It is day three – the last day of the third edition of LLF-15 -- and it is time to celebrate English shair-o-shairy (poetry). Of course, we already have English ghazal, so taking the realm of poetry to new desi heights a large crowd is drawn to the session where Pakistani-American poet Shadab Zeest Hashmi, Bengali-British poet Ahsan Akbar and Bengali businesswoman and poet Sadaf Saaz Siddiqi are on the stage.

Amongst the audience are poets like Zulfiqar Ghose and Kishwar Naheed. There is no moderator. So, Shadab breaks the ice and says, “Let’s introduce ourselves.” She starts with her own introduction, saying while studying at Kinnaird College she got her collection published and later moved to California for higher studies. Nowadays, she teaches poetry in the US.

She then passes on to Sadaf Saaz, who is wearing an elegant sari. Having grown up in Cambridge, she moved to Chittagong at the age of 16. Now, she is a leading garment exporter and festival director of Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts. Ahsan Akbar lives in Britain where he feels himself as a Bengali from the core of his heart. By now, the audience knows something about the poets, so it is time for the shair-o-shairy .

Shadab takes the lead again. She starts off with ‘Bilingual’.

“I break your fountain pen/wipe off the ink on your curtains/and with the celerity of a djinn/climb the roof.” To a rapt audience, she recites other poems such as ‘It’s a Marmalade House’, ‘Writing to My Maker’, ‘Ghazal – Broken Sky’, ‘Jinnah’, ‘Rant’, ‘Bakers of Tarif’, ‘Call to Prayers’, and ‘Passing Through Peshawar’.

The poem ‘Writing to My Maker from the Café Between Afghanistan and Pakistan’ is about her childhood visit to Torkham Border with her family where they have snacks and cola. The poem concludes with these lines: “And on the drive home/to Peshawar/there will always be the muscular lift/of the Khyber Pass/And the sleep/that comes/only to happy children.”

On the audience’s request, she recites her ghazal ‘Broken’.

Sadaf Saaz begins with her poem ‘Sari Reams’ followed by ‘Mixing and Mingling’, ‘Silencing’, ‘Women of the Night’, and ‘Nation’.

‘Women of the Night’ captures the shade and pain of night life workers. Consider: “These are survivors/With no choice/We denigrate as ‘beneath us’/Without a voice.”

“Not taking time to see/How it would be/If circumstance and destiny/Had been dole out differently”.

Sadaf has been to the LLF in 2014 also.

“The LLF is doing a wonderful job of creating a space and platform to celebrate discussion, debate, diversity and tolerance, which is especially crucial now,” she says of the event.

In her own words, “My poetry covers a whole range of topics that affect me at a deep emotional level - love, injustice, music, women who have inspired me, are just some of the subjects I explore.”

Ahsan Akbar’s turn comes at the end. He comes up with ‘A Song for Lahore’, to round off the session nicely.

Published in Dawn February 23rd , 2015

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