KARACHI: Encouraging literature, culture and educational bustle is the only way out and antidote to the unrelenting terrorism, extremism and intolerance in society, said poet and educationist Dr Pirzada Qasim Raza Siddiqui on Sunday at the concluding day of the first literature festival for healthcare professionals.

`Promotion of Pakistan`s soft image in the world is not possible without promoting literary, cultural and educational activities such as book fairs and festivals,` said Dr Siddiqui at the event organised by the Jahab-i-Maseeha Adabi Forum at the Pavilion End Club in Gulshan-iIqbal.

Dr Siddiqui said the festival was such a treat that all those doctors and people who could not attend it would regret not visiting it after learning what it had. He said he was not expecting that doctors and their families in such a large numbers would turn up at the festival.

Senior physicians and doctors who visited the festival suggested that literature and humanities subjects should be included in the medicalcurriculainPakistan,sayingliterature andnonmedical subjects would help doctors and physicians to understand human behaviour and psychology and deal with them compassionately.

`Doctors have effectively turned into machines and are behaving mechanically these days. Reading literature, non-medical books and subjects would improve their relationship with patients and their attendants and enable them to savour the magical taste of books that no medicine can hold,` Prof Ejaz Vohra said.

Organisers said more than 2,000 physicians and health experts visited the fair with their families and purchased books worth tens of thousands of rupees during the two-day literary activity.

Prof Siddiqui said he had seen senior professors and physicians `enjoying themselves like children` after finding their favourite books under one roof. He asked other organisations and literary forums to follow suit and hold such activities at regular intervals.

Prof Sahar Ansari praised the organisers for such a `successful` literary activity, saying it seemed Karachi was regaining its lost glory because of peace and tranquility.

Felicitating the organizers, he hoped that more such literature festivals would be held for Karachiites in the near future.

Organisers said general physicians, medical consultants, paediatricians, gynaecologists,orthopaedics, pulmonologists and experts from other medical specialties visited the book fair with their children.

Orthopaedic surgeon of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre Dr Anisuddin Bhatti said he was glad to see doctors connecting with literature, selecting and purchasing books, saying it was heartening to see people still showed interest in printed form of knowledge instead of computers and tablets.

`Books give us knowledge that lasts forever, while words and images seen on electronic screens vanish immediately. Books are best friends of human beings and would last long.

He urged other organisations to revive the diminishing tradition of book fairs for all strata of society that had been a norm in Karachi decades earlier.

Dr Bhatti said instead of gifts and arranging tours for doctors, pharmaceutical companies should `also provide latest books, journals and [resources of] research to doctors` so that they couldlearnlatesttechniquesin the ñelds ofsurgery and medicine.

Organisers said literature festival for doctors and their families was organised because that segment of society hardly found time to visit bookshops, go to libraries and take their children topurchase books.

`It was a successful event that encourages us to hold it again next year,` said an organiser.