This review aims to cover four engaging books lately published from Lahore and Islamabad, on topics ranging from the power of thought (English) to poetry, travelogue, and literary terminology (Urdu)
Think & Grow Rich
Author: Napoleon Hill
Publisher: Ilqa Publications,
12-K, Main Boulevard, Gulberg 2, Lahore
Pages: 266; Price: Rs 245/-
Raqs-e-Khayal
Author: Hamidullah Sheikh
Publisher: Beacon Books, Ghazni Street, Urdu Bazaar, Lahore
Gulgasht Colony, Multan
Pages: 444; Price: Rs690/-
Zauq-e-Dasht Nawardi (Safar Nama)
Author: Dr. A. B. Ashraf
Publisher: Jamhoori Publications,
2-Aiwan-e-Tijarat Road, Lahore
Pages: 264; Price: Rs680/-
Adabi Istilahat
Author: Prof. Anwar Jamal
Publisher: National Book Foundation, Islamabad
Pages: 203; Price: Rs140/-
This review aims to cover four engaging books lately published from Lahore and Islamabad, on topics ranging from the power of thought (English) to poetry, travelogue, and literary terminology (Urdu).
Think & Grow Rich
The 2016 edition of this book has been published in paperback in Pakistan by Ilqa Publications (An Imprint of Readings), Lahore. Napoleon Hill (1883-1970) wrote it in 1937 but even to this date it is considered to be the top ‘self-help book’ in the world on the theme of success and its corollary riches. It incorporates thirteen principles of success in pursuit of which one is bound to earn riches. Starting modestly as a journalist, Hill soon got obsessed with the ‘enigma of laws of personal success’ as he met the great American businessman of his times Andrew Carnegie who made him share his methodology of success and introduced him to another business icon Henry Ford. Subsequently Hill was moved to interview some 500 successful men and women followed by the publication of his multi-volume work The Law of Success(1928) and Think and Grow Rich.
In his prefatory remarks, the author avers: ’This book contains the secret, after having been put to a practical test by thousands of people, in almost every walk of life. It was Mr. Carnegie’s idea that the magic formula, which gave him a stupendous fortune, ought to be placed within reach of people who do not have time to investigate how men make money, and it was his hope that I might test and demonstrate the soundness of the formula through the experience of men and women in every calling. He believed the formula should be taught in all public schools and colleges, and expressed the opinion that if it were properly taught it would so revolutionize the entire educational system that the time spent in school could be reduced to less than half.’ Among the beneficiaries of the formula include personages like Henry Ford, Theodore Roosevelt, Wilbur Wright, Charles M. Schwab, John D. Rockefeller, Thomas A. Edison, F. W. Woolworth, Woodrow Wilson, Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, John H. Patterson, George Alexander, Arthur Nash, Clarence Darrow, and a host of other celebrities.
The book is divided into fifteen chapters besides the Author’s Preface. The Introduction lays down the raison d’etre of the book which is purported to deal with facts not fiction such as important problems of life that all men encounter. The other chapters are captioned: Desire, Faith, Auto-Suggestion, Specialized Knowledge, Imagination, Organized Planning, Decision, Persistence, Power of the Mastermind, The Mystery of Sex Transmutation, The Subconscious Mind, The Brain, The Sixth Sense and, How to Outwit the Six Ghosts of Fear. The foregoing thirteen captions leaving aside the last one constitute as many principles of success which the author has taken pains to analyze and illustrate in the book. Their validity as also universality in the context of the social or ‘ideational’ norms of any community can hardly be gainsaid.
The book is written in a homely style with an incisive but commonsensical appraisal of the multi-tiered parameters of its theme. In parting, the author would remind the reader that ‘’Life is a checkerboard, and the player opposite you is TIME. If you hesitate before moving, or neglect to move promptly, your men will be wiped off the board by TIME. You are playing against a partner who will not tolerate INDECISION!’’
Raqs-e-Khayal
Hamidullah Sheikh is a veteran poet, with two poetic collections to his credit titled AathwaN Rang (The Eighth Colour) andHarf-e-Tanha (The Solitary Word). Raqs-e-Khayal combines both these collections of his verse. His bright professional career began as a lecturer in the subject of English and ended up as a BS-21 provincial civil service officer. Like many a bureaucrat with literary leanings, he too took recourse to poetry as a medium of self- expression. However, his first book appeared rather late in the day i.e., in the year 2009 around his superannuation.
This book (AathwaN Rang) comprises Nazm (Urdu, Seraiki, and English), Ghazal and Qat’ah.
It carries thoughtful commendatory remarks on the person and art of the author by Aasi Karnali, Anwar Jamal, Shamim Haider Tirmizi, Munawar Jamil, Shagufta Altaf and Azam Khakwani besides a reportage of the launching ceremony of the book by Shamshad Kausari. The second book (Harf-e-Tanha) bears introductory remarks by Fayyaz Tehsin and Shamim Haider Tirmizi. Aslam Ansari has penned the introduction to the collection whereas Amjad Islam Amjad has contributed a flap to it.
Hamidullah Sheikh is a man of few words. He is temperamentally very cool and composed. Poetry perhaps provides him a refuge against the onslaught of delusion, dismay and disquiet which is a conspicuous feature of the post-War global scenario, here and elsewhere. His verse speaks for his innate desire to merge himself in the emotive cobweb of his pristine affections, nay passions. Love is a manifestation of this wistfulness in his poetic accent. In Aslam Ansari’s opinion, Hamidullah Sheikh seeks a veritable equilibrium between love and truth in his poetry which is reminiscent of Keats’s notion of beauty and truth in the backdrop of an ‘antiquated’ urn. Fayyaz Tehsin thinks that love is a pervasive metaphor of his poetry while Anwar Jamal visualizes an artistic amalgam of feeling and thought in it.
Harf-e-Tanha is a compendium of Fardiyat: unrhymed couplets, each forming a distinct separate entity, collected in the form of a book. It is a relatively new experiment demonstrating the author’s ingenuity as a literary artist. These couplets have varying tones and audio-visual impacts synchronous with the title of the constituent work. To conclude , Raqs-e-Khayal reads like an apt illustration of the couplet: Agar muhabbat faqat gumaN hai/To saaray aalam may sach kahaN hai. Love is truth, that’s all one would need to know as envisaged by the poet.
Zauq-e-Dasht Nawardi (Safar Nama)
Dr. A.B. Ashraf is a well known litterateur, now based in Ankara (Turkey). He has travelled widely and his knowledge of the letters is enviable. This travelogue comprises his air and road journeys to Britain, Istanbul, Northern Cyprus, Greece, Yugoslavia, Italy, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt.
Narrated in a tell-tale but racy style, the travelogue offers estimable information about the places visited by the author, on issues like topography, demography, ethnicity, language, culture, geography, history, education, economics, and politics etc.
Farrukh Sohail Goyendi has composed the back flap of the book. He praises the author’s style and accent in the travelogue which is a repertoire of his memories and experiences. In his preface, the author himself has averred that the purpose of a travelogue, among other things, is to enable the readers to participate in the traveller’s experiences, to prepare them for undertaking a journey, and also guide them about the distant alien lands. Viewed in this perspective, the book is quite appealing, and useful too.
Adabi Istilahat
It is a handbook of Urdu literary terminology laid on the pattern of similar books on English literary terms. Professor Anwar Jamal is a reputed teacher, educational administrator, scholar, poet, and critic of Urdu. He seems to have collated and compiled the fourth edition of the instant book, published by the National Book Foundation, Islamabad, with great care.
Dr. Inam-ul-Haq Javed and Prof. Farooq Usman have written prefaces to the book. They have commended the author’s efforts in updating the diverse material of the book to the benefit of both, the student and the lay reader of literature.
The book contains meaningful explanations of all important literary terms in Urdu alongwith their English substitutes. Besides, it bears separate explanatory notes on some leading oriental and occidental scholars and writers, followed by the customary bibliography. Thus it can be safely relied upon as an authentic reference book for a specialized study of the Urdu literary terminology, in academics and research.
