The late noted British sci-fi writer Kingsley William Amis (1922-1995) described Oxford thus in a poem: "Here is a list of things I have understood.
i. "There are only two sorts of things, bad and good.
ii. When he gets the good, a man ought to be glad.
iii. When he gets the bad, a man ought to be sad.
iv. Some of the good are joking, smoking, soaking,
And (if you will permit the expression) poking.
v. In a bad place these are absent, or even banned.
vi. In a good place they are frequent, or ready to hand.
vii. And I want as much of them as I can stand."
Although this poem is about Oxford, it also very ably describes the oddities one might expect while living in small towns it also generally anticipates expectation about new places that one might wish to visit. Inshaji (Sher Muhammad Khan 1925-1978) did quite the same in very remarkable pieces of writing, often gathering smiles and laughter from places he visited.
In addition, Inshaji quite definitely revived the art of travel writing in Urdu, with his best known travelogues such as Awara Gard Ki Diary, Dunya Gol Hai, Ibn Batoota Kay Ta'aqqub Main and Chaltay Ho Tao Cheen Ko Chaliye.
The trend has caught on. Travel writing in Urdu is proliferating. Some important names in this genre are Mustansar Husain Tarrar, Ataul Haq Qasmi, to name a few.
Such travel writers generally follow a pattern: they have friends among people living in the Middle East, Canada, Denmark, Norway, the United States and the Kingdom, probably participate in Mushaira or summer writing camps and write a reportage about friends they meet during journey abroad.
This kind of travel reportage is generally autobiographical, and full of stories about hospitality and the mention of their Ghazals or poems as well as those they listened to from expatriate poets.
The latest travelogue Dunya Kahen Jisay (The world is like this) also falls in this category with some differences. One that the writer, Dr Anwar Zahidi, a physician but a fiction writer of note, spent his own money travelling to Dubai, Canada and the United Kingdom, although he did it with his wife on invitation of his wife's brother.
However, in writing the story of his travels to four countries, named above, Zahidi significantly establishes the well known adage that the world is a stage, stringing stories of charm of new places and what makes them worth going to. In this fashion he talks mostly of museums, and specially brings out the wonder of the British Museum, as well as Smithsonian Institution and they treasure they hold in their vaults. He presents himself as keen observer of paintings and portraits, and has thumbed a number of sketches about the persons he has met, including some notable Pakistanis, and the impression he leaves behind is of a pleasing world at peace, without frictions. He talks of 9/11 incident but leaves behind the frightening impact it had on the Pakistani community abroad.
However, his travelogue should be read as a guidebook, to prepare oneself on things that must be done, before one sets out on pleasure travels. One rather liked the word Taak Jhank for window shopping, and his description of trying to get a low cost meal at London's Gatwick as he waited for onward connection to the United States. We also enjoyed the story of a Pakistani sales girl at a kiosk in Canada who refused to accept US dollars as payment for purchase of some books on nutrition.
One should view this as contempt for dollar. At the present moment we are also going through a phenomenon in which the value of dollar in terms of Pakistani money was going.