There were five or six libraries near my house (Gulistan Colony Faisalabad), Shahbaz Library Shiraz Park, Naveed Book Depot Akbar Chowk, Tariq Library G Block Gali Akbar Chowk, Pasban Library in front of Government Girls School Nighabpura, Soltania Park Block. Opposite Zaki Library, Maktaba Sayah Main Bazar Tariqabad. Maktaba Sayah was the biggest one that is still standing, all the others have closed down.
At that time, most of the magazines, journals and novels were published from Multan and Karachi. From the 1st to the 10th of every month, new magazines came out, so these ten days were very busy and hectic. we used to stand outside the library all the time so that as soon as a magazine came, we would be the first to get it. For the first few days, we used to get double rent and had to return it on the same day, so those with more money would get it and we would be left. There used to be regular advance bookings and first-in-first-out fights. And it was said proudly that I had read such and such magazine on the first day itself.
The magazines included Tarzan, Umru Ayyar, Anglu Banglu series and Amber Nag Maria series. In action, Imran series (Mazhar Kaleem) used to be in high demand, after that Safdar Shaheen was also widely read, Ibn Safi's Imran series was old and easy to find. Ishtiaq Ahmed used to have inspector series (Inspector Jamshed, Inspector Kamran, Shawki). Suspense, detective and history were the top in the magazines followed by Sub-Ring, New Horizons etc. Women's magazines had Shuwa, Khawateen and a few others. Among the cricket magazines, Cricketer and Akhbar Watan were the most popular. The weekly Akhbar e Jahan was and there was a special Chitrali magazine. Novel literature and translations were apart of them.
All these were rented at four annas, eight annas and one rupee per day and I used to read them all in a whole month. Two or three were read a day. Sometimes, if there was no money for rent, we would sit in the library and read. we were so fond of reading magazines that we used to take them with us to school, we used to sit outside while playing cricket and read magazines.
In free time, these stories and characters were commented on and discussed.
Abda Faisalabad