Aurhor urges youth to publish their own stories, says “a book keeps you alive for 500 years”
Srinagar, Oct 05 (KNS): A book launch ceremony for “Sharifon Ka Mohalla”, a collection of short stories by renowned broadcaster and writer Hussain Zaffar, popularly known as Ratan Puri, was held on Sunday at Tagore Hall in Srinagar.
The event was organised by Triple Zed Publications and witnessed an overwhelming response from literature lovers.
Speaking at the ceremony, Zaffar revealed that the book was published almost “by accident”. “I had no intention of publishing this book. I am an unstable person in that sense. I don’t even know where my 30 years of poetry or earlier stories went,” he said. “One of my friends, Zahoor Haigami, collected these stories and insisted that I print them. Keeping his love in mind, I agreed.”
Zaffar said the stories reflect the realities of living in a conflict zone like Kashmir.
“When you speak directly here, you are always in a dilemma,” he said. “Conflict brings many problems psychological and social. I have seen them, gone through them, and I chose to present those experiences through small stories, so that society wakes up and questions where we are heading.”
He said the stories are written in very simple Urdu so that even an eighth-grade student can read them without needing a dictionary.Click Here To Follow Our WhatsApp Channel
“Urdu is my passion, my love. I wanted to keep the language alive,” he said. “Being a Kashmiri, I have only written about Kashmir and its people.”
Emphasising the importance of books in the digital age, Zaffar said that despite the rise of the internet, no technology can replace the experience of reading a physical book.
“If you want to know about something that happened 500 years ago, you look for a book,” he said. “On the internet you may read, but you don’t retain. Until you hold a book and read it, it doesn’t stay in your memory.”
He also encouraged aspiring writers to publish their work without hesitation.
“The cost is not so high that a common person cannot afford it. A book keeps you alive for 500 years,” he remarked.
Calling himself both a journalist and a novelist, Zaffar said his writing is a constant battle between the two identities.
“Sometimes the journalist takes over, sometimes the novelist. The novelist writes from the heart, but the journalist writes from the mind,” he said.(KNS)