LAHORE: In a session at the Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) titled, Revolutionary Poetry in Seraiki, the panelists explored various aspects of Seraiki folklore and poetry.

The panelists were Riffat Abbas, Kashif Baloch and Rana Mehboob Akhtar while the moderator was Raziuddin Razi.

Kashif Baloch said revolutionary poetry, culture and love go together. He raised the question that cultural aloofeness of Seraiki literature could be removed.

“Many aspects of culture, art literature were contributing factors in this regard. Feudalism was replaced by capitalism and finally liberalism prevailed.” He said in the name of identity politics liberalism came in vogue and the populist regime was using art and literature for its own benefit.

Riffat Abbas spoke in Seraki, saying the foundation of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’ and Allama Iqbal’s poetry was romance; however there were certain aspects of revolutionary poetry. He said the tales needed to be revisited as many of folktales were against women.

“In my opinion Heer was murdered. So was the case with Sohni but we celebrates their deaths through those folktales.”

Rana Mehboob Akhtar said South Punjab had witnessed the revolution in the sense that now people knew that who was exploiting them and many Seraki poets and writers had highlighted this thing in their writings.

URDU: In a session on Urdu Adab Aik Naie Karwat Lay Raha Hai, the panelists, including Aurangzeb Niazi, Rehman Faris and Naveen Roma, explored various aspects of Urdu prose and poetry. The moderator was Sofia Baidar.

Speaking on the occasion, Prof Niazi said that in the last 25 years, literature had gone through a change and 9/11 and coronavirus had left impacted culture and economy of the world, social media also had its share in it.

He said currently in Urdu novel had a vast readership and foreign language novels through translations had also been introduced to Urdu literature. These translations had left a deep impact on Urdu literature, he said and added that the turn literature took was due to the role of the media and social media and micro fiction.

Poet Rehman Faris said social media had a huge role in introducing poetrry, which was not thought-provoking and added that such poetry had left little space for a serious thought process.

Naveen Roma, a short story writer, said she wrote in her short stories what she had observed

in the society. “I have written in those stories what I have gone through in life.

Ms Roma said novel had many characters but short story compelled the writer to adopt a minimalistic approach.

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2026