A Year in Reading: 2021

My most fascinating read of the year was Saeed Bhutta’s Raj Dhaara tay Lok Takni (Official Narratives and People’s Views). The book enriched my reading of how locals compose and preserve their stories to resist official distortions. In a collection of eight wide-ranging critical essays, two essays standout: The Legends of the Punjab: Some New Thoughts and Kathaee, SuNwayya tay Waseb (Storyteller, Listener & Community) where he explores messaging and transmission patterns of orality based on his own field research. This book is published by Pakistan Punjabi Adabi Board, Lahore.

Punjabis like me have a love-hate relationship with Urdu. At one point, Urdu brings us closer to our region but sometimes we believe that Urdu occupied our Punjabi space and allured all our Punjabi talent. However, during Covid days, I returned to my vast Urdu collection and it was none other than Shaheen Abbas whose Urdu ghazals reignited my love for the language and the genre. Shaheen Abbas, an engineer by profession, is one of the most inspirational poets of our generation who keeps on producing creative pieces regularly. Khuda Kay Din (Days of the God) is his finest ghazal collection published by Kaghazi Parehan, a book in which he masterly fuses classical poetic skills to modern themes and expressions establishing his own diction. I can repeat this verse from the book all my life, not just the next year: Khaak par khaak URaai hay, muhabbat ki hay / Shehr ko shehr ki ta’meer say pehchaana hay.