The Karachi Literature Festival is a strange beast, a sort of griffin of topics to celebrate, all mashed up under one giant umbrella. For the sake of perspective, it’s probably just a slight bit more mixed up than the metaphor in the preceding sentence. But, in the interests of integrity and fairness, let me be honest: what I got of the Karachi Literature Festival was a mere sampling... a taster of what the festival had to offer as a whole. Set across two days at the Carlton Hotel in Karachi, the festival comprised hour-long sessions, starting at 10 in the morning, and running well past sunset.

The KLF was an astounding melange of characters and personalities, and its slightly schizophrenic nature should probably not have come as a surprise, given that it brought together the likes of Hanif Kureishi, Vikram Seth, Siddhartha Deb, Shobhaa De, and Pervez Hoodbhoy, not to mention a whole slew of writers, actors, dancers, musicians and assorted personalities under one roof (and a disconcertingly undulating white tent).

There were four to five “panels” (although how two people talking to each other can be considered a panel of any sort is still something of a mystery), held in five separate venues across the course of the day. The passageways between the separate locations were dotted with open-air book-stalls, tea counters, and giant puppets. On the (many) occasions when sessions started late, a veritable sea of humanity would surge from one location to the next like a human tidal wave, fragmenting only on the rocks of stalls, ornamental statuary and the occasional furtive toddler standing torn between fascination and horror at the Rafi Peer Workshop creations making friendly overtures.

There is no questioning the amount of time and commitment that has gone into the KLF, especially this year. Even taking people like Hanif Kureishi and Vikram Seth out of the equation, it is no small feat to convince individuals like Anatol Lieven, Mohsin Hamid and Kamila Shamsie to attend from overseas. While other writers did not necessarily make sense (e.g. the panel on contemporary Pakistan fiction included Mohsin Hamid, Shehryar Fazli and H.M. Naqvi, along with unknown first-time author, Ayesha Salman), the heavyweights were out in full force, and the KLF organisers are to be commended for their efforts in getting people to attend. Certain luminaries clearly drew bigger crowds than the others: Mohammed Hanif, Anatol Lieven and the duo of Ali Aftab Saeed and Saad Haroon (of the “Satire/Comedy” panel) vastly outnumbered the other participants, which is probably a sign for the festival organisers’ future reference.

That said, there were some serious issues with the KLF. As a venue, the Carlton Hotel is positively dingy; it was no surprise to sit in the venue and hear Kureishi describe Karachi as “run-down”, despite the umbrage many audience members took with his comment. With mediocre facilities and a layout plan that is positively labyrinthine in its complexity, it was all-too-common to see knots of people twisting maps upside down and squinting frantically at the names of halls to understand where they were supposed to be. Many of the panels also suffered from a combination of excessively enthusiastic moderators (who seemed far more interested in pushing their own viewpoints) and a lack of decent sound facilities (the sessions in one room were practically inaudible).

The selection of moderators and participants in the festival also led to frequent bouts of cognitive dissonance. The panel on “Pakistani Contemporary Fiction Writings” was less a panel, and more of an author reading, which took most of the charm out of actually getting to interact with Pakistani writers, while the session on “Literary Criticism” seemed to not be able to quite make up its mind as to whether it was meant to address reviews, criticism, or some arcane combination of the two.

This is not intended as sniping. The fact is that it takes a huge amount of effort and energy to organise such a complex endeavour. It might behove the organisers to, in the future, perhaps spend a little extra time on training their ushers and on ensuring that sessions were run on time, rather than rescheduled somewhat arbitrarily. As a visitor from Lahore said to me while trying to prevent someone from spilling biryani all over her extremely tasteful shoes: “Great idea, terrible execution... and don’t even get me started on the loos.” The first, very true. The second, some qualifiers needed. The third? Most definitely.