The book of Sindh

A few months ago, a delegation of Sindhi writers from Adipur visited Pakistan, getting back with them 200 rare Sindhi books for research.

‘‘Recently Pakistani Sindhis acknowledged that 90 per cent of Sindhi classics were written by Hindus who lived in Sindh. These books are being reprinted in Pakistan,’’ says Valiram Krishnani, a writer with the Institute of Sindhology who shifted to Maleer, a specially created village for Sindhi writers, artists and educationists.

MALEER is the writer’s bloc in Adipur. Aptly enough, it is named after a Pakistani village in Sind, the home of the beautiful Marai. Enchanted by her beauty, the monarch Umar wanted to make her his queen. When she refused, he forcibly took her to away to his kingdom where she pined for her home.

‘‘The famed story of Umar-Marai is a symbol for longing for one’s home. We were touched by this tale and decided to name our village created for Sindhi writers from all over the country, after this village,’’ says Dr Satish Rohara. He was the winner of this year’s Sahitya Award for Sindhi and one of the founding fathers of the Sindhology Institute.

Spread over three acres, and built in the 1990s, Maleer has 30 residential plots, of which 21 have been constructed by the institute.

BUT even this cultural colony is not without its share of controversy. Kamal Nihalani, a senior announcer at All India Raio in Bhuj says that though Maleer was originally meant only for Sindhi writers, artists and educationists who did not own any property in Adipur, this is not always the case.

‘‘Many residents who have property in Adipur have been given houses here too. Also, all allottees are not resaearchers or known Sindhi writers. There are some who have not written single sentence in Sindhi,’’ says Nihalani who was one of the first few people to settle in Maleer. It’s a charge that Rohara denies. But this perhaps is the first strain of discord in this cultural paradise.