Oxford University Press holds literary sessions from time to time at their Khalid bin Waleed Road book shop and I often go there.
One evening, the traffic from my office to the bookshop was surprisingly thin. I reached there early and got busy with browsing, clearly the best way to while away time in a bookshop; a habit I had cultivated in my penniless days as a student.
The shelves that attracted me most were stocked with colourful books for children. Most books were written by my old friend Rumana Husain, who wears two hats: She writes books for kids and often illustrates them too.
A graduate from the Central Institute of Arts and Crafts with a major in graphic designing, she started producing books for Book Group, an organisation she co-founded.
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That was in the '90s. During the last few years, she has been doing the job quite zealously for OUP. All said, she has been associated as a writer and often as an illustrator too, with about 50 splendid books to her credit. The figures do not include her work on teachers’ manuals.
The first graphic story that I picked up was A Sweet Tale, and what impressed me most about the slim publication were the beautiful illustrations by Priya Kuriyan and the simple language in what is essentially a bilingual publication. Rumana, who is at ease in both the languages, wrote the text.
A Sweet Tale, also titled Eik Meethi Kahani, as I was to learn later, was a part of an engrossing series called City Tales. Likewise, there is another – equally attractive in terms of visuals and choice of words – bilingual series called Village Tales.
The same bilingual style was used by another OUP writer Fauzia Aziz Minallah, who also illustrated the booklet Amai and the Banyan Tree highly imaginatively.
Not all books are illustrated with hand drawn pictures, Laila aur Munni Gudya has photographs taken by Rumana. The little girl Laila was her discovery and the doll was produced by her too. This slim booklet was launched this year at the Children’s Literature Festival.
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With my grandchildren, who were born in the US and would soon be moving to Pakistan, in mind, I thought the books would interest overseas Pakistanis, and should at the same time prove useful to children in the country who are stronger in one language and weaker in another.
Another laudable attempt on the part of the publisher and Rumana Husain is a series on some great personalities such as Akhtar Hameed Khan, Fatima Jinnah, Rana Liaquat Ali Khan and Faiz Ahmed Faiz.
The first book in the series was penned by Amna Azfar. Rumana mentions that she is working on some more. These are being written by her and the OUP editorial team is translating it into English.
Two versions of a small book Laddu is born and Laddu paida huwa deserve a special mention. The character of Laddu, a monkey, drawn in a minimalist style, is a takeoff from Miffy the female rabbit character created by Dick Bruna, the Dutch author, artist and illustrator.
Bruna designed his Miffy books with a view to stimulating development of a child in a playful manner.
The series of Miffy books are meant for children up to six years of age, a period of greatest growth and development in a person’s life.
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Butterfly Works, a Dutch company, which facilitates Bruna’s works got a team to create a similar character designed in Venezuela. It’s called Yoyo. Pakistan was the second country they had in mind so they approached Idara-e-Taleem-o-Agahi which is wedded to the cause of education in Pakistan.
A local character had to be invented. Brainstorming sessions followed and Rumana was among those who unleashed their creativity. After much deliberation a female monkey (designed in the same minimalist style of Miffy) was agreed upon.
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Four illustrators – Akbar Zia, Ayesha Tariq, Ramsha Shakeel and Shakir Khan – did the graphic designs while Rumana narrated the story in English and Urdu in 12 pages, each page containing a stanza of four lines in verse.
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Rumana Husain with kids. |
The team has been christened Chumchum and the publishers, no prizes for guessing, are none other than the OUP. More such books, which can be held easily by as young as one year olds, are in the pipeline. The price Rs 275, however, is a bit steep.
Rumana’s coffee table book Karachiwala – a subcontinent within a city – is all about people from different communities and ethnic and religious groups settled in the megacity. Apart from contributing to newspapers she also co-edits Nukta, an art magazine.
Currently, she is working on an interesting subject, professions that are to be seen on the pavements of Karachi, some no longer in vogue like dentists and fortune tellers, and some very common such as fruit sellers.