AUTHOR: All set to make her
mark
Reviewed by Rizwana Naqvi
July 15, 2007
Judging by its cover, Afzal ka Khawab
seemed like an attractive children’s book. The book deals with
fantasies and dreams — as its name suggests but as one flips through its
pages, one is pleasantly taken aback as the book not only deals with
fantasies but also with some stark realities of life. Four other books in
the series followed in quick succession. The series’ author, Binte-Sameera,
has become a big name in the world of literature in general and children’s
literature in particular.
Writing for children is a cumbersome task. Those who have taken up the
challange make use of common themes like adventure, the supernatural and
fairy tales. But today’s children, especially teenagers, are not
interested in fairy tales and mere feats of adventure. They are daring,
young people aware of their surroundings and want to do something concrete
to change the shape of the world or, to say the least, leave their mark.
Reading through the five books of the Youth
Club series, one feels that Binte-Sameera realises that our children have
the potential to do the extraordinary. Her books revolve around a few
teenagers who have formed a youth club that strives to help others and to
create awareness about the social evils prevalent in our society.
Binte-Sameera is, in fact, Nadeem Akbar writing under a pseudonym — why
she changed her name is an interesting story.
Born in 1945 in Jalandhar, Nadeem belongs to a Pathan Burki family that
migrated to Pakistan in 1947. Her forefathers had migrated to India from
Afghanistan in the 19th century. Her father left his landed property in
India at the time of Partition and started his business in Karachi.
Nadeem studied at the prestigious St Joseph’s Convent in Karachi as a
young girl. Today she is an extremely well-connected woman. Her uncle
General Burki along with General Azam and General Sheikh had a role to
play in the toppling of Sikandar Mirza’s government in 1958, which
resulted in the imposition of Pakistan’s first martial law by Ayub Khan.
She is not only related to some of the most renowned cricket players of
Pakistan namely Javed Burki, Majid Khan and Imran Khan, but also to hockey
Olympian Feroze Khan.
Talking about her life, Nadeem reveals that she got engaged at the tender
age of 15 to her cousin, a young army captain Zahid Ali Akbar, who was
leaving for London at that time.
Though Nadeem wanted to become a doctor, she was not allowed to pursue her
passion. Instead, her parents insisted on her joining the Home Economics
College to learn household skills. In two years’ time she got married and
moved to London. However, since her husband was in the army, they lived in
many cities before finally settling in Lahore when he was appointed as
chairman of WAPDA.
As an army officer’s wife she had to look
after certain welfare projects to help other soldiers’ families. So after
settling in Lahore, she joined various organisations such as All Pakistan
Women’s Association (APWA), Helping Hands and the SOS Village. She even
started her own NGO named Parwaz which was launched in October 2005 after
the devastating earthquake that jolted the Northern Areas of Pakistan and
Kashmir. Her NGO worked for the humanitarian relief of the earthquake
victims.
Besides her NGO, she now also runs some
charity schools for poor children.
Coming back to her Youth Club series and the choice of social issues as
her themes she says, “I feel that the young generation today is not as
naïve as the previous. Media and internet has enlightened them a great
deal, which is both good and bad. They no longer believe in fairies and
goblins. Since these children are the future builders of our nation they
should be educated in a way that they can grow up to play a positive role
in the development of the country they live in.”
When she wrote her first book Afzal ka Khawab, she sent it to her
publishers who liked it so much that they offered to buy it. Though she
would have preferred to keep the rights, she accepted the offer as her
introduction to the literary community.
The publishers asked her to write these stories in the form of a series
and she did just that within a few months’ time.
Though Nadeem has not received any formal training in writing, the field
of writing is not new to her. As she tells her tale, she recalls that she
used to write romantic stories in a women’s magazine called Hoor. As she
got busy with other things she had to shelve her passion for writing; but
many years later picked it up again and wrote articles for the Nawa-i-Waqt.
Living in London provided her with a lot of time and space for writing in
both Urdu and English launguages. She has also written a novel about
Afghanistan in English, titled The Afghans, which is lying with the
publishers in the UK and is expected to be available in a month or two.
The upcoming novel is “a fictional narration of three generations of a
prominent Afghan family, spanning from the invasion and subsequent
occupation by the then USSR, the coming to power of the Taliban, the
American occupation and a future withdrawal of foreign forces, leaving
behind a free Afghanistan. It is basically about the valour of the Afghan
people and their free spirit — I have tried to depict why these people
were never subjugated by any world superpower,” she explains.
Along with this, she is also working on a series of fiction books on
earthquakes, a couple of which are already with the publishers in
Pakistan. “These fiction books are about children who were abducted from
the quake-stricken areas and later sold to camel-racers in the Middle
East; girls to red light areas; and some into bonded labour. Every child
has his/her unique story to tell.” Nadeem plans to write five to seven
stories in this series.
When asked how she brings herself to write stories, she says that she does
not plan them; she just picks her pen and the story develops on its own.
Her smooth narrative represents the fact that she writes from the heart
and not just for the sake of writing.
Nadeem has many favourite writers and the books she enjoys reading are
Shaukat Siddiqi’s Khuda ki Basti and Razia Butt’s romantic novels.
Among English authors she is a great fan of Louie Lamoure who wrote about
the Wild West and enjoys reading Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy and John
Grisham. Her favourite book is Gone With the Wind.
Besides reading and writing she also loves to paint. Commenting on her
unusual first name she says, “Nobody in their right mind can imagine
‘Nadeem’ to be a woman’s name. When I was young many of my friends
suggested that I should change it. I stuck to it anyway.”
When asked about her pseudonym she says that her editor at Ferozesons,
Shaheena Islam, came up with it. Sameera is the name of Nedeem’s mother,
“so I am Sameera’s daughter — Binte-Sameera”. But for her publishers in
the UK, she is still Nadeem.
CHILDREN’S BOOK REVIEWS: What dreams may come
Reviewed
by Rizwana Naqvi
Bint-e-Sameera is a new name in children’s literature. She is associated
with child welfare associations like the SOS village, Apwa and Helping
Hand. It is this familiarity with such organizations that provided her an
opportunities to acquaint herself with the problems children are faced
with in Pakistan. Afzal ka Khwab is the first book of her Youth Club
Series under which she has written five books.
Afzal is the young son of a brick kiln worker
who is forced to quit school and work at the kiln, because his father
falls ill. A group of children between the ages of 13-16 years from
well-off families have formed a youth club and they get to know about his
predicament. Thus, they set out to help Afzal. They discuss the issue with
their parents and come up with solutions to help him and his family. The
children encourage Afzal and his father to work on a self-help basis for
their cause.
Through her story, Sameera shows that children have an ability to change
the course of events and bring about a transformation not only in their
own, but also in their families’ lives. If they are given a chance and
encouraged in their endeavours, they can certainly do wonders.
Brilliantly interwoven in the story are the problems faced by kiln workers
and how they are exploited by their employers. Sameera also emphasizes on
the importance of education, showing how the lack of it can leave them
vulnerable to exploitation. Furthermore, she shows that Afzal, who has
received some education, is able to see through the kiln owner’s trickery.
Afzal ka Khwab depicts how unity among workers along with a little
awareness of the world can really make things easy for them. It is only
when the workers got together that the kiln owner and his henchmen failed
to suppress them.
CHILDREN’S BOOK REVIEWS: The demons within
Reviewed by Rizwana Naqvi
Tuberculosis (TB) is a dreaded disease. There
was a time when it had no cure. People feared TB patients and stay away
from them, which is still the case even though TB today is curable if
diagnosed at an early stage.
Sadly, the
disease is prevalent in Pakistan, especially among the lower classes.
Bint-i-Sameera in her second book in the Youth Club series, Chuppa Dushman,
highlights the problem and creates awareness regarding the prevention of
TB and getting early treatment. She believes children can do wonders if
they are properly guided about tuberculosis as they grasp things quickly.
In Chuppa Dushman, the Youth Club members learn about George’s, a gardener
at a local school, ailment and the predicament of three young children in
the same locality, whose parents had died of the illness and who have been
shunned by the neighbourhood. The Youth Club members take up the challenge
to help these people and seek their parents’ assistance in their
endeavours. They arrange treatment for George and the others who are
suffering so much from the disease and also get all the children of the
neighbourhood vaccinated.
When they learn that a concerned parent is going to talk to the principal
about keeping a TB patient employed at school, they meet the principal to
discuss the problem themselves and save the gardener’s job. This also
shows their concern for a poor man — they don’t want him to lose his job,
as he has a family to support.
From their discussions with their parents, the principal of George’s
school and the three children, readers can learn about the importance of
precautionary measures such as hygienic living and vaccination.
The author is a social worker, associated with several non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) working for the welfare of poor children. Her work
brought to her notice, the plight of poor children in Pakistan and she has
undertaken the task of evoking their interest in acquiring knowledge.
Though difficult, she knows this is possible as children have the capacity
to learn and adapt if properly guided.
