Gather The Coffee House Of Lahore: A Memoir 1942-57 Authored By K.K. Aziz Readable In Version
found this book in library last year, did not read it then but now I have, I would recommend it to everyone, Here are few stories I have picked to share, I hope they motivate you enough to read this book,
K. K Aziz says about Coffee house, “I learnt how to behave with my age group, how to respect my seniors, how to make friends and keep relationship in good repair, The frequent discussion which I participated taught me the virtues of tolerance, They also taught me how to debate a point without losing temper, to sharpen my arguments rather raise my voice, to understand to understand other persons point of view and give him right to express it and gain clarity in speech and lucidity in thinking.
. There could not have be no better training in human dealings because human beings with whom I was interfacing were among themselves so different of outlooks.
I learnt to become flexible in what I said and what I listened to, Also I had to be patient with suffering fools, because in every society and group there are bores and people with stunted minds, I dont know to which degree I learnt these virtues and I cant be a judge of it, But I tried hard and I think I became fit for human company”
In its physical location the house was ideally placed, Within five minutes walk from it lay the University, the Mayo School of Arts NCA later, the Punjab Public Library, the Lahore Museum, YMCA Hall, Law Collage, Oriental Collage and the Government Collage.
Islamia Collage, Dyal Singh Collage and MAO Collage were within aminute cycle ride, The House had been put right at the heart of the intellect of Lahore, The language of Coffee house was Punjabi and English purely, Punglish, Though written language was Urdu, It mostly was made up of Leftists but does not mean other were not present, What the Coffee house did have was tolerance,
This was the time period where population of Lahore was around,not more thanmillion,
Now this book revolves arounds of people, who all had one thing in common they loved to read and talk about what they read and drank coffee.
The writer K. K. Aziz name which was given to him by Jamiluddin Hasan, who said “You know your first names are too long to encourage intimacy, It takes sustained breath to pronounce “Khursheed Kamal”, So right now, under the authority granted to me by our friendship, I hereby bestow upon you in a perpetuity the much smaller and melodious name of K.
K to which I am sure you will get used you soon, ”
K. K entered Coffee house in age oforin, But this book is more about a time period, A different time period a quieter time period, This book is littered with scenes and people most of us have not heard about, Some names are famous others not so much, There few scenes in this book that strike me as they are form another world “My friends and I had bought our tickets and were in a large crowd waiting on foyer for the matinee show to come to an end.
When the show ended the audience began to come down the stairs to go home, At the corner of stairs appeared Champa in her white Sari, The chattering crowd in the foyer fell silent, There was a hush until she reached the end of the staircase, turned right and walked out of our sight, The elite was paying tribute to beauty, There was not a single wink, ogle, leer, even an audible breath, Those were civilized days.
Abdus salam a smart man not of science but also was interested in other contemporary subjects, K. K recalls his one meeting “We recalled our government Collage days Salam Talked about what he had to endure at the hands of Sirajuddin and the officials of the education department.
I asked him if all this was due to him being an Ahmadi, He doubted it and pointed out Qazi Aslam too was an Ahmadi and later become Principal of Collage, ” A wellknown scientist after the death of Abdus Salam commented whom K, K told him his sad tale of disappointed when nobody would sanction a scholarship in name of Salam, “You say the Ahmadis have not done anything to salute Salam, Yes, they havent. But arent they Pakistanis too” So we are people who are jealous of other people who are better and brighter than us, this jealousy goes deeper, than any religious or cultural bonds what a tragedy.
I found this book in library last year, did not read it then but now I have, I would recommend it to everyone, Here are few stories I have picked to share, I hope they motivate you enough to read this book,
K. K Aziz says about Coffee house, “I learnt how to behave with my age group, how to respect my seniors, how to make friends and keep relationship in good repair, The frequent discussion which I participated taught me the virtues of tolerance, They also taught me how to debate a point without losing temper, to sharpen my arguments rather raise my voice, to understand to understand other persons point of view and give him right to express it and gain clarity in speech and lucidity in thinking.
. There could not have be no better training in human dealings because human beings with whom I was interfacing were among themselves so different of outlooks.
I learnt to become flexible in what I said and what I listened to, Also I had to be patient with suffering fools, because in every society and group there are bores and people with stunted minds, I dont know to which degree I learnt these virtues and I cant be a judge of it, But I tried hard and I think I became fit for human company”
In its physical location the house was ideally placed, Within five minutes walk from it lay the University, the Mayo School of Arts NCA later, the Punjab Public Library, the Lahore Museum, YMCA Hall, Law Collage, Oriental Collage and the Government Collage.
Islamia Collage, Dyal Singh Collage and MAO Collage were within aminute cycle ride, The House had been put right at the heart of the intellect of Lahore,
This was the time period where population of Lahore was around,not more thanmillion,
Now this book revolves arounds of people, who all had one thing in common they loved to read and talk about what they read and drank coffee.
The writer K. K. Aziz name which was given to him by Jamiluddin Hasan, who said “You know your first names are too long to encourage intimacy, It takes sustained breath to pronounce “Khursheed Kamal”, So right now, under the authority granted to me by our friendship, I hereby bestow upon you in a perpetuity the much smaller and melodious name of K.
K to which I am sure you will get used you soon, ”
K. K entered Coffee house in age oforin, But this book is more about a time period, A different time period a quieter time period, This book is littered with scenes and people most of us have not heard about, Some names are famous others not so much, There few scenes in this book that strike me as they are form another world “My friends and I had bought our tickets and were in a large crowd waiting on foyer for the matinee show to come to an end.
When the show ended the audience began to come down the stairs to go home, At the corner of stairs appeared Champa in her white Sari, The chattering crowd in the foyer fell silent, There was a hush until she reached the end of the staircase, turned right and walked out of our sight, The elite was paying tribute to beauty, There was not a single wink, ogle, leer, even an audible breath, Those were civilized days.
Abdus salam a smart man not of science but also was interested in other contemporary subjects, K. K recalls his one meeting “We recalled our government Collage days Salam Talked about what he had to endure at the hands of Sirajuddin and the officials of the education department.
I asked him if all this was due to him being an Ahmadi, He doubted it and pointed out Qazi Aslam too was an Ahmadi and later become Principal of Collage, ” A wellknown scientist after the death of Abdus Salam commented whom K, K told him his sad tale of disappointed when nobody would
sanction a scholarship in name of Salam, “You say the Ahmadis have not done anything to salute Salam, Yes, they havent. But arent they Pakistanis too” So we are people who are jealous of other people who are better and brighter than us, this jealousy goes deeper, than any religious or cultural bonds what a tragedy.
This book is filled with old Lahore and lives of writers, poets, artists, photographers, lawyers, People who with exception of few were poor but rich in culture, I would completely recommend this book, It is a very personal account of lives, might be onesided in many cases, But this book is highly underrated and unknown, I mean a book about book lovers of them who got together on daily basis to have meaningful conversations, Is not that every book readers dream
This book is filled with old Lahore and lives of writers, poets, artists, photographers, lawyers, People who with exception of few were poor but rich in culture, I would completely recommend this book, It is a very personal account of lives, might be onesided in many cases, But this book is highly underrated and unknown, I mean a book about book lovers of them who got together on daily basis to have meaningful conversations, Is not that every book readers dream
What an exceptionally beautiful book!,
This book is the last attempt of a writer to preserve his golden generation which was one of the finest generations of the subcontinent, which has been neglected.
KK Aziz, Pakistan's foremost historian, wrote about the time he spent in the famous coffeehouse of Lahore and his association with different 'celebrities' and noncelebrities of that time.
There are several extraneous incidents, many needless jibes, quite a bit of old male obliviousness, not a single womans sketch among the hundreds, but simply by force of the era it documents this is a gem.
Fascinating recreation of a particular urban milieu around and after partition which would be of special interest to the Lahori,
I sensed quite a bit of bigotry but also some accurate historical documentation of the tensions between Urduspeaking and Punjabi intellectual elites Liaqat Ali Khan particularly becomes the brunt of Azizs ire during the narration of one fascinating incident, some now unfashionable takes such as him rating Nazir Kazmi above Faiz etc.
Its essentially a book of short pen sketches, not a sustained piece of literary writing, but I am so glad it exists for the amount of history it captures.
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