KARACHI: Distinguished literary personalities gathered on Wednesday evening for the inauguration of the newly constructed Gosha-i-Kutub, Gosha-i-Musannifeen and Chaikhana at the Anjuman-i-Taraqqi Urdu office in Gulshan-i-Iqbal.
The programme also included the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the National Book Foundation.
Managing director of NBF Inamul Haq Javed highlighted the problems of his organisation and his plans to overcome them. “I discovered thousands of books dumped in our offices in Lahore, Islamabad and Faisalabad which nobody is buying. This situation needs to be remedied. I have spoken to a couple of universities to supply books published by the NBF that will be of interest to students and will readily buy them.” He felt the publishers were muddling the selling and buying enterprise and putting the readers off who were unable to buy books due to exorbitant prices. He added that the NBF had added 72 bookshops located in small towns in their panel. A book club membership scheme has also been initiated under which students can buy discounted books.
After the speech the honorary president of the Anjuman, Aftab Ahmed Khan, and Mr Javed signed the MoU.
Fatema Hassan, honorary secretary of the Anjuman, then read out the objectives of the MoU. “Anjuman’s books and journals will be sold in NBF bookshops. Similarly NBF-printed books will be sold by the Anjuman at their outlets and stalls. At book fairs, the Anjuman will sell NBF publications and vice versa. Moreover, at national and international literary conferences, representatives of the Anjuman and the NBF will participate together. And finally both organisations will consult and collaborate with each other over curriculum-related and literary matters.”
Karachi administrator Rauf Akhtar Farooqi, who made it to the ceremony despite his busy schedule, said in his brief remarks: “I am pleasantly surprised to see such a large gathering here which indicates continued interest in the Urdu language. However, I wish they were more young people present. The youth need to be actively recruited for they will take forward your mission.” He emphasised selling of books and journals in Urdu at inexpensive rates.
Following the speeches, guests that included the likes of Professor Sahar Ansari, drama writer Hasina Moin, actor and anchor Raju Jameel, columnist Ahmed Sabzwari, poets Zahida Hina, Shahida Hassan, Afzal Ahmed Syed, book critic Asif Farrukhi, Dr Syed Jaffar Ahmed of Pakistan Study Centre, were taken towards the swanky teashop and book-selling outlet. Mr Farooqi, Mr Javed and Mr Khan inaugurated it by cutting the ribbon.
Speaking on the sidelines of the inauguration, Ms Hassan said: “This edifice was made in only 39 days and supervised by our construction committee comprising architect and engineers Hayat Amrohvi, Ikramullah Shauq, Shaukat Ali Zaidi, Ahmed Hussain and Ali Khurram.” The total cost of the project was around Rs500,000.
“We have nearly 20-25 research students who often use our library but the Anjuman had no canteen for them. We also wanted writers to come to gosha-i-musannefeen where they can discuss and debate literary issues. We have also created space for selling books printed by the Anjuman,” she added.
She also told Dawn that the Anjuman was working on an ambitious Urdu Bagh project, located on University Road in Gulistan-i-Jauhar, which was being supervised by the construction committee.
Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2014