The Seasonals (by Samima)

We all have experienced seasons, read and heard about the Noun all the time from the Weather guy to poets. But today I feel like discussing its Adjective form the Seasonals, no I’m not talking about seasonal fruits n veggies, yes they do effect out lives considerably, but my Seasonals are the moving ones showing their  talents quite explicitly all the time.

Seasonal Chefs: impressed by Zubaida apa, Chef Zakir etc etc , are mostly women, proving their passion for cookery by clinging to cooking channels 9 to 5 some times even after it . Though some do excel while other will try another recipe. You should be careful here as your stomach is their testing ground. An advice: be nice and careful with such seasonals.

Seasonal Readers/ Writers: as the name explains a lot these people start to show others during discussions or  via fb status that they have a reading/ writing habit since long. Even their fellows and parents can’t give you any idea how all this developed out of thin air (without any warning to the rest of us). Afterwards they prove to be from the very early age readers of some Big authors whose names were alien to them 2 yrs back. We come to now after every couple of days that they have finished a 300 – 500 page book  in mere hours and  in weeks they review half a dozen of books (via fb status again).  Now they think they can write and afterwards one can actually experience  how jumping and somersaulting can be done in writing. The incoherence and stupidity I won’t dare to discuss, as its already getting pretty personal.

Seasonal Philosophers: These seasonal  are most dangerous of all , as they directly affect u , your ears and your brain. They start by sharing some poetry or philosophical quote. Don’t bother to use quotation mark, leave alone any reference, as they themselves are the philosophers now, real deep thinkers, so why to give presumably a dead person any credit (I just drowned).  They must have heard the lines “every person is a philosopher” so why not try the easy way, be like some philosopher, think like him, even write like him (which of course means copy him all the way). You call them copy cats to copy cows or even copy donkeys, they don’t care, perhaps they also heard the lines  ‘every great man’s  genius wasn’t acknowledged by people of his times’.

  

"I walk tall with my Reading habit" (by Samima)

Recalling  childhood, I found myself indulged deeply in a habit of reading. Inception was  by small stories like Aesop fables; and it ranged  from fairy tales to thrillers like Imran series. I had books on morals, historic figures like Razia Sultana, Salahuddin Ayubi, Muslim Caliphs and their justice.  Of course the choice of books (in those time) was mostly by my mother …. She used to present me books on birthdays or other occasions.

So the seed of reading was sown there in me very early and very deep. Then comes a time when the my books started to age with me. Here comes hardcore literature both  English and Urdu, there was chic feminism of Austen, Asmat Chughtai and Amrita Pritam,  refined writings of Wilde, Bernard Shaw and  Bedi , unconventional fictions by Hardy and taboo by Manto, mysteries by Conan Doyl, classic novels of Hajra Masroor, Razia Butt and Khadija Mastoor or best sellers ranging from Stanley Wolpert’s Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan to Tehmina  Durrani’s My Feudal Lord and so many more all around me, waiting  to be explored  and I took full advantage of them in my Khalid Uncle’s library. Reading habit  was fuel for me in those times .  I remember in the hardpacked  competitional  education days, but I still used to manage some time  out for this habit, don’t know why but every read book proved only a drop in the bucket.

 Today, when I look around, I hardly find a teenager having such  inclination for reading, most aren’t  great proponents . They rather consider reading as very primordial or elementary way of killing time.  Even the course books aren’t welcomed much. Cable and Internet adds fuel to fire in these circumstances. So, Is  the habit of reading dying? though a defence one can give is "World is becoming faster" but internet and other sources of entertainment can never replace books. Acquiring  habits  is always a personal choice, but  it is parents responsibility to provide their child with a stimulating environment or at least any predisposition to certain good habit should  be welcomed.  Reading  books helps not only building imagination & character, but also defines  individual’s perspective of society; along with giving  depth to his personality. During this habit my process of actualization started and was able to comprehend why  Sir Francis Bacon once said “Knowledge is Power”.

Some people these days do manifest liking for the habit, they explicitly tell  u about their  reading habit, but ironically it  only covers newspaper/ magazine reading or some articles of  famous journalist. Our  society isn’t only  lacking this regular disposition  but is  depriving  itself  from  knowledge that these books can provide  us.  We are proactive in becoming  ‘informed’ and overlooking the part called  ‘knowledge ’. Both must go hand in hand, otherwise this shortcoming can always be exploited.

(Samima)