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LAHORE took another deep, satisfying breath with the 10th Faiz Festival. Sessions spread back to back over two-and-a-half days (Feb 13-15), each a tribute to the performing arts, to drama, literature, poetry, with a nod to politics.
This often controversial festival came close to insurrection only in two sessions. One, on the Marxist Faiz Ahmed Faiz (who won the Lenin Prize for Literature in 1962) and his Chilean contemporary the communist Pablo Neruda (who received the capitalist Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971). To summarise their shared philosophy, both forged “a pact of blood with the people”. Both expressed “a deep compassion for humankind” which inspired them to “write incisively against tyrants, war and corporate imperials”.
The second, the session — ‘O’ Palestine’ — scattered words into Lahore’s spring air instead of shedding blood on that hallowed ground, sacred to three religions. For over 70 years, Palestinians have suffered as Kashmiris have, with as scant a reward for their sacrifices.
An aside made by an actress in another session did ignite the audience. She referred to the shortage of contemporary themes in our television dramas. She cited the absence of serials on say Allama Iqbal, the Quaid, Faiz, and then added (almost in a whisper) the sporting ‘Khans’.
The Faiz Festival showcased local authors.
She meant, of course, to include the squash champions Jansher Khan and Jahangir Khan, cricketers Majid Khan and Younis Khan, but the audience knew better. It erupted into a cacophony of delirious applause. Had there been polling booths within the grounds of the Lahore Arts Council, the outcome of the next general election would have been decided there and then.
Earlier LitFests have focused on intercontinental writing. This Faiz Festival showcased local authors. On the first full day, nine books were launched, on the second, another eight. Foreign names yielded place to our own literati. Some of them preferred to converse bilingually. A few tripped lightly from Punjabi to Urdu to English.
The linguistic divide between Urdu (our national language, the forceful assertion of which cost us a Bengali-speaking East Pakistan) and English (the residue of the Raj) precipitated festival-goers into two separate solids. One depended on nostalgia, recalled cultures in Lucknow and Hyderabad (Deccan), now buried in time; the other, represented a younger Gen Z, which responds to tapping syllables on their mobile phones.
The poetess Zehra Nigah is one of the few surviving connections with Faiz Ahmed Faiz. She spoke thrice on the second day, and again thrice on the third day. That would have been a trial for anyone, except for the 90-year-old Zehra Nigah. The Faiz Festival to her is akin to a pilgrimage, an annual homage to her intellectual mentor Faiz sahib.
She launched her fifth book of poems — a volume as slim as she is. She spoke about it and then with ineffable delicacy recited poetry by others, drawing upon a deep reservoir of familiarity with poets past and present. To her, Mir Taqi Mir, Mirza Ghalib, Firaq, Sardar Jafri, Josh Malihabadi, and Mustafa Zaidi are still very much alive, in her mind.
She can recite their verses without any prompting. If she does need any persuasion, it is to recite her own compositions. She delighted her informed audience with one of her poems, delivered in tarannum for which she has been famous since Faiz sahib first heard her many, many years ago.
Her session with fellow poet Iftikhar Arif on the development of marsias will never be improved upon. Unlike some poets who shied away from Shia themes, Iftikhar Arif has made the familicide at Karbala as vivid to modern audiences as Bibi Zainab’s unforgettable first account of that tragedy and the doleful ballad by Mir Anees.
This Faiz Festival opened with lively dances by Lahore Grammar School pupils. It ended with a Kathak performance by Nighat Chaudhary and her students. Again, Moneeza Hashmi had to quell a mob of youngsters, as she has many times before, when they hammered noisily on the doors for admittance. They do this for practice. They know that for days to come, they and 20 million others of their age will have to clamour for places in the job market.
Seats for the most popular sessions are always hard to come by. Senior citizens rely on the goodwill of young friends. One octogenarian — a former MNA and president emeritus of the Family Planning Association of Pakistan — struggled to find a suitable seat.
One young man was approached to surrender his to her. He hesitated, until he was reminded that, had she been more successful in her job, he would not have been sitting where he was.
The writer is an author.
Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2026
