Zaman`s `voices of reason` and Samina`s poems.

ZAMAN Khan, a well-known writer, columnist and rights activist, is the person you are sure to bump into at every rally or public demonstration or seminar that has something significant to do with people`s welfare. His continuing involvement with democratic and humanitarian causesis an expression ofhis passion for public life. His active presence at our socio-cultural landscape demonstrates his firm commitment to improving the quality ofsocio-politicalculture.

`Alternative Vision`, his latest book published by Badalti Dunya Publications, Islamabad, carries 67 interviews, some short and some long, of public figures, scholars, intellectuals and artists who in various ways have enriched our life. He has divided his voluminous book into segments and placed the interview-ees under three categories; art and literature, history and rights/ peace /politics.

In his introduction Mr. I A.

Rehman who needs no introduction calls the bool(`a treasury of free voices` and writes; `Zaman Khan does not deny the horrible reality faced by the people across the globe but instead of taking refuge in pessimism or stepping aside in a cynic`s robe, he discusses all human concerns with whosoever is accessible to him from within his society or the foreign celebrities he can access .

In the first segment some of the prominent names we find are Amrita Pritam, Abdullah Husein, Afzal Ahsan Randhawa, Ibrahim Joyo, Intizar Husain, Kishwar Naheed, Shams Ur Rehman Farugi, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Dr. Manzur Ejaz.

The second segment which focuses on history and related issue is really very impressive asit carries the conversations of some of the heavy weights of the field such as Professor RomilaThapar, K.K. Aziz, Hamza Alvi, Harbans Mukhla, Ishtiaq Ahmed and Sucheta Mahajan.

In the last segment that deals with rights, peace and politics we come across Mirza Muhammad Ibrahim, Asma Jahagir, Sher Muhammad Mari, Namboodripad, Latif Afridi, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Begum NasimWali Khan, and Tariq Ali.

Most of the men and women interviewed are left of the centre and stand for people`s rights in the globalised contemporary society beset with myriad problems which seem intractable in the face of inequitable politicoeconomic and socio-cultural structures inherited from the past which hangs around our neck like an albatross. They have diagnoses of our present illsand a blueprint for a future which could be less oppressive and repressive. They in a way represent an...