KARACHI, Feb 5: Thought-provoking discussions, evocative speeches and jam-packed halls marked the opening day of the 2nd Karachi Literature Festival as book lovers came in droves to attend the event at a local hotel on Saturday. The day began with the inaugural and introductory event at which writer Asif Farrukhi, Martin Fryer of the British Council, Dr Marilyn Wyatt of the US consulate and the OUP’s Ameena Saiyid spoke.

Thinker and writer Karen Armstrong then delivered her keynote address. She said in her two decades of studying different religions she had discovered that compassion was at the heart of each faith’s vision. She said unless we applied the golden rule of ‘never treat others as you wouldn’t like them to treat you’, we’re not going to have a viable world.

Highlighting the charter of compassion, Ms Armstrong said the word compassion meant to endure with or to suffer with.

Touching upon her book 12 Steps to a Compassionate Life, she argued we’re addicted to our prejudices as “When we utter a scathing remark, we feel a self-congratulatory buzz, but this is poisoning us.”

Her address was followed by a dance performance by members of Tehrik-i-Niswan.

The first hour of formal proceedings had three sessions.

The title of the sitting with writer Kamila Shamsie (moderated by Ishrat Lindblad) was Karachi, Today, Tomorrow and Yesterday. She said she started writing her first novel at the age of 11. These days she lives in London and visits Karachi in winter.

Ms Shamsie said five of her novels were (mostly) written in Karachi as her experience was of one leaving the city and see it from afar. “I had to let go of the idea and I said I didn’t have to be in Karachi to be a writer. I’m not writing about Karachi, but I’m not done with it either.” Responding to a question, she said she’s impatient with the idea of nostalgia.

The most interesting session of the period was on Literature in the Age of Extremism moderated by Raza Rumi. It started off with poetess Fahmida Riaz discussing Manto’s story Thanda Gosht.

Writer Zahida Hina then delivered a poignant speech saying writers used to think that they were fighting for society but one fine day “we found out we are liberal fascists”. She said extremism was infecting society like a disease and this was the time when writers realise whether they began writing as fashion or for some purpose.

Madeeha Gauhar narrated the experience when her theatre group wanted to stage a play Burqavaganza, and hit snags.

A simultaneous session was Setting Muse to Music moderated by Sheema Kermani in which journalist Asif Noorani talked about the tradition of lyric-writing for films in the subcontinent and their literary worth.

A heated discussion was witnessed in a session on Urdu Afsana Kal Aur Aaj moderated by Asif Farrukhi in which writer Intizar Husain argued that Manto and Qurutalain Hyder didn’t belong to the Progressive Writers Movement. This was contested by Hasan Manzar, who argued that both Manto and Ms Hyder were progressives but because of the extreme trends that had crept into the movement they left it.

The first book launch of the day was of Bina Shah’s Slum Child.

Madeeha Gauhar conducted a conversation with Feryal Gauhar who showed clips of her film and talked about its genesis as well as subtext.

The post-lunch sessions began with a conversation with journalist Ahmed Rashid conducted by Khaled Ahmed.

Ahmed Rashid said Pakistanis had been fed a narrative which suggested that it’s all America’s fault and once the US left Afghanistan, all would be okay and the Taliban would go back to bed. He said 25 per cent of the fault lay at America’s door, and raised the question: “What have we done?”

We welcomed back the Taliban into Pakistan and the ISI was funding them to establish camps, helping them through every conceivable manner.

He said the Pakistani Taliban were home-grown and we needed to face up to it.

The panel discussion on Kya Urdu Parhney Waley Kam Hotey Ja Rahey Hain also stirred up quite a debate as Iftikhar Arif suggested that after partition the number of people who could read and understand Urdu had increased.

Dr Nomanul Haq’s point of view suggested it was an issue of attitude or approach . Zahida Hina said though an increased literacy rate had raised the number of Urdu readers, the number of those who could absorb the language had fallen.

Shahid Mehmood Nadeem and Madeeha Gauhar talked about their theatre group Ajoka’s playful revolution.

In the discussion on Re-imagining Pakistan, Dr Maliha Lodhi said there’s no democracy without the rule of law; the military had to subject itself to civilian oversight, and at the same time civilians shouldn’t go to the military to resolve their issues.

Ayesha Siddiqa said : “Do we have the capacity to re-imagine Pakistan? Where are our political scientists? Where’s the next generation of social scientists? The state had become Octopus-like, breaking bread with America in the day and sleeping with the Taliban at night.”

Tahira Abdullah quoted Zehra Nigah’s poem Jungle Ka Qanoon and said she was imprisoned by Gen Musharraf and Zardari which meant she must be on the right path.

Conversation with writer Mohsin Hamid was titled A Vision, A Country. He sounded optimistic about the future of Pakistan saying it had tremendous potential. He said cricket was an apt metaphor to describe Pakistan: rampant corruption, mismanaged top and incredible talent.

A conversation with English poet Joe Dunthorne could’ve been intriguing had the moderator been a bit more to-the-point and let the audience know more about the poet instead of discussing rock and rap poetry.

The other programmes that were subsequently going to take place were a talk by Sheema Kermani on Literature and the Performing Arts; a panel discussion on Publishing in Pakistan, India and the UK; a conversation with Zehra Nigah and Kishwar Naheed; a session on contemporary cinema with Javed Jabbar and Rachel Dwyer; a discussion on Where is Pakistan Now with panelists Pervez Hoodbhoy, Zahid Hussain and Ahmed Rashid; and a mushaira.