KARACHI CHRONICLE: Festivals and food for thought

Huge crowds packed the halls in the hotel by the creek where the 2nd Karachi Literature Festival was held last weekend. One ought to fervently pray for the long life of the festival. Merely wishing the event will become a permanent tradition is not enough; one must pray for it because nothing good ever lasts long in Karachi, especially festivals.
So many enjoyable festivals have come and gone. Some ended because of political abuse, some for lack of funds, some because of bad management and others due to envy of rivals who could not put up a similar show and, like dogs in the manger, did their best to sabotage a good thing favoured by the public.
The Karafilm Festival had the longest run and was held seven times out of ten years. Last year it could not be held and may be written off. The Music festival which also began about a decade ago still has its head above the deluge of fanaticism which threatens to drown it on account that the classic music it presents originates with the Kafirs across the border.
The Saqafati Mela of the National Council of Arts petered down to the usual Sunday Bazaar type of event and soon gave up the ghost. Hamara Karachi Festival organised by the local bodies government in its first year was to be regular annual event. It died a political death as opponents claimed it was an attempt to run down Sindhi culture and promote the culture of Urdu walas. Hardly anyone noted the short life of the Sindhi craft mela which, I suspect, ended in a tit-for-tat for loss of Hamara Karachi Festival. This is a list of some festivals of the past decade. The fate of festivals from earlier times is long, too. And if someone decided to collect the whole list of festivals and their life and death it is bound to make a thick encyclopedic book.
The Karachi Literature Festival deserves all the praise lavished on it by the press and television. Its greatest contribution is the revival of author-reader interaction. Before films invaded the sub-continent, poets and novelists used to be the stars everyone wanted to meet them or dreamt of meeting and if they were lucky to get an autographed book, that book became an heirloom. The festival demonstrated the public is still as excited and thrilled to meet their favourite authors.
I only visited the festival on the second day for a few hours, but judging from the reports and also the animated gossip of book-loving friends and family who practically camped at the venue for two days, there is no doubt that authors are once again glamorous stars rivalling film stars. Of course, one can hardly describe Mohammad Hanif's appearance as glamorous. Nevertheless, he outdid the well-dressed writers to become the darling of the crowd. His wit, funny anecdotes from real life and phenomenal fame he earned with his daring first novel "A Case of Exploding Mangoes" about Zia-ul-Haq's death in an air crash, combined to create a glittering aura round him and a hero of book lovers, even of those who never read a book in their lives. Indeed, at the festival there were some youngsters who had come to his talk show only to see the famous man.
The venue was a confusing set up of halls and tents and milling crowds disorienting a visitor. So instead of Mohammad Hanif's talk show I was guided to a hall where a very popular author who I do not like, Karen Armstrong, was holding forth, teaching Islam to Muslims. The huge hall was jam packed and at the back there were atleast seven rows of standing crowd, all listening in perfect silence and reverence.
Realizing the mistake, I was about to leave the hall when someone asked Armstrong to define security. I could not help saying out loud, (me and my big mouth) "She doesn't know." I waited for confirmation. Armstrong took a few seconds before stammering, "Security is so hard to define....". I walked out.
"In conversation with Mohammad Hanif" was intelligently moderated by Sadia Shepard who had the crowd interacting with Hanif's from the word Go. She said if you clapped really, really loud may be Hanif would read us excerpts from his new novel. The crowd went wild and CLAPPED. The news of a new book was thrilling. It kept the audience on tenterhooks to the end of the talk show. In the end, he did not read from the new novel, just gave us the title, which is "Our Lady Alice Bhatti" but he gave such a lot of tidbits from his recent visit to Palestine, Israel and Jordan, the reaction of people to "A Case of Exploding Mangoes" and nostalgic pieces about Karachi that one did not mind. In fact it created enthusiasm for the new novel that book lovers are already lining up with the rupees in hand to buy the book as soon as it rolls off the press. It will not come as a surprise if the first publication is sold out even before it hits the bookstores.
After the talk show I went to the marque to look at the books for sale. I am glad I did not bring a lot of funds with me because there were a million books I wished to buy. Books by the diva Karen Armstrong dominated the displays while "A Case of Exploding Mangoes" was nowhere in sight. It recalled a joke about Lenin's visit to a bookshop. The Russian leader was pleased to see shelves and shelves full of his book, but enquired of the shopkeeper why there were none by Tolstoi in the shop. "O, his book? Sir, they are sold out."
When you are a journalist, almost any public gathering becomes a place for hail-fellow-well-met. I bumped into former colleague Zahid Hussain. There was Kishwar Nahid who spotted me before I spotted her. After hugs and kisses she ordered me to come the next day to her exhibition of handlooms. Kishwar runs a small NGO in Islamabad where women are taught weaving. I wanted to meet Iftikhar Arif but could not see him in the crush. There were so many others who were not authors but just as famous in their field in the fine arts. But as they are not stars, I shall not drop names.