One of the first sessions of the second and last day of the Lahore Literary Festival was the launch of a book, The Islamic Enlightenment, by Christopher de Bellaigue, but the author himself was absent leaving panellists Ghaith Abdul-Ahad and Robert Worth to talk about the book among themselves and generally keeping the discussion open for audience.

They started by revisiting the 2003 Iraq invasion, questioning if it could have happened differently. But Worth said that for any outsider to enter another country and attempt to change its system was always going to bring about terrible instability. To this novelist and poet Sinan Antoon, sitting in the audience, added: “Let’s call a spade a spade. An outside world coming in is colonialism.”

The discussion then moved towards a modern Islamic state with Abdul-Ahad questioning what went wrong in the last 300 years of creating modern Islamic state that resulted in the Islamic State. “I would like to disengage the word Islamic from state. Wish I could add a comma,” he added.

Answering a question from an audience member about alternatives to uprisings, Worth said street protests reminded people that they had a will and there was a possibility of imagination becoming real.

“A society with social justice, education, healthcare where people don’t have to drown in seas off overburdened boats should be the ultimate goal,” Abdul-Ahad added. Talking about the involvement of religion in nations, he said: “I think we want to involve religion in modernization, which is not needed.”

To this, Worth added that oil money from Saudi Arabia seems to have promoted an illiberal, extremist, Salafi form of Islam.

“There’s no question the Saudis have been successful in promoting a more rigid and closed form of Islam. Look at Indonesia,” he added.

A talk on UK-based culinary writer Sumayya Usmani’s books took the audience on a gastronomic journey of spices, flavours and palettes.

‘Tantalising the Tooth: Exploring Gastronomic Feats’ featured the author in conversation with Momina Aijazuddin. Sumayya began by talking about her journey from being a lawyer to a food writer, saying she lacked passion for law. “My childhood was laced with food; all my memories are associated with us having meals together or some seasonal fruit. Nostalgia kicks in through food only and it links me back home.”

She also read excerpts from her books under discussion – Summers under the Tamarind Tree and Mountain Berries and Desert Spice – that include recipes she’s created while experimenting with Pakistani flavours.

Elaborating on how she ended up writing the books, Sumayya said she had started with a food blog which not only contained local food recipes but also anecdotes and memories associated with those recipes.

“I have only scratched the surface of what Pakistan has to offer. You have a certain image of Pakistan abroad and then you come to Lahore, find people smiling and eating all day. If they had more hours in the day, they’d still be eating.”

Being a ‘self-taught-chef-turned-food-writer’ in her own words, Sumayya said she cooked Pakistani cuisine back home to create an experience for her daughter with the aromas of the spice hitting the oil, the masalas.

“We take these things for granted, but as a parent one feels the need to create that connection with home for your children, and what better than through food to do that?”

She also shared her thoughts about cooking with estimation, or as we call it home – andaza. Sumayya said it’s a scary idea to teach people who don’t know the cuisine. Momina interjected: “You need to have the instinct to cook.” Sumayya felt that everyone had that haath ka maza.

Published in Dawn, February 26th, 2018