THE Karachi Literature Festival (KLF) moved this year in newer directions in a legitimate attempt to keep itself relevant. Social media and even mental health featured prominently and attracted crowds that were apparently beyond the expectations of the organisers, which was evident by the smaller venues allotted to some such sessions.

At the session on social media — ‘Kitabi Chehre Se Facebook Tak: Reading Habits in the Age of TV and Social Media’, it was refreshing to hear a few sane voices on the general complaint about the decline — perceived or otherwise — in reading habits. Foremost among such voices were those of Amjad Islam Amjad and Asghar Nadeem Syed.

Stressing that times keep changing and so do trends, Amjad quoted T.S. Eliot’s famed lines from the ‘Four Quartets’: “Time present and time past / Are both perhaps present in time future”.

“If anything, we should be contemplating even harder instead of wasting time mourning,” Amjad stressed, arguing that societies that simply believe in aping alien influences are bound to suffer. “The West has a definite social structure in which intellectuals have their own space and the public is kept busy with one toy or another. It is a phenomenon that has been properly and intellectually thought out for the larger good of society.”What he said without expressing it in so many words was more critical: societies where even intellectuals keep themselves busy with “one toy or another” end up with unintended consequences.

Syed quoted the example of Iran where, in the wake of the right-wing revolution, there were widespread fears that the clergy would “come down hard on mediums of expression”. After the initial jitters, however, “nothing of the sort happened”. In fact, according to Syed, the government used “a medium like theatre to good effect”.

The crux of Syed’s argument was that if a society is “groomed properly” it has nothing to fear from Facebook and the likes. “I and many others have discovered so many books and movies that we had read or watched years ago, or had simply heard of. Internet is a constructive tool. Individuals and societies stand to take the blame for its destructive influences.”

Zahida Hina and Neelofar Abbasi were also on the panel, and so was Haseena Moin who, quite surprisingly, came up with the least impressive argument. She made all the right noises, but they were ‘right’ for book lovers and, naturally, they don’t need such arguments anyway. One can’t convince social media addicts to “try a book to know what [they] are missing,” is what Haseena kept saying every time she participated in the debate.

Though Amjad was asked to sum up the discussion — and he did — it was Syed who articulated it much more emphatically when he pointed out that if books are under threat today, it is the same threat that theatre may have faced in the wake of cinema, and cinema may have faced at the invention of television.

The session, though conducted rather unprofessionally, was well attended despite the fact that it was early in the morning. The title itself probably struck a chord with the audience as it indicated a fresh approach to something which is but a sign of the times.

Not much different was the case with another session that touched upon the psychological pressures in present-day Karachi. Titled ‘Mental Health in a Troubled City’, the session brought together a cluster of professionals who discussed fear and anxiety in times of terrorism.

Dr Murad Moosa Khan, himself a psychiatrist of repute, conducted the session with absolute professionalism, grace and a sense of occasion, raising all the relevant issues and keeping the tempo just right. It was not always easy as the venue was overflowing with people of all ages. In fact, it was as chaotic as the society that was being discussed by the panellists. It was the moderator who reigned supreme, and the organisers should consider asking him to conduct workshops for all those who moderate various KLF sessions, as most of them end up spoiling the show.

The presence of such a large crowd at the session was but a manifestation of how concerned and alarmed people are. Ironically, one of the key messages hammered in by the panellists — Ayesha Mian, Naeem Sadiq, Saadia Quraishy and Haroon Ahmed — was for people to control their anxiety. They were asked to “circumscribe the threat”, to avoid the pitfall of “making the story bigger than the reality” and to “control parental anxiety” which is only contributing to the phenomenon of “raising a nation of fearful kids”.

It was a pity that the session did not at all explore — or even lack of it — the kind of literature that may help society control its nerves. However, social media did creep into the discussion when virtues of volunteerism and activism were extolled as tools to “move away from the immediate” and develop “a long-term view” of society’s need to regain lost ground.

Virtual reality can’t change ground reality, it was said. “It is like living in a fool’s paradise to believe that the Arab Spring happened just because Egyptians ‘unfriended’ Hosni Mubarak on Facebook,” remarked one panellist.

Twitter and other social media platforms were again mentioned with serious undertones in a session related to the launch of Intizar Husain’s latest offering, Purani Kahaniyan, Nai Dunya.

Husain’s passion for myths and legends is renowned. This book is a collection of 32 tales related to Hindu mythology and while praising his contribution towards salvaging the classics, Masood Ashar, who was on the panel alongside Arshia Sattar and Arfa Syeda Zehra, did raise the point that it might be difficult to attract young readers because of the phraseology used in the text.

Ashar’s point was actually a follow-up act from an earlier session revolving around the selected works of short-story writers Syed Rafiq Hussain and Naiyer Masud where he had shared the stage with Husain. Owing to mismanagement, that session was compressed so much that moderator Ghazi Salahuddin had to use all his skills to make some sense of it in whatever few minutes were available to the panel.

Ashar did well to raise the point again and while the debate, moderated rather well by Kishwar Naheed, was interesting with relevant input from Husain and Zehra, it was Sattar from Bangalore who came up with the most impressive narrative about the link between language and society.“When individuals start expressing themselves within 140 characters,” he said, making a clear reference to Twitter, “they also start thinking in just as many characters. The demand to simplify the language ultimately leads to simplifying the mental process.”

It was — and is — as true as it gets, but on the social scale one would do well to view it in the context established by Amjad and Syed. Things may have been uttered at three different sessions — even more — but the KLF was able to capture well the essence of the debate related to the presence of social media in modern life.