New Pashto poetry book hits stalls

PESHAWAR: So fascinating is the title of the new Pashto poetry book ‘Da Lulako Pa Atanr Ki’ - among the dancing butterflies - that it attracts anyone who can read and understand the Pashto language.

Authored by a deputy director at the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Department, Ansar Khilji, who currently heads the provincial government-run Pakhtunkhwa Radio, the book has recently been launched and is available at prominent bookstalls in the provincial metropolis.

A total of 103 poems have been adjusted on the 208 pages of the book printed by Maraka Publications, Mardan. The book is available at Rs400 at the leading bookstores in the provincial metropolis. However, the author loves to gift a copy of it to those having attachment with Pashto language and poetry. He said he would be fortunate if his book is liked by readers and it could become a source of awareness and guidance for the Pakhtuns.

The poems included in the collection are simple in reading but carry a deep message. Most of the poems have been written on issues of current nature, which highlights the author’s journalistic yearning. Having done his master’s in journalism from the

University of Peshawar, the author served as a journalist before joining the government job.

About the book, he said that it took many years for him to write the poems and finally his friends and family members forced him to publish them as a book. He also speaks about his love for poetry, especially his mother tongue. He said that he wrote the first lines at the death of his cousin and friend while he was quite young.

Though there is an imaginary touch in his poetry, most of the pieces he has written deal with the practical life and daily happenings. Through a poem about the martyrs of the Army Public School (APS) tragedy in Peshawar, he seems to have really poured out his heart.

The APS incident is no doubt the worst ever tragedy that the historic city of Peshawar has seen in which minor students - 132 in numbers along with 15 of their teachers and other staff members of the school - were butchered. Khilji narrates the massacre in simple Pashto expressions.

“Mong Pa Sawoono Janazey Oledey; Mong Da Laloono Janazey Oledey; Khalaq Sehry Pa Janazo Achavi; Mong Da Guloono Janazey Oledey” are some couplets from his poem ‘In the name of APS martyrs’. These couplets can roughly be translated as: “We saw hundreds of coffins carrying pearls. People place wreaths on coffins but we witnessed coffins of flowers.”