Daily Times

It was unearthing for me when Amir Bin Ali mentioned that the national flower of Japan, which is cherry has its origins from the Himalayan mountains near Islamabad in Pakistan.

With the passage of time, its growth spread in other parts of India, America, Canada, Korea and Japan. In Japan it is called Sakora in local language. Flowers on the trees appear only during spring and the tradition of watching these flowers is called ‘Hanami’. This information is available in the first section of the book Jahan Gard by Amir Bin Ali. The reason offered by the author for writing this travelogue is to share his experiences with the readers of whom he met, what he witnessed and where he went in his lifetime. He claims that he has compiled these articles published in his columns in the dailies Jang, Khabrain and his literary journal Arxang. He also says that he has written these columns in such a manner that these can be read by all members of the family devoid of any touch of vulgarity. This reviewer’s first impression of the book is its excellent printing, quality paper used and dedication of the book to the soil of Pakistan where drops of rain emit such odour that is not found elsewhere in the world.

The second part of the book highlights the author’s impression of various places he has visited as a globetrotter. These places include Thailand, Sri Lanka, Argentina and Peru. The author seems to have found his experience in Chile and Mexico so memorable that he has reserved separate sections for the two countries

There are 19 articles written on various aspects of Japan where Amir resides. He originally hails from Mian Chunnoo. This reviewer found the essay on Hiroshima’s atomic tomb intriguing. Despite witnessing Hurricane Harvey personally in Texas in August that devastated Houston, Sugarland and its suburbs, this reviewer agrees with the author that the atomic bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a disaster unparalleled in history. A tomb survived called A-tomb where ‘A’ stands for the word Atomic. A part of the tomb weighing 300kg found in the sea shall be used for further research. It is not yet decided whether this tomb shall be rebuilt or shall remain as such as heritage as declared by the United Nations.

Another surprise for the readers would be the Urdu language signboards in Japan. The history of Urdu dates back to 1796 when work on Urdu dictionary was initiated. Today, Japan has Urdu chairs in Tokyo, Osaka and Sai Tama universities. All this brings us to witness the importance and diversity of Urdu language. The art of small sized flowers is the specialty of Japan. They are high priced flowers and their export is banned. Decoration of flowers is another art possessed by Japanese called ‘Oshibana’.

This reviewer witnessed the art of amalgamating new architecture with the traditional on Doha, Qatar especially of the buildings designed by the architect Ibrahim Jaida where the base in all traditional with a skyscraper emerging out of it in modern design. Similarly an old church mixed up modern structure caught the eyes of this reviewer in Glasgow Scotland recently. Japan too has such specimens. About Qatar, the author claims that if one desires to witness specimens of Islamic Art, these are available in Qatar. He is referring to Islamic Art Museum. A summary of one and half thousand years is accumulated under one roof here. He compares Qatar with the adjoining countries like Bahrain, UAE and Saudi Arabia where lots of affluence is visible but very little inheritance. This reviewer begs to differ a little here as he has seen old Jeddah and Riyadh being preserved in Dheera and Hara areas.

The second part of the book comprises the author’s impressions of various places he visited as globetrotter. His impressions on Thailand, Sri Lanka, Argentine and Peru form contents of this section. The author however is so impressed by Chile and Mexico that he has reserved separate sections on these countries. The South American countries also intrigue this reviewer as not much is known about these countries in our part of the world. Amir’s book therefore throws some light on these countries. For instance he says that Peru is the nineteenth biggest country in the world with population of thirty million people and New Peru’s history dates back to two centuries ago. The official language is Spanish. It is said that this area was the centre of civilisation namely ‘Unka’. The country is full of rivers and jungles. The city ‘Takna’, the tenth largest city of Peru in the South is worth seeing. Adjacent to Areeka, its simile can be found in Rawalpindi-Islamabad twin cities in Pakistan. These are the countries where an average Pakistani rarely visits but the author’s revelation that several Pakistanis lived a successful life in ‘Takna’ surprised this reviewer. The author’s memories are full of happy lucky go people of Peru.

Jahan Gardi
by Amir Bin Ali
Nastaleeq
Matbooaat, Lahore
Pages 240 Price Rs 300

Now let us see what our traveller-author discovered in Chile. This country has sea surrounding it. Shaped like a red chilli, its population is 1.75 million. It is an earthquake prone country. The moment the author landed in San Tiago, he faced an earthquake of 8.3 on Richter scale. He was reciting the surahs of the holy Quran and the local Christians making cross on their bodies while climbing down from the building where he was staying. Chile is full of copper reserves and tops the world in its export. Its Antofagasta Company had invested heavily in exploration in Recodig in Balochistan but due to orders of the then Chief Justice of Supreme Court, the project was dropped. It created a rift in the diplomatic relations between Pakistan and Chile. The best part of the author’s stay was his visit to the Santiago city’s house of renowned revolutionary poet Pablo Neruda. He was born on July 12, 1904 in Ricardo Eliecer Neftali Reyes Basoalto and he died on September 23, 1973 in Santiago, Chile. He derived his pen name from the Czech poet Jan Neruda. Pablo Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. Amir has translated selected poetry of Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral in his book Muhabbat Ke Dou Rang (two shades of love). The author says that each time he visits Chile; he pays a visit to this museum where he finds an addition of some art pieces. Though his library was looted by the Army regime but his house/museum is housed with his personal library and decoration pieces. The walls have black and white pictures of Pablo with his other Nobel Laureate colleagues. The author believes that Chile is a country of poets and writers and remembers the oldest tradition of playing football here.

Amir discovers a small place Las Birdies, one of such places that are least mentioned. A funny introduction of this town is that it has the largest graveyard of dogs. Apart from the natural beauty, this town has one of the best eating-places. In a trip to Mexico City, taking metro bus instead of taxis on the guidance of fellow passengers took Amir to the centre of the city without any danger of getting robbed. He found the people full of fun and loved to dance like other Latin American countries. Despite President Trump’s threat to build a wall on Mexican borders, all the hard work like construction, mowing of grass in the lawns is carried out by Mexicans labourers in Texas under the summer 50 degrees C heat. Though Mexico falls in North America geographically but is a part of Latin America linguistically.

The last section of the book is titled Des Pardes includes essays on Nobel Laureates migration to other places, Sciatica pain due to keeping wallet in your back pocket, impressions of poet Ahmad Faraz, Anne Frank, world as seen by Amir, poet Aslam Kolsri, art and artist, departure of Rukhsana Noor etc. This section has variety of topics covered as well as obituaries of departed souls. The book under review is an interesting appraisal and the readers discover many hidden parts of the world through the author’s eye.

The writer is an award-winning musician and author. He Tweets at @amjadparvez and can be reached at doc_amjad@hotmail.com

Published in Daily Times, September 25^th 2017.