book recreates what he saw and experienced as a child and young man in his village and its surroundings.

There is nothing extra ordinary about his experience per se but the way he expresses it makes the prosaic remarkable.

Devoid of verbosity he is as natural as one could possibly be. His writing is marked by charming simplicity and disarming candidness. He portrays characters, good and bad with tender feelings evoking compassion and empathy.

He, like a sane mind, avoids sitting in judgment over individuals -- villains or saints. He displays an intellectual capacity to accept human beings with all their virtues and failings in their struggle to reach some where or nowhere. His book is a delightful read and a good example of how one can produce good writing laced with sensitivity without pretending to be professional writer.

Zahid Masood has made his debut on the Punjabi literary scene with his book of verses “Kani Kani Darya” published by Book Home, Lahore. He is a well-known Urdu poet. We find a number of poets these days who are bi-lingual -- Urdu and Punjabi. Problem with most of them is that their Punjabi verses are burdened with Urdu literary conventions and a linguistic constructs that sound amusingly alien to Punjabi ears. It is pleasantly surprising to notice that Zahid Masood has jettisoned his Urdu literary baggage while composing his Punjabi poetry in such a manner that his verses effortlessly merge into the contemporary Punjabi poetic landscape. Among the bilingual poets after Munir Niazi and Zafar Iqbal he seems to the one who has natural intimacy with the Punjabi cultural and literary ethos.

His poetry deals with diverse experiences; individual and social.The underlying current in his poems expresses his existential concern to grapple with the flux life is made of.The old on the verge of being lost in a fast moving process of social transformation has as much meaning for him as the new that makes a chaotic emergence. The conurbation along the bypasses of highways and Facebook both create spectacularly similar impact on him. The former creates among the wretched of the earth a sense of unending alienation as a consequence of being uprooted from the original community based settlement while latter in a corporate driven urban dwelling gives an illusion of being connected with people in a familiarly unfamiliar void. The real and the virtual as well as the concrete and abstract stand transformed at imaginative plane hinting at the poverty and richness of life at the same time.

Zahid along with his social concern and spiritual anguish has the capacity to write on unfulfilled love creating an angst filled ambiance. “I had a dream/ you too had a dream/ and then together we dreamed a dream/ for days we looked for our face in the dust of time/ we saw many an evening disappearing with the fading shadows of the trees/ we wiped many a sun from the dew on leafy green/ but neither our whisperings nor our breath failed us/ when we parted ways our eyes had their dreams silently replaced/ now we would spend rest of our days searching our selves, separately!”.

Zahid Masood’s creative expression in Punjabi will enrich our literary repertoire as well as him as a poet connected with soil and people.

“Charhya Hind te katak Punjab da ji” is a travelogue penned by Iftekhar Warraich Kalarvi, published by Rozan Publishers, Gujrat.

The book is a sort of reportage describing author’s visit to central India.A Punjabi from Pakistan who knows a little bit of history is usually overwhelmed by emotions at his first visit to a part of Punjab that seems to be just like homeland but actually is not as a result of Partition. An eerie feeling of being an alien on the soil that one at subconscious level feels is one’s own can send one into a sentimental tizzy.This author is no exception. The book consists of short pieces describing historical places, personalities, shrines, places of worship,poets and saints which form an essential part of heritage shared by Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. It’s a light read that reminds us how we the Pakistani Punjabis are historically joined at hips with the East Punjab and the rest of central India.

Khawaja Ghulam Farid, one of the most popular poets of late classical era,was beyond doubt a modern man aware of the emerging socio-cultural needs of his time if we dare to scratch the veneer of his image as a saint evolved by the people interested in miracles rather than creative expression.

He loved music and was keen to learn Gurmukhi script as well as English language, reports Maqabil-al Majalis, a chronicle written by one of his disciples.

He was also conscious of what colonialism had done to undermine the indigenous society and culture. He was the last great romantic poet at the end of our classical era.

His magnum opus continues to haunt the imagination of people generation after generation. His Diwan’s new edition has been published by Jhok Publishers, Multan, with introduction by Zahoor Dharija. It retains the text edited by Allama Azizur Rehman in1994.What one misses is the fresh glossary which contemporary readers need in order to appreciate the nuances of Khwaja’s ‘Kafis’(lyrics). — soofi01@hotmail.com