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The languishing market of literary journals
Feb 2008: It is true what Mansha Yaad said the other day
about falling readership among our literate people. Sometime back when I went to
Karachi on a visit, this old gentleman, Ahsaan Azim Siddiqui, who had been
diagnosed some fatal disease, fished out copies of his bi-named Urdu magazine -
Quest and Tajassus - from the mess that was his handbag bulging with transcripts
of medical reports, prescriptions and X-rays and handed me two or three past
issues with one special devoted to the revival of the Anjuman-i-Tarraqi Pasand
Mussanefeen (Progressive Writers Movement). Small in size, of pamphlet
thickness, the 82 page publication had a good number of progressive articles,
criticism, short stories, ample share of poetry and among authors, a fair
sprinkling of known names. It was encouraging to find it was being published
from Kotri, a railway junction where the mail trains stop for a few minutes but
also where survivors of the progressive movement were holding on. The ailing Mr
Siddiqui was doing what he could, spreading the word at his own cost, getting no
help from the railways or the reading public.
Time was Taj Saeed's
monthly Qand could reach bookstalls in Rawalpindi from the Mardan Sugar Mill
where it was published and the editor had no need to distribute it free among
his friends. But that was in the vanished haze of the first two decades after
Partition. Hassan Askari's Saat Rang while it lasted was one of the most widely
read and sought after literary monthlies that one could not get a copy of within
a week of its publication. The regular readership of other well established
magazines, among them weeklies, made it possible for them to survive financially
while some literary-cum-film magazines like the Shama, Delhi, were the
publication world's great successes. Rajinder Singh Bedi, Krishan Chander,
Balwant Singh, Akhtarul Iman, Sahir Ludhianvi, Shakil Badayuni and the rest of
the writing group of that period were published in these popular periodicals
while some new writers who later made a name for themselves had their
introduction in these magazines. In fact one's ability to get published in the
literary magazines was one's launching pad to a writing career. Now writers
publish their own books and get them launched at their own cost and distribute
the product of their creative labour and hard earned money to friends and
acquaintances with compliments.
I had the most depressing and
embarrassing experience first hand when some friends started a 'book series' of
Left writings, Irtiqa, in 1989 from Karachi. Not knowing the ethics of the
business I volunteered to help them sell some ten or so copies of the second or
third of its issue. I took the bundle to a thriving bookseller of the Super
Market. After showing some signs of discomfort and reluctance during which he
made me introduce the product, he agreed to keep just five copies to give it a
try. I deposited the remaining lot with my friend Siddiqui, a second-hand
bookseller who was at that time also dealing in pirated reprints of known
fiction and other educational material. A week on when I returned to the posh
bookseller, I had to hold my breath upon not finding any copy of Irtiqa on the
shelf for Urdu periodicals. I was about to approach the cash counter for
receiving the sale proceeds when a half open bundle of books lying on the floor
caught my eye. Hiding myself from the manager's view I picked up the copies,
wiped off the dust and stealthily arranged them prominently with the other
stuff. Then for a couple of weeks I returned to the shop every two or three days
to check if any copy had found a buyer and if not, to rearrange my goods for
best display. Fed up with this routine after some time, I allowed Irtiqa to try
its luck on its own for a few weeks, which, to this day, is a mystery and part
of the mystique of the success of booksellers. The manager told me he had sold
no copies and I could look for them in the shelves or in the stacks lying on the
floor. Like the passengers of the Mary Celeste in the Atlantic, the five copies
of this mouthpiece of progressive thought had vanished into thin air without any
trace.
It is some wonder though that despite that early loss of five
copies, Irtiqa survives. Its 43rd issue came out recently with a section devoted
to the memory of Prof Hassan Abid, one of its founding architects, who died last
year. But many solo efforts of other enthusiasts have come to an end after a few
issues because of lack of support from publishers, booksellers but mostly on
account of readers' apathy. Now our friend Ali Muhammad Farshi had started a
very well edited periodical by the fancy name of Symbol. Its second issue came
out just when it was being thought its first was its last. But now many months
have passed and already there may not be many waiting for its reappearance.
Similarly a gentleman into equestrian sports had started a very fine magazine on
the subject but after probably four or five issues it has also ceased
publication, though I believe it was a worthy effort well worth a longer life.
Likewise I don't know what happened to the bilingual Tadeeb which Hameed Qaiser,
Helen Goodway and Ahmad Khalil Jazim were bringing out simultaneously from
Pakistan and Britain. It had some refreshing stuff between its covers when I
last read it, particularly its poetry section. The special issue on Faiz was
probably its last that I saw.
Ataul Haque Qasmi's barbed statement
explaining the late arrival of his voluminous Mu'aasir says it all: "The
situation for literary journals is getting more and more difficult with time.
Roland Barth had announced the "death of the author". Here the existence of the
reader is threatened. Literary journals are published by writers and it is the
writers' lot to read them". It is not that new audio-visual technologies and
information explosion has caused the fall in reading habits, because that has
not happened in neighbouring Iran and India. Qasmi holds the educational system
and government's unhelpful policies for this situation. So as a matter of policy
he puts on sale only 20 per cent copies of his magazine. The rest are given away
in charity. Dawn
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