Lack of writers or Lack of interest in writing?

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 7^th 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.