By Huma Khawar
ARTIST, designer, cartoonist and writer, Fauzia Aziz Minallah has an innate desire to “reach out” to children. Warm, dedicated and a mother of two small boys, she is very vocal in expressing her annoyance and apprehensions on the current political situation of the world and its effects on the young minds.
Inspired by the September 11 attack in the US, Fauzia, a young mother opted to write a book to show the other side of the picture. The book, Amai’s wish written, illustrated from a mother’s perspective, encourages compassion and empathy for other’s suffering.
“I was very upset when I heard children saying, ‘Good’ it happened to the Americans. Look what they are doing to the Afghan children’,” she shares her hurt and disappointment. “We have to be very careful about the messages our children are getting and what the young minds are exposed to. The images of violence shown on TV are absorbed by the young minds. Unaware of the fact that the children are taking in these messages we keep talking and our children are growing up with it.”
Her second book in print is also on the same theme of promoting love and peace amongst children of the globe. Children, she feels have a right to the whole truth but we only tell them half of it. “There are various messages of violence the children are receiving. The ugly structures of missiles supposedly beautifying our cities are a shameful reflection on our society,” she says. Brilliant coloured illustrations and short simple sentences are an attractive feature of her books. To increase readership, she intends to have her books bilingual, both in Urdu and English at the same time.
Returning with a Masters in Communication Design from Pratt Institute, New York, in 1992 and fascinated by children’s illustrations, Fauzia started a children’s cartoon series which continued for two years. Through her character Babai, a typical Pakistani girl child, she illustrated and wrote stories on different issues of Pakistani culture. “They were mainly topics parents don’t talk about to their children,” she explains. Through her full page colour illustrations she narrated stories about special children, who they were and why were they special, the beauty and culture of Kalash valley, snow leopards and how they were being lost, issues of water conservation and tree plantation, etc.
Zarina, a Pakistani paper doll book published in 1988, was Fauzia’s first experiment in book printing. The book had a Pakistani paper doll and dresses from different provinces and areas of Pakistan. She feels sorry that Zarina never went into a second print and that there is not a single Pakistani paper doll in the market today.
The sad part is that in Pakistan anything concerning children is not considered important enough. Parents are not in a habit of buying books and so it is not commercially viable to print a second edition. “Even the children, for that matter, are not all that excited when they receive books as gifts. To please them, parents go and buy a toy worth Rs500 but not a book.” In the developed countries, she says, in spite of all the toys for children, books are also sold .
She feels today’s child is a lot different from children of her own generation. “Their span of concentration is limited as the images they are exposed to through the new technology are so fast.” Probe her about a solution to the problem, and she calls for the “awareness raising” of parents. Parents inspired by the new technology buy computer games for their children without understanding that there is an age limit for each and every game. “It is not good for a child of seven to play a game which is meant for a 25 year old marine. All this affects a child’s reading habits. The parents must maintain the routine for the child which must include time for reading books.”
