The memorabilia of two engaging autobiographies.

An autobiography is a self-written document intended to review and project its author's life story in such a way as to readily elicit the readers' participation in the 'vanity fair' as a curious viewer, and partaker too. It is customary with men of eminence in different fields of life to pen down their cumulative personal experience of life in the form of a book, at the fagging end of their physical careers. Thus autobiographies of great men serve as a beacon of light for those who succeed them (the posterity) in life's supervening cyclorama. The instant review carries a brief overview of two such publications by three learned writers who have excelled in their professional careers as a bureaucrat, broadcaster and chartered accountant respectively.

'YADAIN':

Shafaat Ahmad Chaudhry is a retired (provincial) civil servant. 'YadaiN' is his second publication after a gap of some twenty-seven years when his first book titled 'Shagufta Shagufta' (a collection of his light-hearted personal essays termed as 'inshaiya' in Urdu) saw the light of day in 1993. In the instant book he has given a graphic account of his life spanning his childhood, adolescence, youth, middle age and now the old age. Being a sportsman, he has always kept himself in a state of physical alacrity by partaking of a wide range of sports activity such as cricket, badminton, and tennis.

The book is neatly arranged into sub-heads spelling out the details of the author's personal experiences which include his views, comments, observations, reflections, and perceptions with regard to the ever-confounding dilemma that life is, for most of us. Incidentally, this scribe happens to know Shafaat Ahmad from very close quarters as an abiding and well- meaning colleague in the provincial civil service and then as a trusted friend in the social fraternity. He is a man of an all-round personality: a capable bureaucrat with a remarkable executive-cum-legal acumen, a popular social figure, a sportsman of high merit, and a litterateur with a keen sense of humour.

Shafaat Ahmad has fully 'exposed' himself in his autobiography in that he has candidly described not only his achievements in the book but also his errors and omissions as a man of the world. His narrative is simple but lucid, couched in a witty conversational style, colloquial though, yet sans any slangs. His tale is a tale of plodding struggle against heavy odds which transformed him into a man of substance both physically and...