Book Review: My Life's Journey: The Early Years (1966-1988) by Altaf Hussain

 Originally this book was published in Urdu as Safa-e-Zindagi. It was based on lengthy interview of Altaf Hussain, better known as Altaf bhai. In the foreword of the book Matthew A. Cook says that the Urdu speaking population which migrated to Pakistan includes population form Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan and Bombay. He also says that most Mohajirs were not elites. They were artisans such as shoemakers, carpet weavers from...

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Book Review: Iqbal by Francesco D'Adamo, Ann Leonori (Translator)

Iqbal is a fictional account about a person named Iqbal Masih who wanted to liberate bonded laborers in Pakistan. The narrator of this book is Fatima, a girl who was inspired by Iqbal’s courage and determination. As a sign of resistance Iqbal cut his master’s carpet with a knife. His master Hussain Khan punishes him. There are also other children who were taken away from their families and enslaved by Hussain Khan. Once Iqbal tries to escape, but...

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Book Review: Books V. Cigarettes by George Orwell

 This book was first published as an essay in 1940s. The author says that even if one buys books and periodicals, that does not cost more than the combined cost of smoking and drinking. Orwell shares his own experience of working at a secondhand book shop. He doubts whether ten percent of his customers at the bookshop are able to distinguish a good book from a bad one. Every month about a dozen books were stolen from the bookshop. Orwell states...

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Book Review: Friedrich Nietzsche Why I am so Wise translated by R.J. Hollingdale

 Nietzsche lived from 1844 to 1900. This book has been compiled by including excerpts from Ecce Homo and Twilight of the Idols. The author says that the overthrowing idols is his business. According to him, philosophy is a voluntary living in ice and high mountains- a seeking after everything strange and questionable in existence, all that has hitherto been excommunicated by morality. Nietzsche says: ‘It also seems to me that the rudest word,...

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Book Review: The Closed Valley: With Fierce Friends in the Pakistani Himalayas by Jurgen Wasim Frembgen

 Jurgen Wasim Frembgen is an anthropologist, who is one of the first to venture into the Harban valley. This book is an outcome of the authors several stays in the valley between 1989 to 1997. Frembgen explores the life of the mountain people in Kohistan region of Pakistan. The Indus Kohistan district was created in 1976. In the first chapter he mentions that the Indus River is locally known as Aba Sin (Father of Rivers). In ancient Indian...

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