Daily Times

No one does it better than Lahore. Give it a chance, it will dazzle you with its abundance of spirit, love for all things good, responsiveness to new ideas, heartfelt nostalgia for the old, craving for stimulation of the mind and appreciation of the splendid. The three days of the literary festival displayed all that and more in a multi-hued plethora — a big shout-out to Lahore, followed by another one to the organisers of the literary extravaganza.

For a book-lover like me, it was like being an entertainment-starved country child who was given a three-day, full-access-to-all-rides pass at Disneyland, the real one in Orlando, and high on too much candy. The Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) was held from February 21 to 23 at the Alhamra Art Centre. The sessions started on time and the volunteers — countless, very gracious, very attentive teenagers — ensured people were ushered in and stopped, with apologetic smiles, when there was no place to usher them into. Punctuality was strictly enforced to the dismay of many of the page three used-to-being-fashionably-late-self-pronounced social celebrities. The days were gloriously Lahori: breezy, nippy, sunny, occasionally overcast, with a dimly lit sky shadowing the red-bricked edifice of Alhamra. The audience was varied, of all shapes, sizes, ages, backgrounds, tastes, and all had one thing in common: very obvious delight at being at the LLF.

There were three days, four auditoriums, 65 sessions, 135 guests and dozens of moderators, with four sessions going on simultaneously. Yes, I made sure my boots were flat-heeled (fashionably so), and my recent aerobics sessions made my dash from one hall to another (mercifully) easy without me gasping for breath, but my book-loving soul was at a crossroads. This session or that session was my perpetual to-be-or-not-to-be, but instead of resorting to Eenie Meenie Minie Moe, I stopped wishing to be in four different places at one time, and became a tad more dignified about my movement. Regretting missing many, I focused on the ones I wanted to attend the most, and what a delightful time I had the three days I attended the LLF 2014.

The first day started with cannot-miss-any-session childish enthusiasm. The first session I attended was with the soft-spoken, very popular Vikram Seth, of A Suitable Boy and An Equal Music, with an equally soft-spoken Nasreen Rehman. Seth talked about his books, his family’s stories mixing with some of his, and the audience loved him. Not very impressed with my greed to gulp all I could without enjoying anything in full, inwardly scolding myself, I found a place in the second hall where the very impressive panel of F S Aijazuddi, Aitzaz Ahsan, Pran Neville, Khaled Ahmed, moderated by Majeed Sheikh was almost over. The subject was what the title of my article (almost) is. All of us Lahorites think there is no city like Lahore when it comes to the nurturing and appreciation of all forms of art, at least this side of the world. Then I dashed to the Karachi session with the writers Saba Imtiaz (whose book Karachi, You are Killing Me has created quite a buzz), Bilal Tanweer (The Scatter Here is Too Great) and Omar Shahid Hamid (The Prisoner) in conversation with H M Naqvi (Homeboy) about the backdrop of their novels, the nostalgia about the Karachi of yore, and their undisguised love for Karachi.

As I met, hugged and helloed many friends, acquaintances and even strangers, I had some water, exhaled and accompanied by this or that friend, I managed to finally pace my homage to literature. Listening to Zia Mohyeddin was a joy; he recited poetry, anecdoted and joked, and, rolling-his-eyes at the stereotypical recitation of poetry, he reiterated once again why he is one of a kind when it comes to making Urdu poetry enlivened when the recitation is his. Zehra Nigah, the incomparable artist of words, was the moderator.

Listening to Vali Nasr, one of the voices I admire from the US on the region I live connected to — the Middle East — on the ifs, whats, buts, hows of the US policy here, there and everywhere, in conversation with one of our most noted historians Ayesha Jalal, I was struck by one thought: phew, the US is sure doing a lot of explaining everywhere, if the sole superpower is being questioned as The Dispensable Nation. This is the title of Nasr’s new book, which he signed for many, as he posed for several pictures, and answered all sorts of questions with a very gracious smile.

The evening ended with a performance by the magnificent Naheed Siddiqi. And what a visual treat that was. Siddiqui’s katthak transposed the cold evening into an exquisite realm as Lahore sat rapt, enthralled, mesmerised. I had unshed tears in my eyes as I watched her stand in one place, her movements embodying a world within them — fluid, airy, expressive, expansive. With the slightest of motions she displayed a variation of emotions that required no words and no translator. Lahore’s very emphatic response to her beautiful dance performance was the clear sign of how works of art transcend all cultural and traditional taboos, uniting people in their appreciation of the universality of beauty that exists sans borders.

My second day started with Vikram Seth’s session with Ahmed Fareed who talked about prose, poetry, music and their subliminal and obvious links to the worlds around us. Seth, as always, was treated like a celebrity — of the literary kind — by the gushing crowd.

I just finished reading Ahmed Rashid’s riveting, chilling account of many entities’ Descent into Chaos, and Taliban (books my erudite editor told me to read ages ago; sorry, you know what a slow learner I am). And who better to talk about Afghanistan than Rashid in Pakistan today with the US writer, academic (John Hopkins University), former US Special Representative to Pak-Afghanistan, the brilliant Vali Nasr. The discussion was enlightening and depressing in its depiction of the status quo of the chaos in Afghanistan.

Mira Nair and Mohsin Hamid, the director-writer team of the internationally acclaimed book-turned-into-movie The Reluctant Fundamentalist talked to Rachel Dwyer about how the staid book delicately, thoughtfully and delightfully turned into a very fine movie, with the inclusion of stuff that made it more Pakistani, more relevant today.

Then came Jugnu Mohsin with Ali Aftab to discuss her very politically incorrect satirical pieces in The Friday Times, which have targeted many big political names, ribbing them mercilessly (albeit well-intentioned, in the words of the satirist) on the very seriousness with which they take themselves, without fooling anyone. Mohsin is a super mimic; that I found out that day, and boy, oh, boy, did she bring the house down or not. Her imitation of Benazir Bhutto was spot-on, and the stories she told had everyone in splits. Her imitations and tales of how Nawaz Sharif took ages to accept that satire was only on ‘important leaders’, how Imran Khan shrugged all her ‘Howzzats’ with a ‘oh-yaar’, and why she has never satirised the good old Altaf Hussain were a fun-filled loss for all who missed the session.

One of the best sessions was on Afghanistan’s very precarious situation with my former editor Rashed Rahman. There was the former foreign minister, the very lovely, the very dynamic Hina Rabbani Khar, the very accomplished former Pakistan ambassador to the US, Maleeha Lodhi, and my two latest favourite writers: Vali Nasr and Ahmed Rashid. No punches pulled, the talk covered it all: the ‘coulda-shoulda-woulda’ of the Pakistan-US-Afghanistan narratives since 9/11 happened, and the world saw the war on terror being unleashed. The discussion was tightly moderated by Rahman, ensuring all the panelists stuck to the topic instead of going off on their own tangents. You have no idea how big a possibility that is when the panel consists of none but brilliant people.

(To be continued)

The writer can be reached at mehrt2000@gmail.com, and on twitter at @MehrTarar