Napa celebrates joy of Urdu with book launch

A bilingual book titled ‘Three Tales From Gulistan-e-Saadi’ was launched at the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa) in collaboration with Joy of Urdu.

The beautiful coffee table book is the brainchild of Zarminae Ansari, founder of Joy of Urdu, a volunteer-run organisation committed to promoting Urdu through their international chapters, bilingual educational content on social media and in print, and now a bilingual publishing house.

Napa CEO Junaid Zuberi said on the occasion that being a national academy, Napa is committed to promoting the national language. Joy of Urdu is also such a forum working on children of Urdu-speaking expats who are out of touch with Urdu, he added.

Zarminae spoke about her own experience as a mother which ignited the desire in her to start this organisation. She thanked their Chief Patron and Adviser Dr Arfa Sayeda Zehra for her mentorship and support.

She said the book is for her son, and dedicated to Sabeen Mahmud. She spoke about the initial encouragement by Sabeen, who was her first cheerleader and encouraged her to follow her vision, despite her initial hesitation since Zarminae is an architect with a master’s degree from MIT.

She also thanked Bari Mian Farangi Mahal for guiding her in her work. During the panel discussion that followed the book launch, Zarminae said the forum was initially meant for expat families, but she realised later that it was also needed inside Pakistan.

Yasmeen Mozaffar lamented the society that has taken children away from Urdu. “People around the world translate foreign literature into their own language to make them accessible to their folks, but we have to use English to make our youth reach out to our own language.”

Bari Mian said there is nothing wrong in being bilingual. He said his father always stressed the need to use the language that is the language of the person spoken to, even though he hardly spoke English. After the discussion, Tashina Rashid Nur read one of the tales from the book.