Day 2 of the Lahore Literature Festival- Finale

Day 2 of the Lahore Literature Festival- Finale

Bright eyed and bushy tale I woke up to a fabulous sunny Sunday morning; the night before Mohsin & Zahra Hamid hosted a wonderful evening for many of the attending guests of the festival; wasn’t sure how many would be up in time for the first session of Day 2 of the Lahore Literature Festival.

Mohammad Hanif started the day with a very important subject the Missing Stories of the people of Baluchistan. The Human Rights Commission’s I.A Rehman shared the genesis of enrolling Hanif in capturing the stories of those who have been ‘protesting & sitting since 2004’. Missing persons is an inaccurate description of people who have been kidnapped by the state, lets not pretend they have just gotten lost while returning home, Hanif said; In spite of reams of evidence that the security agencies of the state have illegally picked up citizens of Pakistan nothing is done; the idea that Punjab is under some kind of threat by the Baluch is ludicrous and torturing them on top of it serves any purpose is inexplicable. A packed house listen and reflected on a discussion rarely had in public and certainly not on any airwaves as Hanif reminded us. Trying to lighten the atmosphere Hanif recited a satirical Punjabi poem on the nature of the Pakistani army ‘Fauj na Punjabi ,Pathan,Sindhi ya Baloch hai fauj fauj hai’.

Challenging myself I decided to educate myself in Narrative forms in Urdu Fiction and Poetry a session led by Ali Akbar Natiq the talented Urdu short stories write & well known authors Musharraf Farooqi & Khalid Toor.  I learned, the form of the Dastaan   reveals the entire storyline at the very beginning, strangely this doesn’t discourage readers? This form reflects the innate fatalism that exists in our culture and hence knowing the end does not undermine the story. The evolution of the form of Urdu poetry was discussed, the ‘invisible’ narrator slowly emerging as a character over time, subjectivity becoming acceptable in modern Urdu poetry. Natiq’s aim in his work is to simplify ideas and experiences so that everyone one of his readers could relate to the prose rather than use the old grand stylized allegorical language, which few could relate to.

Moving on, the Lahore Literature Festival would have been incomplete without a session on the life and ideas of one of the greatest post partition Urdu writers Sadaat Hasan Manto; Professor Ayesha Jalal spoke about her new book Pity Partition which divides Manto’s world into three parts, stories, memories and partition sketches. Beautifully depicting Manto’s angst his sense of displacement from Bombay, the new state of Pakistan’s harassment and simultaneously the progressive writers branding him a reactionary leaving him little choice but to seek solace in alcohol. Jalal quickly reminds us he never wrote under the influence thankfully! More importantly, although Manto was accused of obscenity by both the colonial and postcolonial regimes and acquitted both times, today’s Pakistan probably would not have acquitted Manto!

Switching gear, I thought I should also check out the Children’s Literature Today session with Beela Jamil, Musharraf Farooqi and Nina Fite (American councilor general in Lahore); great idea to have a session for the children in Lahore. Unfortunately there wasn’t much for children in this session and the younger nieces and nephews I had encouraged to come were quite bored. The session was an exploration of how reading and festivals should also target the young encouraging them to explore the world of ideas. The American council general used it as a platform to advertise various education programs funded by them; teaching English to kids after school. A question from the audience is noteworthy; do the Americans share stories about Pakistani children from Quetta or Lahore, as you promote stories of American children with our kids through your programs? The suave diplomat was gracious in her response given the overt jibe understandable as it maybe.

One of the more pleasant surprises of the Festival and such events reveal from the recesses of our collective memories lost gems; discovering English Pakistani poetry with Ahmed Rashid, Samina Rehman, Navid Shehzad Khalid Ahmed and Henna Babar Ali.  A very emotional tribute to the late Taufiq Rafat considered Pakistan’s greatest English poet; each one of these well known journalist, writer poets read from his work; recalling personal anecdotes of his love of the language, ideas and mentoring them in their journey of discovering the world of writing. Poignantly they shared the difficulty of poets, however talented, today to publish their work. Publishers such as Oxford University Press are not interested in short stories or poetry per se the novel is in fashion. But as they mused these are cyclical  trends and like in their youth the future may see publishers revive an interest in poetry.

I don’t  think I’ve seen such a packed room! William Dalrymple & Ahmed Rashid’s session  Cultures in Conflict had at least 1500 people packed like sardines. The popularity of both these lumineries was probably the reason for such interest rather than Lahoris fascination with Afghanistan, the subject of both these authors new books The Pakistan on the Brink  & Return of the King. Dalrymple in his familiar manner ran through British India Company’s & the Raj’s adventures in Afghanistan during the period of  1839-1842; amazingly the story reads like a contemporary spy thriller shocking in the many parallels we can draw today. Little has been learned from history or perhaps we are destined to make the same mistakes repeatedly?

There were many sessions one couldn’t attend and that is probably the hallmark of a successful event. For a first, all the organizers of the Lahore Literature Festival have a lot to be proud of and one looks forward to this becoming a permanent fixture in our annual calendar. Even more encouraging if this would also pave the way for the other metros to consider hosting similar literary festivals.