LAHORE: The session on “Keeping the Living Heritage Alive” discussed heritage, the role of museums and storytelling (Dastaan Goi) at the 7th Faiz Festival on Saturday.

With Salima Hashmi, Danish Husain, and Atul Tiwari as panelists and Mahtab Rashdi as moderator, the session had a lively discussion.

Indian film writer and actor Atul Tiwari opened the discussion with a slight disagreement with the topic of the session, saying that ‘heritage is never dead’.

“Some Indians believe that some parts of heritage, such as Babri Masjid, do not belong to India and thus are dead heritage,” he said and went on to explain tangible heritage (such as archaeological sites, historical monuments, artefacts, and objects), and intangible heritage (traditions, performing arts, social customs, religious observances, knowledge, and customs). He, however, said values could not be touched, but they were still concrete.

Mr Tiwari termed museums effective instruments for preserving the legacy. While he has no formal training as a curator or as an archaeologist, he has experimented in the world of museums. His museums don’t contain a lot of artwork, antiquities, or photos. His Mahatma Gandhi Museum, known as ‘Dandi Kutir’ is a singular experience that practically transports you on the Mahatma’s tour through India with the use of multimedia.

Artist and educationist Salima Hashmi said with 1,000 years old history, heritage could have many shapes and lives and we could make it dead or alive.

She said every generation faced the million-dollar question regarding passing on the values to the next generation. She said Faiz’ poetry had all values and inspired revolution and the Faiz Amn Mela in the Zia regime was a means to show dissent. Her mother Alys Faiz used to preserve Faiz’s relics, saying that someday the nation would take them as heritage.

Ms Hashmi said written history could be manipulated and distorted but the course of history could be put on the right track by preserving values and heritage.

Danish Hussain, an actor, poet, storyteller and theatre director, said when preserving heritage, we should be candid about one thing that ‘there is nothing fixed and pure’. He stressed the need for conscious efforts to preserve the values and words facing extinction. He sees Dastaangoi (storytelling) was the best means to revive the words on the verge of extinction. “If languages disappear from public memory, that’s a huge loss.”

The session was moderated by Mehtab Rashdi.

CHILDREN LITERATURE: A handful of adults, many of them parents and teachers, turned up at the session on “Contemporary Trends in the Literature for Children” which had Rakhshanda Naveed, Basarat Kazim and Musharaf Ali Farooqi as the panelists.

Syed Basarat Kazmi, the founder of the Alif Laila Book Bus Society, said, ‘in the age of digital gadgets when a child holds a book in their hand, it opens up windows as well as brings a mirror to them’.

“A book provides a portal to the world of imagination and functions as a mirror in which the kid sees their reflection,” she said, urged the people to keep buying books and keep giving them to youngsters.

To the question which storybooks should be given to children, she added, “We must satisfy the needs of children. This is the age of stories that speak for themselves. Moral-laden stories must be changed. Give them picture books because pictures are worth thousands of words; additionally, we believe there is a scarcity of such books that can make children smile and laugh”.

Writer and translator Musharraf Ali Farooqi has worked with public as well as private schools to promote reading among children. He termed it hard to write for children being a demanding craft.

“The writer has to think like a child while writing for children,” he said.

He added that he had held hundreds of storytelling sessions in the public schools and found storytelling to be an effective way to promote reading habits among children.

“We need to make storytelling interesting for children. When a teacher tells a story, they’re more concerned about discipline; teachers should allow children to tell stories to their peers and groups,” he stressed.

He said interactive storytelling sessions should be promoted in classrooms as they not only keep the children engaged but also promote their participation level in classrooms.

Poet and broadcaster Rakhshanda Naveed has taken it upon herself to tell children’s stories digitally. She said she was contacted by a broadcasting company to record 150 stories. While doing so, she discovered that she was a story writer.

“If writing for children is a demanding craft, storytelling is a demanding performing art. It involves facial expression, acting, and imitating.”

She said storytelling could be promoted if famous personalities, such as cricketers, actors, and other familiar faces, also read out stories to children.

A representative of a non-government organization explained their public school library projects.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2023