LAHORE: Several books were launched on Saturday – the second day of the Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) – at Alhamra.

The books included the one about short stories on various uses of veil that the author said is not necessarily worn to show piety.

Hijabistan is written by Sabyn Javeri and the session in which it was launched was conducted by Maha Khan Philips.

Ms Javeri said she was inspired by a book written before 1947 about a woman who visits Delhi for the first time in her life in 1930. Wearing burqah, she is left alone with the luggage by her husband for some time, and she realizes that she is more harassed than the women without any veil.

She said her short stories describe different women who wear or are made to wear veil not for piety but for many other reasons. The author who is a university teacher in Karachi also quoted some of her students who said they wore veil for social mobility. “Veiling is just for veiling us,” she said.

She said she knew a kleptomaniac woman who would wear burqah for stealing. “Burqah doesn’t define the identity. It is for oppression. Women wear veils for different reasons and it has very little to do with piety.”

She said hijab (headscarf) has replaced burqah because it is used as a political symbol. Burqah had its roots in Afghanistan or Lucknow. Hijab had Saudi Arabian connotation and is used to establish the users’ identity as a Muslim.

Explaining her writing, she said stories were more impressive than simple news reports. “The news reports indicate figures of war and stories (fiction) highlight the human experiences of it,” she said.

The second book, a novel, “Unmarriageable – Pride and Prejudice in Pakistan” is written by Soniah Kamal. Syma Aslam moderated the session of its launching.

Her work is inspired by Jane Austen’s novel in which she mentions five girls of a family who are not married. Her novel has almost the same story but has a Pakistani perspective. “It has a local plot written in a foreign language (English),” she said.

The third book, again a novel “The Selected Works of Abdullah the Cossack” is written by H M Naqvi. Ms Nasreen Rehman moderated the session in which it was launched and applauded. Author and poet Christopher Merril threw light on different aspects of the novel.

Mr Naqvi’s is an enthralling novel about one larger than life but gloriously unaccomplished man, his quest for meaning, and his attempt to impose himself upon the history of the bustling city.

He read some portions of his novel which Mr Merrill said had gone deep down into the history of Karachi, its moods and character.

Responding, he said Karachi which has a short history as compared to Lahore, is considered a city of Urdu-speaking people. Basically it was a city of Parsi, Bohri and Khoja people. By the turn of the last century, its municipality was inhabited mostly by Parsis. The English rulers banned a Parsi from buying property because he already owned half of the city’s real estate. Goans were musicians, administrators and police officers.

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2019