Cover Story
Photography: Shahzaib Ali
We wait all year for the literature festival in Karachi, which is in its seventh year. This year, the Karachi Literature Festival (KLF) brought together authors and scholars from Italy, France, the UK, the US to participate in this festival, apart from a large number of local authors from different parts of Pakistan who came together to exchange views and ideas.
This three-day annual literature festival was a great effort to revive the dying habit of book reading and literary discussion and debate on various topics. And it was heartening to see thousands of people throng to it with their families and friends to listen to experts talk on some extremely interesting topics ranging from politics to music; human rights to comedy; art to literature.
However, it seems that the festival is fast losing its spark - especially this year was a little less exciting than preceding years. There were many great sessions on the agenda, but some of them proved to be more exciting on the schedule than in reality as some were disorganized; others were mismanaged by the organizers or the appointed mediator.
Then two of the crowd pullers of the festival - Indian actors Anupam Kher and Nandita Das - were unable to attend it because Kher had visa issues, and Das had health issues. This was a big disappointment since both of them were to speak at various sessions. Their absence led to last minute changes - some of these changes didn’t gel and left the audience wanting more. However, journalist Barkha Dutt and transgender rights activist Laxmi Narayan Tripauti attended the festival and participated in several sessions.
The local scholars and writers who attended the event included Asghar Nadeem Syed, Arfa Sayeda Zehra, Anwaar Ahmad, Kishwar Naheed, Ghazi Salahuddin, Asif Farrukhi, Framji Minwalla and Wajahat Husain, who were given the UBL Literary Excellence Awards for their contributions in their respective fields.
And all was not lost since the mix of different sessions over the three days of the festival gave variety, although some sessions didn’t seem to be planned properly. One such session was ‘Compressed Tales: Urdu Digests and Digest Writers’ with some good writers and scholars on the panel like Shakeel Adilzada, Haseena Moin, Noor ul Huda Shah and Zaheda Hina.
Scholar and writer Zaheda Hina was the moderator of this panel, a role which was not suited for such an accomplished person. This role could have easily been given to former radio artist and actress Neelofar Abbasi or the younger panellists like author and journalist Mubashir Ali Zaidi.
Hina was quite vocal about her opinion about the others on the panel, as she introduced them - and let’s say she didn’t mince words. Then the panellists Haseena Moin and Noor ul Huda Shah could have been participants on some other more relevant session and their presence was wasted in a session they had no link to.
Haseena Moin even said that she had no idea why she was part of a session on Urdu digests since she had never written for one nor read one. Noor ul Huda also expressed the same thought.
As if this wasn’t enough to put the audience on edge, Zaheda Hina and Neelofar Abbasi exchanged words - albeit politely. Meanwhile, Shakil Adilzada, who was probably the only person who - apart from Zaheda Hina - had any link to Urdu digests, didn’t get to say much in this session.
All this caused many people to leave mid-session.
There were many sessions that were worth attending like ‘The Dilemmas of the Transgender’ in which Indian transgender rights activist, Hindi film actress and Bharatanatyam dancer from Mumbai, India, Laxmi Narayan Tripathi was very open about expressing her opinion, making very strong and relevant points.
She is the first transgender person to represent Asia Pacific in the UN in 2008 and she has authored a book ‘Me Laxmi, Me Hijra’.
Laxmi was also part of the panel in another session on the second day titled ‘Transgender Rights: Are There Any?’ in which she shared the panel with Bindya Rana from Pakistan and Reema Abbasi journalist and author of Historic temples in Pakistan - a call to conscience.
Laxmi made some valid points, especially when she said she found the word ‘she-male’ being used in Pakistan for transgenders which was highly derogatory as it had different connotations. She said that if you search it on the net you will see weird things coming up, some even quite pornographic.
Another Indian was also making her presence felt. Indian journalist Barkha Dutt participated in several sessions in the festival and she was a treat to watch, as she candidly and passionately spoke on various issues.
The launch of her book ‘This Unquiet Land’ at KLF drew a large number of people. She spoke to senior journalist Ghazi Salauddin during this session and was quite vocal about many things in the book and beyond.
Dutt was also on the panel of the interesting session titled ‘Kashmir: The Never ending Conflict’ which also included Jean-Luc Racine, a PhD from Sorbonne University, who is Emeritus CNRS senior fellow at the Centre for South Asian Studies (School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences -EHESS- Paris) and senior fellow at Asia Centre (a Paris based think tank), and Rafique Kathwari. This session was moderated by senior journalist Farhan Bokhari.
‘The White Stripe on the National Flag’ session highlighted the issue of minorities in Pakistan and their rights emphasising the white strip in the Pakistani flag depicting the minorities.
The panel included Pakistani politician and social worker Shaheen Atiq-ur-Rehman; Sono Khangharani - CEO of Hisaar Foundation and a member of the National Commission for Human Development; John O’Brien author and priest hails from Ireland and has been in Pakistan since 1977. He spoke in Urdu - as well as English - to the delight of the audience; French journalist Olivier Truc; journalist and author Reema Abbasi. The session was moderated by social sector consultant Nazish Brohi
Another interesting sessions was the book launch of former foreign minister of Pakistan Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri’s book ‘Neither a Hawk nor a Dove: An Insider’s Account of Pakistan’s Foreign Relations including details of the Kashmir framework’. Kasuri was joined in this session by Barkha Dutt, Dr Ishrat Husain and Najmuddin Shaikh.
The session ‘Idhar Urdu, Udhar Urdu, Kidher Urdu? Urdu in India and Pakistan’ with Arfa Sayeda Zehra and Saif Mahmood was a good one in which the issues that the Urdu language is facing in today’s multilingual world. Arfa pointed out the way Urdu is evolving - if you can call it that - in Pakistan with new words being added and the way they are used.
Different aspects of music were also explored at KLF in the sessions ‘Abhi tu Main Jawan Hoon: A tribute to Malika Pukhraj’ in which her daughter Tahira Syed was a speaker. And ‘Words and Music on the page: 100 years of Musical Literature Publishing’ in which actor, singer and composer Arshad Mahmood, Indian singer, musician, social activist and writer Vidya Shah, Sharif Awan and Malahat Awan talked about how music is being seen and studied now.
But the session of Indian stand-up comic Sanjay Rajoura was probably the best one in KLF in which Sanjay tickled the audience with his exceptional satire. The audience thoroughly enjoyed his sessions, although a handful of people were critical. This did not dampen the comedian’s zeal; in fact, he seemed to be energized by these more with his play on words weaving through stringing one comment beautifully into the other, leaving people smiling.
Pakistan’s stand up comedian Saad Haroon was extremely entertaining and left people in stitches. His repertoire with his Indian counterpart Sanjay was indeed a great mix and a treat to watch.
But the organizers of KLF should make note of the shortcomings that were felt this year and start tying things up weeks before the festival begins; otherwise, last minute cancellations and mismatched panellist leave a bad taste in the mouth.