Lahore Literary Festival

Annam Lod­hi

“With­out lit­er­a­ture, life is hell.” ― Charles Bukows­ki

Lahore, the cul­tur­al cap­i­tal of Pak­istan, is well known for its art, lit­er­a­ture, the­atre and music. A city with a rich his­to­ry of bril­liant writ­ers, includ­ing the great Alla­ma Iqbal him­self. But for sev­er­al years now, Lahore had been yearn­ing for some­thing to quench its love of knowl­edge and lit­er­a­ture. On the 23^rd and 24^th of Feb­ru­ary 2013, this wish was ful­filled.

The Lahore Lit­er­ary Fes­ti­val took place at the Al-Ham­ra Arts Coun­cil, sit­u­at­ed on the Mall Road. The heavy rain didn’t stop the lovers of lit­er­a­ture from show­ing up on the first day of the event. There was a pleas­ant diver­si­ty among the var­i­ous ses­sions that had been orga­nized. But by far the most inspir­ing aspect of the event was the inter­est and par­tic­i­pa­tion of the youth.

“When the rev­o­lu­tion comes they will take your Birkins and turn them into a herd of cows!” — Tariq Ali.

The inau­gur­al ses­sion was con­duct­ed at 9:30 am by Tariq Ali on ‘Pol­i­tics & Cul­ture: Past & Present’. The venue was already swarm­ing with Laho­ris eager for the fes­ti­val to final­ly begin. Tariq Ali, a grad­u­ate from the Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty UK, is a famous writer and com­men­ta­tor with sev­er­al books and BBC doc­u­men­taries to his cred­it. He answered a lot of queries and left the audi­ence keen­ly await­ing the forth­com­ing ses­sions.

The only dis­heart­en­ing part of the event was not being able to attend each ses­sion as each time slot was reserved for three sep­a­rate ses­sions. The crowd remained ener­getic through­out and not once did the num­bers seem to decrease. It seemed as if only more peo­ple kept com­ing till the very end, mak­ing it hard to find places to rest.

I des­per­ate­ly want­ed to attend ‘The Holy War­rior & the Ene­my (1958–2008): Film, News Media and Music in Front­line Pak­istan’ but it was packed up. Instead, I attend­ed ‘Chi­na­man: The Leg­end of Pradeep Math­ew’ with a heavy heart. To my sur­prise how­ev­er, the moment the author and speak­er, She­han Karunati­ta­ka, start­ed talk­ing I was left mes­merised. He spoke of his love for crick­et and his end­less quar­rels with his wife due to his addic­tion, and con­vinced me which book I must read next.

As the ses­sions changed we had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to inter­act with oth­ers in the same quest for knowl­edge. Age didn’t mat­ter and each per­son had a wealth of infor­ma­tion to share with each oth­er. The day was fol­lowed by ses­sions like ‘Glob­al­iza­tion of Pakistan’s Lit­er­a­ture’, ‘Pak­istan: A Mod­ern Coun­try?’ and ‘Polemics of Time & Space’.

I par­tic­u­lar­ly enjoyed ‘The Cour­te­san in Lit­er­a­ture – From Umrao Jaan to Gohar Jan’. The pan­el includ­ed Afzal Ahmed Syed, Mushar­raf Ali Farooqi, Navid Shahzad and Zehra Nigah. They spoke about cour­te­sans, who are dif­fer­ent from pros­ti­tutes; their jour­neys, lifestyle and pur­pos­es. They also dis­cussed cour­te­san roman­ti­cism, weak­ness­es and strengths along with the East­ern appeal of the char­ac­ter as many direc­tors and writ­ers have made them their sub­ject. It intrigued me to such an extent that my imag­i­na­tion float­ed with the poet­ry and the prose that was quot­ed. It was tru­ly heart­felt, help­ing one fall in love with words, mak­ing one think that arrang­ing words in a poet­ic man­ner can make the com­pre­hen­sion of feel­ings so much deep­er.

Intezar Hus­sain: “women poets are lead­ing the revival of Urdu poetry…resistance poet­ry is led by them now.”

The day came to an end with a great mushaira fol­lowed by a kathak per­for­mance that left the audi­ence applaud­ing with joy only to return with the same zeal the next day.

The 24^th of Feb­ru­ary was a bright, sun­ny day that fur­ther lift­ed the spir­its of the fes­ti­val par­tic­i­pants. The day start­ed with ‘Future of Urdu lit­er­a­ture in the Pun­jab’ and ‘Com­mon­wealth, Nation­al­ism, Glob­al­ism: Sto­ry­telling in the 21^st Cen­tu­ry’. Then came Man­to by Ayesha Jalal (his grand­child), who talked about Manto’s writ­ings on par­ti­tion and aspects of human nature. She said: “I real­ly think Man­to has not been trans­lat­ed ade­quate­ly yet.”

Next came ‘How to Get Filthy Rich in Asia’ — a book by Mohsin Hamid. The book’s appeal lies in the fact that it has no names, which serves to widen the scope of the read­er. His ear­li­er book, ‘The Reluc­tant Fun­da­men­tal­ist’, has already been made into a film. He stat­ed: “there are yel­low bal­loons out­side, I wish there were yel­low kites instead”, as he rem­i­nisced about the days when Bas­ant was cel­e­brat­ed with great fer­vor in Lahore. The com­ment was received with heavy sighs and roars of applause from the audi­ence.

‘Beyond the Veil’ by Tehmi­na Dur­rani was yet anoth­er plea­sure to attend, and the queues for this one real­ly did seem to break the record! ‘Beyond the Veil’ is Tehmi­na’s jour­ney through the var­i­ous phas­es of her life.

The author con­fessed “I couldn’t have writ­ten ‘My Feu­dal Lord’ but because of the injus­tice, my real­i­ty was dif­fer­ent to what I was sup­posed to be.” She explained that it was painful to bear the con­se­quences of the book when even her own par­ents dis­owned her for thir­ty years. Talk­ing about the chang­ing times, she said “I find the new gen­er­a­tion very open to my book today, which is a sign of accept­abil­i­ty”.

The ‘Con­ver­sa­tion with Bap­si Sid­hwa’ was indeed the high­light of the fes­ti­val, an hon­our for all who attend­ed it. Lis­ten­ing to her talk so freely about her feel­ings, encour­ag­ing the youth and high­light­ing the pos­i­tives of Pak­istan was heart­en­ing. She read from the book ‘The Crow Eaters’, talked about ‘The Ice Can­dy Man’ (a book based in Lahore), and shared her life jour­ney, love for writ­ing and the sto­ry of how she wrote her first nov­el as a new­ly wed­ded bride.

The fes­ti­val wrapped up with a riv­et­ing per­for­mance by Laal Band and Qiyaas. Every­one danced out all their stress and the emo­tions bot­tled up with­in them. As a great week­end came to an end, there were hopes that the next one would be an even big­ger and bet­ter expe­ri­ence.

As Sir Fran­cis Bacon said “knowl­edge is pow­er”. And with this fes­ti­val, Pak­istan showed that it has a great weapon, which will serve the youth of this coun­try well.

Muham­mad Sabir

Lahore Lit­er­ary Fes­ti­val awak­ens “The City of Sin and Splen­dor” from a Medieval Slum­ber.

In a sea­son of polit­i­cal ral­lies and long march­es towards Islam­abad, accom­pa­nied by long spells of pow­er-cuts, some­thing tru­ly splen­did was need­ed to restore the mood of a city, known for its love affairs with aspir­ing writ­ers, artists and poets. Recent­ly it invit­ed a mix of writ­ers and lit­er­ary giants like Bap­si Sid­hwa, Ahmed Rashid, William Dal­rym­ple and Moham­mad Hanif to a two-day event – the first ever Lahore Lit­er­ary Fes­ti­val. The fes­ti­val attract­ed throngs of stu­dents and book lovers. After Dehli, Mum­bai, Kolkata, Jaipur and Karachi, Laho­ris had been yearn­ing for a fes­ti­val of their own, and as a result they showed up in mas­sive num­bers. Accord­ing to a report in the next day’s Dawn news­pa­per, almost 30,000 peo­ple vis­it­ed the venue in a short peri­od of forty eight hours.

Not very long ago it used to be the time of year when Laho­ris flew kites to cel­e­brate Jashan-e-Baha­ran (Fes­ti­val of Spring). How­ev­er, right-wing ele­ments maneu­vered a ban on Bas­ant in a city whose skies, devoid of col­or­ful kites and pas­sion­ate cit­i­zen­ry atop their hous­es, feels dull and life­less. I am not sure about oth­ers but at least Bap­si Sid­hwa and Pran Nav­ile, nos­tal­gic lovers of ‘The City of Sin and Splen­dor’, must have been over­joyed to vis­it this city; the favorite play­ground of their rich imag­i­na­tion, where their char­ac­ters were nev­er afraid to fall in love. Both of them, lost and febrile mem­bers of a dying gen­er­a­tion, seem always on the look­out for a new way of telling a famil­iar sto­ry about the city they love the most.

On a cloudy day of ear­ly spring, inter­mit­tent­ly punc­tu­at­ed with spells of rain, the audi­ence made their way to the fes­ti­val to enjoy the event like a pic­nic par­ty. Their wish­es were grant­ed when they were offered free umbrel­las with cups of cap­puc­ci­no and stalls full of food offer­ing tra­di­tion­al Lahori cui­sine:  Pathooray, Haleem, Dahi Bhalle and Chick­en Biryani.

The first day opened with jam-packed halls and a keynote speech by Tariq Ali. Known for his crit­i­cal views about the mil­i­tary and politi­cians, he left many dis­ap­point­ed with his out­dat­ed rhetoric. His praise of Imran Khan and the PTI drew great cheers from the crowd.

Next fol­lowed pow­er­ful ses­sions by William Dal­rym­ple, Bap­si Sid­hwa, Pran Nav­ile, Moham­mad Hanif, Tehmi­na Dur­rani and Dr. Ayesha Jal­lal. These writ­ers espe­cial­ly uti­lized the event, tak­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to inter­act with their read­ers, launch their new­ly pub­lished books and offer sev­er­al nec­es­sary and unnec­es­sary read­ings in whichev­er ses­sions they could make it pos­si­ble. On one occa­sion, Declan Walsh, The New York Times’ cor­re­spon­dent to Pak­istan, had to stop Nadeem Aslam because the lat­ter start­ed read­ing a lengthy chap­ter from his new­ly pub­lished nov­el,’ The Blind Man’s Gar­den’, instead of answer­ing a direct ques­tion.

Bap­si Sid­hwa, Intezar Hus­sain and Pran Nav­ile shared a very inter­est­ing ses­sion on Lahore. Time and again they kept fus­ing their mem­o­ries with their writ­ing, and shared their fears and con­cerns about a rapid­ly chang­ing city in whose streets they spent their child­hood.

Tehmi­na Dur­rani’s ses­sion was anoth­er feast. In a hall ful­ly lit up for secu­ri­ty rea­sons, Tehmi­na secret­ly appeared on the stage flanked by stat­ue-like Elite Force com­man­dos.  The famed writer of ‘My Feu­dal Lord’ and ‘Blas­phe­my’ start­ed her ses­sion with Frank Sina­tra’s ‘My Way’. With a back­drop play­ing the slideshow of her pho­tos, books and awards, she touched upon her usu­al theme of mar­i­tal vio­lence in Pak­istan. Dressed in bright col­ors like a new­ly­wed bride, she advised the audi­ence: “The women in my sit­u­a­tion do have a weapon – it is the pen”.

Moham­mad Hanif, the wit­ty and satir­i­cal writer, launched his new book about the miss­ing Baloch and recit­ed his poem, men­tion­ing the plight of the minori­ties, and the oppressed and under­priv­i­leged in a pow­er-crazy coun­try. He expressed his dis­taste about his fre­quent vis­its to lit­er­ary fes­ti­vals in the Sub­con­ti­nent and point­ed out that while in Karachi the fam­i­lies of Baloch miss­ing per­sons asked him about their loved ones, he felt ashamed that instead of doing some­thing to release their rel­a­tives, peo­ple were busy orga­niz­ing lit­er­ary fes­ti­vals.

To make this event all inclu­sive, the admin­is­tra­tors took Arund­hati Roy on video call to share her views with the audi­ence, and the rea­sons behind why she rarely appears at lit­er­ary fes­ti­vals in the emerg­ing cos­mopoli­tans of the Sub­con­ti­nent.

Khur­shid Alam

Lahore, my beloved city, looked more beau­ti­ful than ever before in the pres­ence of so many intel­lec­tu­als, writ­ers, aca­d­e­mics, the­o­rists and poets. The sonorous rhythm of inces­sant rain­fall, whose drops were aware that they were the har­bin­gers of the spring which will soon be here, made the whole sce­nario part of an enchant­ed world.

Laho­ris, oth­er­wise known for their culi­nary habits, were eager to wrest the moments of rare solace and hap­pi­ness. These peo­ple, includ­ing my hum­ble self, had come to drink deep at the foun­tain of knowl­edge. I felt elat­ed at see­ing young boys and girls engaged in healthy dis­cus­sions and ques­tion­ing the most famous writ­ers and thinkers from Pak­istan and around the world. They enjoyed dif­fer­ences of opin­ion and clapped eager­ly when some­thing was said in favour of human­i­ty. This is the real Pak­istan.
Pak­ista­nis are cur­rent­ly engaged in a com­plex strug­gle to define their iden­ti­ty in the con­text of chang­ing glob­al sce­nar­ios. Ayesha Jalal stressed the need for action, as it is high time we made our con­tri­bu­tion towards our moth­er­land. Khaled Ahmed talked about the dis­course of nation­al nar­ra­tives which hap­pen to be a syn­the­sis of sub-nation­al nar­ra­tives that remain sup­pressed in the pres­ence of the col­o­niz­er. He con­tend­ed that once the old­er pow­er arrange­ments give way, the sub-nation­al nar­ra­tives assert them­selves. The writ­ers from India seemed to be open to dis­cus­sion and no more ossi­fied in the grand nar­ra­tives of Par­ti­tion. One thing I strong­ly missed was my friend Dr.Saeed ul Rehman, whose arti­cle on Pak­istani writ­ing in Eng­lish appeared the same day in Dawn. His pres­ence would have made my cup of cof­fee more enjoy­able (although cof­fee does not make peo­ple wise).

Long live my Lahore, my Pak­istan, and long live the world.
(Pub­lished in The Laal­tain — Issue 8)