Short story writer, poet and academic Zubair Ahmad`s book `Kabootar, Banairay Tey Galian` remained a runner-up in Dhahan International Literature Punjabi Prize.

The award was launched by Barj S. Dhahan, a Canada-based businessman who was born in Punjab but moved to Canada in 1967. The prize will be awarded by his organisation -Canada India Education Society (CIES) in partnership with the University of British Columbia.

The prize was launched in Lahore in November 2013 and is being given to Punjabi books written in two scripts, Shahmukhi and Gurmukhi.

Avtar Singh Billing`s novel `Khali Khoohan Di Katha` won thefirst prize worth 25,000 Canadian dollars. Zubair Ahmed remained runner-up in Shahmukhi, winning 5,000 Canadian dollars along with `Elc Raat Da Samunder`, a collection of short stories by Jasbir Bhullar.

Announcing the prize, the jury said, `An important theme of Zubair`s stories is time; how it changes or transforms things, making the alive dead and the dead alive. But being a fiction writer, he does not conceive of time in abstraction. Rather we see time in terms of its effects, the pervasive marks it leaves on all aspects of life, both individual and collective.

`In his stories the forgotten past appears as a l
Nostalgia evokes dreams and dreams beget nostalgia.

Sensitively constructed stories with artistic care reveal what welive with at both a conscious and sub-conscious level, connected to a past we thinl< we have lost, and disconnected from a future we have yet to understand.

It is rather strange that Zubair Ahmad, an assistant professor of English at Islamia College, finds his voice in Punjabi which shows his commitment towards his mother tongue. The first collection of his poetry `Dam Yad Nah Keeta` was published in 1996. Another poetry collection by him `Sadd` came out in print in 2012. But it is his short stories that are more close to his heart.

He says he is a `timid poet` and his short stories got more popular among the readers, overshadowing his poetry. So far he has published two short-story collections, the first, `Meenh, Boohey tey Barian` was published in 2001 while `Kabootar, Banairey Tey Galian` first came in Gurmukhi in India in 2008 and then in Shahmukhi in Lahore this year.

Zubair spent his childhood andyouth in Krishan Nagar area of Lahore and he could never forget the place and its magical aura. The title story of his collection `Kabootar, Banairay Te Galian` is based on his own home and its pigeonhole.

Talking about his short story, he says it is based on commitment and betrayal, commitment by the poor and betrayal by the rich, and property owning class. Kabootar devoured by the cat are symbols of people, rooftops in the story represent fleeting time.

Zubair says every writer has his locale where he finds enough space to weave his stories and his locale is the place of his childhood and youth. He says his nostalgia is not escape from the present rather his stories are based more on stream of consciousness as he builds up a tension in the story or a kind of problem and goes in the past to find its causes and ultimate solution.

Zubair will travel to Canada to receive the prize on Oct 25.