Written By: Majeed Ullah
The year 2022 is about to end. This proved a successful Year for some countries and they celebrating their successes. They are celebrating their successes in the fields of technology, science, philosophy, democracy and economy etc. Like these fields and many others, they are equally celebrating the success stories of their best selling author and mostly read books by their writers in 2022. The list of famous books written in 2022 include books on almost every subject, Books on science, philosophy, engineering, medicine, history, religion, technology, filming etc. Googling the lists, I searched that how many books have published by Pakistani writes in 2022. I thought why not to know briefly about all the great books by Pakistani writes, so I searched “All time great books by Pakistani writers” and got an astonishing result, that’s was, “your search don’t match any results, check your spelling”. I thought may be I confused the Google search, as there are infinite fields, so why not to search one by one. I chose science as the first in order, having in mind that Pakistan is ranked 7th in science so there might be some great authors and books on science . I made my search as “famous science books by Pakistani authors. What I found was a red line and the following words were written, “we are sorry, we couldn’t find anything matching your search”. Astonished and confused I searched for technology and medicine the same way and the results was just the same the same and again that beautiful Claus appeared on the screen. Moving forward, making a slight change in my search with change in meaning, I observed a great Change in the result shown by Google search with no change in meaning m. What I searched was , Books by Pakistani writer on mathematics, and the result was “ no results*, the same results were shown for my searches for “Books by Pakistani authors on Zoology, “no results”. Books by Pakistani authors on botany, “no results”. Books by Pakistani author on chemistry, “no results”. Books by Pakistani authors on economic and state, “ results”. In this line “Books by Pakistani authors on physics, where I was expecting a few at least but again zero results, and the list with zero or no results is a long one . Changing the subject I directly switch to philosophy . Here I was I expecting some spectacular books, as I had seen some great philosopher on discussing the intricate topics which Plato and Aristotle once discussed but all in vain, . I continue my search moved to politics, where some few were shown but cheaper of all time, on history, some controversial and some lies substituted for fact’s. I also search religion and the number was infinite but I couldn’t decide which of these should be read and which of these should be left as the names were reflecting hatred against other. Finally moved to literature and the result wasn’t disturbing and disappointing but confusing. There were books on Urdu literature, Pashto literature, Sindhi and Punjabi literature, and very few on English literature. As far as our folks literature was concerned there were some great books but mostly classical or about classic work or their translation. This all took an hour and I was about to end this tiresome and heart aching research which was also my longest ever search on Google regarding a useful and equally heart aching topic. The first question still undiscovered so making that the last of my searches I made it simple “Books published in 2022 by Pakistani writers. I didn’t use any adjective, good, best or great etc. or any specific subject. I was fortunate this that the results was not an apology , spelling mistake, ono results or zero results etc. but the overall results was not great than a dozen. This great research came to an end but I was Left wander that why Pakistan just like any other field, is lagging in the field of writing as well . A country which is so rich in cultures and languages , compromising the areas once inhabited by great poet like Rahman Baby, khushal baba, Baba Bhulay shah, shah Abdul Latif, is now so scare in writers. I thought may be Pakistani don’t read but no this is not true, they do. every time I visit a book shop, I meet 100 of people buying books. Then what? May be Pakistani writers have language barrier? Yes, but who prevent them to write in their mother tongues,. may be they don’t have confidence? May be Pakistani people just like other things like books imported from others countries? Or may be they aren’t appreciated or may be there are discouraged by government banning their work? Whatever the reason maybe, but Pakistan has scarcity of writers and literature of all kind. Pakistani literature which should be taught as discipline is limited to a subject unfortunately.