The Karachi Lit Festival 2012

Posted on: October 21, 2012

The Karachi Lit Festival 2012

Previously published in The Herald magazine. 

‘Where’s the novelty?’ asked one festival attendee, questioning the many familiar faces and familiar topics that were scattered throughout the Karachi Literature Festival 2012 programme. While this may have been a valid question, especially in regards to certain sessions on politics, there was no denying the palpable excitement around the foreign writers who were present – Vikram Seth, Hanif Kureishi, Shobha De, William Darymple and Anatol Leiven were names talked about a great deal during the two day event, which managed to squeeze in over 50 different sessions from conversations with the above writers, to discussions on poetry in regional languages. This year session was bigger than last years in every way – but was it better? Leaving aside myriad logistic issues with the random maze like set up of the Carlton and the abysmal audio in some of the rooms, the audience at the festival generally seemed thrilled to be there. There were over an estimated 10,000 people in attendance and Liberty books claims to have sold over a thousand books alone – so it’s safe to say that this is all a step in the right direction. Of course, there is always so much more room for improvement and it’s not always a matter of funds or logistics when sometimes all you need to remember is that everyone – yes everyone – likes to have a bit of fun.

As varied and as packed as the KLFs two day schedule was, it must be said that it was fairly unimaginative. With the standard discussions on AfPak politics, the usual discussions on how no one reads Urdu classics anymore, only one session dedicated to contemporary fiction, a banal session on women writers (to paraphrase Shobha De – why ghettoize female writers?) and a completely random panel on Pakistan’s nuclear policies, there was a wealth of fun that could have been had with just those who were present – if only the organizers had chosen to be a little more savvy to their time. For instance, the session on the psychological effects of wars, insurgencies, and terrorism could easily have been about literature. Writers like Mohsin Hamid and H.M.Naqvi have both   been nominated for and won awards for books written about the effects of 9/11, and there’s just no denying the impact of the ‘war on terror’ on world literature following 9/11. 

The KLF’s choice of moderators remains confusing even in its third year. Other than very few who managed their sessions well and with aplomb (mostly, their last names were Shamsie), there was a singular lack of moderators who understood what their jobs really were – in fact, many seemed to have their own points to prove, although sometimes it remained uncertain what these points were. Many times the panelists themselves attempted to steer the conversation to what they thought would be more palatable to a festival audience – most of whom aren’t there to hear a detailed critique about a certain book, but to connect with the writer at a certain level that simply reading a book does not provide. The charming Vikram Seth, for example, tried very hard to make the conversation candid and personal, but was repeatedly questioned about metre, rhythm and rhyme by Shaista Sirajuddin – topics that only a poetics class would be interested in. Even Ayesha Siddiqa, whom very many attendees were looking forward to seeing, seemed rather aggressive towards Anatol Leiven, nitpicking on aspects of his book that she personally didn’t agree with, with an attitude perhaps more suited to a confrontational Hard Talk interview. Both the engaging William Darymple and the brooding Hanif Kureishi were lucky enough to be on stage with Kamila and Muneeza Shamsie, respectively, and so both sessions were easy on the ears and fun. Being able to ask the right question isn’t always as easy as it seems – there may even be those who are die hard fans and find the moderator asking questions that don’t probe into the work enough, but these are rare to find. Most of Hanif Kureishi’s audience, for instance, was probably not familiar with all of his work, and so Muneeza Shamsie’s deliberately straightforward questions about Kureishi’s work in various genres made certain that the conversation acted as a good introduction to the writer for those new to his books. 

Amongst the festival goers, there were many comments about how many moderators and panelists had been heard from repeatedly over the last few years and how there was a dire need for more energetic, youthful people on stage.The most fun, for those who were lucky enough to attend it, was the session on satire, which was the perfect mix of wit, intelligence, pointed humour and commentary. Karachi comic Saad Haroon, and Ali Aftab Saeed of the Lahore-based band Beygairet Brigade had an entire hall’s packed to the rafters audience engaged and laughing for the entire hour allotted to them. Both panelists were quick on the draw, whether talking about writing comedy and satire, or interacting with the audience or even in their responses to the (once again) fairly disconnected moderator of the session. This session was the perfect example of what the KLF should aspire to constantly–contemporary, in both English and Urdu, clearly accessible and enjoyable to an audience of as wide and as evenly distributed  range of age, gender and class as possible. 

Some of the book ‘launches’ were a little unfortunate this year. Salman Ahmed’s book Rock and Roll Jihad is two years old – how can it be launched? For that matter, even a writer as entertaining as Mohammad Hanif could have been utlised better than on a stage ‘launching’ a book that’s already been launched half a dozen time. Hanif is highly entertaining and always contemporary and would have been a brilliant moderator for the session on satire. He clearly has star power – why not harness that to attract larger number of people and help create a fresher, newer dialogue than a rehash of every interview that following the publication of Alice Bhatty? 

A great many discussions were intelligent and informative. The panel on literary criticism, whose star was not just Hanif Kureishi but also Indian academic, translator and writer Alok Bhalla, had a great many honest, candid moments in it. Bhalla pointed out ‘a large number of writers also write rubbish’, while Kureishi agreed that a ‘good critic is a sort of taster who can bear to taste all this (rubbish)’.  Another writer who was engaging and candid was Kashmiri writer Mirza Waheed, who spoke once with Kamila Shamsie about his incredible book The Collaborator, and again on a panel discussion about Kashmir. Waheed kept the discussion refreshing with his honestly, even eventually pointing out (albeit politely) to the others on stage that it was hard to comment on Kashmir unless you had really experienced a life there. 

Unfortunately certain panels just did not work. Does a festival audience really want shrieking TV hosts spouting the same nonsense they do on a daily basis, but without the ability to turn them off on a panel called How the Media Talks to Us? There’s no denying the importance of television in current times, but at a literature festival, it may have been more relevant to feature a discussion on narratives in television – this is, after all, the age of Humsafar. Pakistani television drama serials have een slowly picking up momentum in the last few years, and now with Humsafar they are attracting the kind of obsessive followers we haven’t seen since the days of Tanhaiyan and Chand Girhan. Why not, then, a discussion with scriptwriters and television playwrights, whether Humsafar’s or not? Wouldn’t an examination of what our drama serials are saying about us – or to us – have been more appropriate to our times, and more refreshing than a rehash of what we already hear and see on television? I for one would love to have asked Humsafar’s scriptwriters why they thought a serial full of clichéd female characters – the ‘fast’ working girl, the ‘innocent’ victim of an ex-wife, the conniving mother in law – were garnering such success with Pakistani audiences. This could have been a genuinely interesting discussion about stereotypes versus archetypes; it may genuinely have been something people would take something away from. 

The KLF has of course increased steadily each year. With limited funding and staff, its really quite amazing what has been accomplished, and this makes it clear that if the festival was institutionalized or granted funds for a larger year-round literature –oriented support staff, it could very easily achieve even more, if they chose to move a little away from their comfort zone of familiar journalists and politics. What is perhaps most important is what the longevity of the KLF is – its fun while it lasts, but nothing lasts without imagination. The organizers need to be savvier and take a fresh approach to their programming, with invitations to more writers of fiction – and not just ones who are from the region.  In a great many ways they need to let go of the old guard, because it is not familiar names or even large funds that will drive the KLF, but fresh blood, quality literature and imagination.