KARACHI: With talks, discussions, book launches, theatre and stage show, Lightstone Publishers’ second Adab Festival of the year, this one a day-long affair, offered plenty to satiate arty and literary appetites at Habitt City on Sunday.

The day started with entertainment and Khaled Anam of Grips Theatre presenting the play Unfit Dunya Meray Agay in the open-air Arena. It also concluded with more entertainment in the form of Anwar Maqsood Show also staged at Arena, which stole most of the audience from Omar Shahid Hamid’s book launch, happening simultaneously in the City Talks auditorium.

The book, The Election, a political satire, generated a very interesting discussion among the author Omar Shahid, Safinah Danish Elahi and Taha Kehar.

The Election, a very timely publication, is about the rise of two populist and fictitious leaders, one in the United States and one in the Pakistan. One named Ron Diamond and the other Javed Afridi. “I have been a political junkie of US elections. I can give you random details on it,” beamed Omar, while adding that he was hoping, given the timing of his book’s launch, that Donald Trump would win in the recent elections. “If he had lost, my book’s sales would have gone down,” he smiled.

Omar explained that the genesis for his book came from a news clip which showed former prime minister Imran Khan and former US president and current president-elect Trump having a one-on-one discussion during Khan’s visit to the US. “They were both icons of the 1980 and 1990s. Neither was a pure politician. So I was sure they were not discussing politics during their meeting but perhaps talking about the women they dated during their heyday,” he said.

Some sessions at this Adab Festival were delayed to the frustration of the audience, some speakers didn’t show up and some sessions didn’t happen at all while some refused to end in the time and turned boring.

One example of this was ‘The Story of Karachi’ session, where Ali K. Chishti, the author of the unpublished book by the same name as the session, took up most of time while alarming the audience with arguable claims, especially the one about “all NGOs in Karachi serving the lone purpose of turning black money to white”. That claim was challenged by author Rehana Alam, present among the audience, making Chishti admit that he may have exaggerated by saying that all NGOs were involved in black deeds.

The session on Nasr, Nazm, Aur Naya Daur fell victim to bad management when it started half an hour late only to run into microphone issues. Then Imrana Maqsood decided to read from her book of memoirs, forgetting to stop. And all that with the microphone away from her and no one caring to place it before her. The most important person on the panel, Dr Syed Jaffar Ahmed, only got a chance to speak after she was politely asked to stop by the moderator.

“Many new poets lack depth as their verse is written for social media. This kind of poetry will pass soon,” Dr Ahmed predicted. He also advised the new generation of poets to study old poetry by greats such as Allama Iqbal or Faiz Ahmed Faiz. “Their poetry is our heritage. To say something new you need to know the old, too,” he pointed out.

Perhaps the most interesting of sessions, with jam-packed audience, who also blocked the entrance of the City Talks auditorium and even stood watching from the Habitt City escalator, which then had to be turned off, was ‘Sindh’s Sufi Soul’, a discussion about Sufi poetry and folk songs with Saif Samejo and Dr Sahar Gul as the two guest and writer Noorul Huda Shah as the moderator.

“Classical poets of the likes of Bulleh Shah, Khwaja Ghulam Farid, Sachal Sarmast and Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai have been covered in a green shrouds and chadors as they are seen as good for nothing but prayers,” said Noorul Huda Shah. “But if you read their poetry, you will see that they speak of land and its people. In the case of Bhittai, well, he has kept his people awake through his poetry.”

Feminism took focus at this Adab Festival through Maria Memon’s discussion with Aisha Sarwari, the author of Heart Tantrums: A Feminist’s Memoir on Misogyny and Marriage. “Women in our country are advised to not laugh too loud and not cry openly as they should not make themselves too prominent. I did all that in my book therefore I may be seen as shameless,” said Aisha Sarwari.

The discussion on feminism continued in the session about the book The Path I Made by Dr Tasnim Ahsan, which is another memoir by a well-known endocrinologist and internist, who has the honour of being the first woman executive director of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre. She spoke about how somehow she would find herself blamed for things she was not even involved with.

The day unfolded more thought-provoking sessions including former finance minister Miftah Ismail in conversation with Omayr Aziz Saiyid on economics and governance, a gripping talk on ‘Jinnah’s Vision Revisited: Pakistan at 77’ and a panel featuring educationists for the ‘Educating Pakistan Success Stories and Best Practices’ session.

Earlier, the inauguration ceremony featured inspiring speeches by Ameena Saiyid, Munis Abdullah, Shoaib Arshad and Abad Festival partners. The coveted Adab Festival/Infaq Foundation Literary Awards for Urdu, Sindhi and English literary works, recognising the best in each language, was also a part of the ceremony.

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2024