Karachi Literature Festival !

I smiled at the rush of young girls over Hussain Naqvi, who just came out of Maharani (hall) after his book launch named "Home Boy" by Oxford.

Well, he is young, smart, rich, British national and now famous too.

I cant blame the girl's sudden crash on him...hmm....only I tried to find some real readers in them all.....lol

Do you want me to write the list of participants and the events we had in these two marvelous days...(21 - 22 March) ???

hmm...lets not..because if I do the whole programme will take up the whole space...

but you can find the whole programme list and participants list on www.klf.com.pk.

Please do visit the column which has all the introduction about the authors and participants on : http://www.klf.com.pk/about.html

But...I can write about my pick list...belive me I never saw so many literature related people together under roof before.

And to whom ever I turned or talked...turned out to be a writer or publisher.

As I met Muneeza Shamsie in Ladies rest room with her daughter who is also a new young author...

I had my attention towards...

Urdu Writers :

Shams-ur-Rehman Farooqi (from India),
Intizar Hussain (who refused to give me his autograph as for him I should have his book),
Iftikhar Arif,
Zehra Nigah,
Fahmida Riaz (who never missed a chance to smoke on stage between disscussions),
Kishwer Naheed(gave so many true and rigid facts about women)
Masood Ashar,
Arfa Syeda Zehra and
Fatima Hussain.

English Writers : Mohsin Hamid, Muhammad Hanif, Aamer Hussain, Maniza Naqvi, Hussain Naqvi.

And there were so many more.....

Arfa Syeda Zehra gave me the best autograph and Muniza Naqvi gifted her novel to me as her heroin name in that novel was Hajra and asked me to write to her about the novel once I finished it...Novel is " The matter of detail".

"hmmm....I am over dosed....", Ahmad Safi (son of legendry writer Ibn-e-Safi) told me.

And I felt the same.

The whole festival was divided in two halls and simultaneously having events.

I think this is how these festivals works.

Somtime...only...it was hard to make choices when I had to choose between, "Reading and Conversation with Iftikha Arif" and "Book Launch of Look at the City from here, edited by Asif Faruqi".

My vote goes to Iftikhar Arif though I kept missing the other event.

hmm....found it a little rude to put Mohsin Hamid and Fahmida Riaz on the simoutaneously different disscussions on different halls.

I kept running between one to other....dont wanted to missed anyone.

That was the only time, I found two languages , Urdu and English seperated.

I overly enjoyed the discussion on Sufism and Literatue in which came across with Samina Qureshi another good author who has just lanuched her book on Shrines of Pakitan by Liberty books.

I was amazed by her genuinely intrest in common masses in Pakistan.

But than I want to quote Fahmida Riaz here that if we want to spread the reading habit in our children we need to lower the prices of books, as when I asked the price of Samina Qureshi's book...it was....hmm....4,400.... rupees.

Amazingly, TEA was free....credit goes to TAPAL....

This is the common practice of British Empire...since its empowerment on India till now...to make a bridge between the two great languages "Urdu and English".

Both of them have great treasures hiddein in them and to get connected to any one of these languages, one must dig out these treasures.

Translating Urdu literature to English was good until it was for those people who dont know Urdu...and want to know the history...literature about India....

But now...unfortunately, most of the translation is for those who are basically Urdu speakers but are too far away from their own language that needed English to traslate them their mother language (URDU) literature to them.

Though, I found only few middle class literature lovers in the Karachi Literature Festival, but hope to find them more in numbers next time as the festival was such a blast that everyone in the festival already asked questions or start planning about the next years session.

The Karachi Literature Festival consists of panle discussion, book launches and reading by writers and poets.There was a work shop on creative writing (hmm...I missed it)... Mushaira and also a play in Urdu performed by Sheema Kirmani in Art Council.

hmm....speration from the overly active city Karachi for such occasssions are long been waited and credit all goes to British Council and Oxford University Press.

Beyond Doubt !

There are two kind of exams....hmm...

One of them is, in which you expect the result...and usually take it to achieve some kind of degree and such degree you can use rest of your life.

That degree serve you one step ahead and once you gave that exam you don't need to take it again and again and again....unless you can't clear it with the desired marks.....

For desired marks....it is very easy....the goal is already been set for you...you just need to know....that to pass certain exam you need to fill the exam paper with such such questions and if you do this much questions...you will achieve that particular marks need for your clearance.

For filling up the paper....don't worry....market is full of sample papers plus you have your mentors...teachers..friends who can help you on the solved papers and you just need to rectify it by your heart and act like a printer in the exam.

hmm...even after all the above help you can't clear the exam...no worry...you have chances to attempt the exam again and again and again...until you achieved your required marks.

Now...I know....you would be thinking about the other type of exam....as I did mentioned at the start of my post that there are two type of exams....

For one...hmm...I have explained earlier and for the second.....I couldn't still find the explanation...though I have few statements....about that other..second...unique kind of exam...

That exam usually is on suspense basis....more like a video game...but in video game you can restart....in this exam....if you loose....you will lost forever....

I asked myself....why...????

Do I really need to give this exam....? Why..? Why not I just skip this and that and than coming one...I just don't like suspense basis exams....

hmmm....but I have to face them...once they are in your way...you have to either take it or take it....cause there is no other choice...

The most un healthy part of this exam is ....the goals are not being set or shared with you...you just blindly take the exam and you don't even know what your result would be...as even your results are in save custody and you have no authority over them....

You can't find....help as solved papers...or...any human help like....mentors and teachers..friend...though they all had given the same exams but all would prefer you not to speak anyone about it and take it as blindly as they did....because...your exam paper will be totally different....unique....ment for you only....

So you don't know...what that exam is all about...what degree you will achieve after that exam...what are the passing marks...how are the failures look like....any distinction....so many questions and no answer....hmmm...

I have been given so many these kind of exams lately..in which I think I am just loosing my faith and my believe on my MAKER....

hmmm....in which....I cant asked HIM to show me my results....my answer sheets....no I am not satisfied with my result...I want a recheck.....hmmm....

What about the degree...I suffered so much for it....for YOUR exam....to prove YOU that I am eligible than where is my degree....? How would other know that I cleared it or not????

Just because.....YOU are...unquestionable....hmmm.......

The Will !

I was going through the latest biography of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah (founder of Pakistan) in wikipedia and found this interesting.

Mr Jinnah has given all(most of the part) of his property to Pakistan and it was not because he don't have any heir of it.

But he wanted to do something for Pakistan even after he is not between us.

To be remembered as an ideal leader, founder and a patriotic person.

He gave us....the leaders....the bureaucrats....industrialists.... common masses an example or a lesson that there should be part of our property or money after our death should go to the Government of Pakistan.

If, we have been following this tradition and made it our pleasure to gift some of our property to Pakistan on our death...I can wonder how many problems have been solved by now.

Yes....there are possibilities that these properties and money of demise may fell in wrong hands and gone in vain but still they can make lot of difference in the building of economy.

I can see....how rich all of our politicians are....these Government servants have more money than industrialists....these industrialists have life like a king and their houses are like kingdom of their own kind.

Still they get birth in this country they die...but they don't have anything to offer to Pakistan.

We....common masses...always feel pleasure to discourage....demotivate or dislocate the right Government and always like to curse the Pakistan but we never think of what we have done for it.

hmmm.....I wish....I can do something for my beloved country.

May Allah give me the honor. Ameen.

What a pity !

Recently.....while going through the busy road of lasbella I saw so many shops of those....yellow...green...red...blue....CNG RIKSHAW.....and I at one sight fall in love with them..

wow....what a rickshaws...! I exclaimed....and my beloved husband laughed....

hmm...why cant we buy a rikshaw....? I asked my beloved husband....

How comfortable and cosy they look....they require less energy and less space....besides there is nothing to worry about them you can park them almost everywhere...no body would noticed or no body can think of steeling them....rikshaw don't require PARKING sign....you know....

I mean what can be the possible causes for a working woman who earn 10 to 20 thousand monthly not to buy such nice...coosy...less spaced....less energy....and economical rikshaw????

It could be like making their dream a reality.....how easily they can go to their office driving their own rikshaw....they can even go to shopping everyday on it and don't even need to make the double amount fare.

They can drop or pick their children and children of neighbour from schools in these comfortable big seats rikshaw which don't make noise or don't emit carbon dioxide.

...how peaceful a woman can be if she only knew that she has her nice....green...(in my case....yellow)...rikshaw is standing outside on which she can ride like a princes and can go to her office....college...university...almost anywhere...even on date too....hmm...

You know they have so many mirrors in front of driving seat so a person sitting behind can be easily viewable....!

Plus....we can named it too....or can print our all time favourites stanzas on the back...for me it would be...."Khudi ko ker buland itna"....or....may be..."safr-e-bahara'n"...hmmm...

ahh....they worth only.....2 to 3 lacs....and as our financial situation is concerned I don't think you can ever be able to buy me a car....I finally become angry on him....

And he said...."hmmm....so you want me to buy you a rikshaw....and let you drive it? Just because they require less space....less CNG...economical....dont need parking signs...and are non steel able...???

YES YES PLEASE !

Should be my answer but then I just sigh.....what a pity !

Talking.

Talking by Khalil Jibran.

And then a scholar said "Speak of talking".

And he answered, saying:

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.

And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart, you live in your lips and sound is a diversion and a paste mi.

And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.

For thoughts is a bird of space, that in a cage of words many indeed unfold its wing but can not fly.

There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.

The silence of aloneness reveals to their eye, their naked selves and they would escape.

And there are those who talk and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.

And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.

In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in the rhythmic silence.

When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue.

For this soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of wine is remembered.....when the color is forgotten and the vessel is no more.

I am not Sad !

Recently my so called friend branded me as "sad" which was so hurtful....hmm....why she thinks like that???

Lets see from her point of view :

Sad because I have no social life;
I spend "all" my time sat in front of the computer;
Reading a book;
Blogging ;

In other words, doing what this person considers to be unnatural...hmmm.....odd and "sad" simply because normally people don't do it.

Is anyone care about my point of view....hmm...???

I don't get out much...have never had much of a social life....not even after the marriage.

And it's never bothered me...not in the slightest.

I enjoy my life at home...keeping myself to myself...lol...enjoying spending time with the few friends I have....I care about my mum and my beloved husband. What else could a normal person do???...baahhh

And so it was quite hurtful to have been branded as "sad" recently by a so called close friend.

They don't blog....they don't do much online at all apart from a quick browse now and then.

They have a social life...they have more friends than I could ever handle...lol...

And in my opinion that's up to them.

Just like my computer enjoyment is up to me.

If I enjoy it, does it make me sad? Does it make me odd, or different from the norm? It is not something imposed on me by my sadness or it is not because I am taking a rescue in blogging on being alone or not having a social life...it is simply I like it.

It simply makes me who I am;

a person who loves to write when she isn't helping her mother or not having free time in home.

A person who has made many good friends in cyber space because of her ability to communicate...

And a person who - get this - actually enjoys having no social life...looks forward to settling down in an evening with an open laptop faced with lovely people offering interesting conversation.

Perhaps I'm missing the point of how people actually perceive a "sad" person.

But I...for sure....am not sad. I'm happy....I'm content...I'm me.

Get over it, "friend" !