Manjit Thakur
“No bro, just the 'inability' of not being able to write poetry does not make you an alpha male. Anyway, writing poems is not everyone’s cup of tea. It is the work of intelligent, and sophisticated minds. Everyone has emotions, but the ability to control and regulate them was the stage of evolution where humans began to separate from other animals. Being able to control your emotions and express them in words is a sign of intelligence.”
When writer Nazia Khan, who has about 32 thousand followers on Facebook, writes the above post, she is giving a message to the younger generation. She wrote this at a time when under the pretext of Ranbir Kapoor’s film Animal, the generation X is linking the personality of alpha males and elements of masculinity to the violent and misogynistic character of the film’s protagonist.
Nazia Khan is a modern-day woman writer whose is at ease both in fiction and non-fiction. Her books on life skills are a rage among the users she has written for. She introduces herself as author, physician, publisher-Mandrake, editor, translator, secretary, Smiling Hearts NGO on Facebook.
She says, “Reading is not my hobby, it has been a passion since childhood.” She had been writing since she was a child. Back then stories were published in children's magazines and newspapers.
However, because of the demanding studies required in a medical college, Nazia had to give up writing for a few years. In 2013, Nazia finally resigned from her job as a government medical officer as it was becoming difficult for her to manage it along with raising her newborn son and two-year-old daughter.
This experience gave a subject to Nazia to write. Nazia says, “I found that there are many women like me, new mothers, who live in nuclear families, and face a lot of problems in pregnancy and parenting. The self-help books on these subjects are mostly by foreign authors. I felt that books should be written on both these subjects. As physicians, we can provide advice only to those people who come to us. If you write a book, the message reaches many people."
After this, Nazia wrote two books Pregnancy and Child Care and An Exciting Journey of Parenting and Teaching. This revived her relationship with literature; she immersed herself in the world of books and letters besides taking care of her children and family.
She says, “Women, in particular, keep their health at the lowest rank in priority. Our conditioning is such that taking care of ourselves, taking out time for ourselves, spending on ourselves, me-time, me-space, makes us feel selfish. It seems as if we are doing something wrong or wasting our time. We consider working day and night for everyone as love, sacrifice, and dedication towards the family until the time comes when we have to lie down; our physical and mental health deteriorate, and our routine gets disturbed. Till that time, we do not pay attention to our bodies and minds.”
Nazia emphasizes, “We do not believe that parenting is a subject that needs to be learned. If you are married then you will have children. If we have grown up then we will grow up, what course did our parents take or read, this is the thinking of the people. That is why I find it important to write on these topics.”
Nazia now practices medicine and also writes regularly.
Dr. Nazia Khan's published books (Facebook)
Nazia reads voraciously but says about her favorite author or poet, “I will not be able to name even one, two, or ten. Everyone has his characteristics and be it any language or genre, literature always enriches us. I am not averse to fiction and do not even consider popular literature as pulp fiction.”
Nazia also runs a publishing house under an interesting name Mandrake Publications. This year Nazia has published the works of great poets including a Ghazal series of ten poets like Mirza Ghalib, Mir Taqi Mir, Ibrahim Zauq, Bahadur Shah Zafar, Dag Dehlvi, Hasrat Mohani, Jigar Moradabadi.
Nazia has also done a lot of translations of literary works. She says, “Translators do not get the respect they deserve for their hard work. Earlier there was no custom of giving name even on the front page.”
She says that it is an exaggeration to call translation a re-creation of any literature. But it is also absolutely true that an average or bad translation can kill the soul of the original work, destroy its essence, and sometimes even destroy the meaning. While reading, one should not feel that one is reading the translation and not the original, neither has it been made into a lifeless pile of words by keeping every word as it is, nor has it deviated from the original in the name of creative freedom. The authenticity of the subject should remain intact; A translation is meaningful only if the language is easy, comprehensible, understandable, and fluent. Sometimes a translation is better than the original work.”
Regarding the standard of translation these days, Nazia says, “Translators use artificial intelligence tools like Google Translate and these are a disaster.”
She warns, “You should not translate works of languages you do not know. Many times, words and phrases in the local language and dialect have a different connotation from the literal meaning, and if one uses AI tools it will change the meaning. This is relevant, especially to proverbs and idioms. If you are not familiar with the local dialect, culture, and traditions, you will spoil the meaning.”
Nazia was the editor of Swarnavani monthly Hindi literary magazine for three years. Swarnavani was the only magazine that reached 3,000 readers every month for free. They even didn’t have to pay for the postage. However, during the Covid pandemic, it was closed.
She says that it was during this lean period she started her publishing house.
Nazia's husband Dr. Abrar Multani,is an Ayurveda practitioner and like her, he is also a writer and an author. His 14 books have been published so far. In its three years of existence, Mandrake Publications has 103 titles to its credit. The books published range from those authored by established authors to new authors and also cult classic literature.
Nazia hails from Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh.
These days, Nazia is busy reading Kai Chand Thee Sar-e-Aasmaan and The Museum of Innocence. Her latest book Me Amor, a collection of stories was published recently. She is almost finished work on her two more collections.
Along with medicine and writing, Nazia is also active in social service; she is the secretary of a voluntary organization Smiling Hearts. She says, “We provide services in the field of education and health. We are not getting funds and grants but the organisation offered free medical consultation and distributed food and medicines during the Covid lockdown. Its volunteers also help in studies of poor children and arrange for warm clothes for them in winter, and also organize medical camps, etc., we do as much as we can on our own.”
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Nazia Khan, the doctor-litterateur is thus healing bodies through her medical practice and nurturing souls and minds with her books. Her posts on social media are often tongue-in-cheek and humorous enough to bring a smile to the faces of bright readers.
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