KARACHI: The second post-lunch session was dedicated to remembering poet Habib Jalib but it took no more than half an hour for it to turn into a heated debate between Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan and Asma Jehangir on the second day of the 6th Karachi Literature Festival at the Beach Luxury Hotel on Saturday. Moderated by Mujahid Barelvi, the session started off with an audio recording of Jalib’s famous poem ‘Dastoor’. Talking about the background to the poem, Mr Ahsan said it was written in response to the 1962 constitution drafted by Manzoor Qadir during the Ayub Khan rule. When Mr Qadir heard the poem he remarked that the constitution could not hold against the young poet’s nazm. Mr Ahsan then narrated the story of a mushaira held in Murree at which a judge, in order to dilute the effect of Jalib’s poetry, schemed to send poet Dilawar Figar to present his poetry before Jalib as Figar’s poems were humorous and no one could steal his thunder. But Jalib came to the podium after Figar and looking at Yahya Khan’s picture (which had succeeded Ayub Khan’s photo) read out the following couplet:

Tum se pehle woh jo ik shakhs yahan takht nasheen tha Us ko bhi apne khuda honay pe itna hi yaqeen tha (The one who was perched on this throne before you Was also under the impression that he was a god)

Ms Jehangir said in terms of compromises (maslahetein) things hadn’t changed because even today the constitution had something to do with the army. She said Jalib wrote in simple language for the common man and pointed out that a poet should have integrity as well as clarity, and Jalib had both. She argued that those who had turned up at the festival owed it to the spirit of people like Jalib to keep on struggling.

At that point Mr Ahsan said the country was in a state of war and our army was fighting the terrorists who were not confined to North Waziristan alone but were attacking cities such as Shikarpur, Karachi, Sukkur and Lahore.

Ms Jehangir interjected saying his argument reminded her of a dictator’s assertion that Islam was in danger, as a result of which the entire country had been militarised.

Mr Ahsan responded that he was not an army supporter; military courts were an instrument of war not an abdication of civilian authority.

Ms Jehangir took issue with the notion and said in her opinion the federal government didn’t have the courage to express its point of view to the army.

The debate was halted by singer Taimur Rehman’s rendition of a Habib Jalib poem, which the musician said was addressed to Maulana Abdul Aziz.

Before that Naveed Shahzad’s conversation with writer and journalist Mohammed Hanif in the hotel’s main garden was also a well-attended programme. Speaking on the genesis of his first novel, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, Hanif said he was investigating who had done a great favour to the country (by killing Gen Zia) because no one seemed to be interested in finding that out. Since no one knew the truth, he thought “make up your own truth”. In response to the query that how difficult it was for him to write, he said he hated writing but liked the idea of being a writer.

In the morning, the first book launched at the 6th Karachi Literature Festival was Where Worlds Collide — Pakistani Fiction in the New Millennium by David Waterman.

Setting the tone for the chitchat, critic Muneeza Shamsie asked the author that what prompted him to write the book. David said his early training was in the field of social psychology which made him interested in the issue of social identity. Later on, he became fascinated with South Asia. Then he had a chance to read a few novels about Pakistan which he thought were ‘great stuff’.

Since the author teaches in France, he realised that while Pakistani fiction in English was being talked about in the United Kingdom and the United States, no one in France was dealing with it. One thing led to another and his book saw the light of day.

David said he was not interested in literary analyses but was into social critique of a work of literature. He stated that contemporary Pakistani fiction was historical fiction inspired by current events. In order to be specific about the chapters in the book, David said he had discussed nine novels penned by the likes of Nadim Aslam, Mohsin Hamid, Kamila Shamsie, H.M. Naqvi, Uzma Aslam Khan and Surraya Khan. He then individually touched upon the novels (The Reluctant Fundamentalist, City by the Sea, The Wasted Vigil, Noor, etc).

The launch of a collection of Urdu short stories titled Koozah compiled by Zahra Sabri had some heartwarming moments as the moderator of the event, Harris Khalique, very thoughtfully invited on stage five (out of 40) writers who were present on the occasion to speak about themselves and their stories.

Earlier, Maniza Naqvi spoke on how the idea for the collection was conceived. She said in the past two years OUP invited entries for short stories in English and after selecting them put them together in book form. But last year they decided that a similar collection of tales in Urdu should be published. More than 700 entries were received of which 40 were chosen for publication.

Harris Khalique reminded the audience of a scholar who had once claimed that nothing worthwhile was being written in Urdu. He said that man was proven wrong as Koozah contained remarkable stories written by relatively unknown writers for some of whom Urdu was their second or third language.

Bilal Tanweer said he was glad that the writers had chosen issues which were related to their lives, unlike some of his LUMS students who wrote stories about people and lands they were not familiar with.

An informative programme on ‘Sindh Afsano Jo Saun Saal’ attracted a good number of people. Hosted by Sahar Imdad, its panelists were Imdad Husaini, Akhlaq Ansari and Manzoor Kohyar. Beginning the discussion, Ms Imdad said the first documented short story in Sindhi dated back to 1854, and till 1890 stories were being written by such known writers as Mirza Qaleech Baig and his brother Mirza Nadir Baig. In the early 20th century there were quite a few magazines and journals (Saraswati, Ratan, Sindhu) which published short pieces in fiction.

Husaini said ever since man descended on earth people had been writing tales. Sindh, too, had a long history of storytelling starting from folk tales and coming down to modernist stories. He mentioned a lot of names of writers who in his view had contributed substantially to Sindhi literature.

Akhlaq said fiction and poetry produced in Sindhi was the most progressive among all of Pakistani literature.

Manzoor said while talking about fiction one mustn’t forget the role of Hindu Sindhi writers. He, however, lamented that globalisation was causing the Sindhi language to lose its efficacy.

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2015

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