Mohsin Hamid is a charmer and the people of his city adore him. In the session about his new book ‘How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia’, the largest hall at Alhamra Art Centre was packed to full capacity with people of all ages, some standing by the doors and some sitting on the edge of the stage.
The author of ‘Mothsmoke’ and ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ told the audience that his new book, which is set to be released in a couple of weeks, was about Pakistan but did not mention it at all so no one could blame him for exploiting the country’s woes.
He said the idea of the book arose from the fact that Pakistan was a capitalistic society where people, who do not have money, die.
Discussing his growth as a writer, he said that when he was developing characters for ‘Mothsmoke’, he had to go through the exercise of writing in the character’s own voice for it to make sense but as he grew as a writer, the exercise was not necessary anymore.
Mr Hamid added that he believed in writing and used it as a tool to make sense of the things happening around him. He admitted that it was a handicap for him that he could not write well in Urdu, however, judging a writer by the language he wrote in was akin to judging a person by his religion.
About the upcoming film based on ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist”, he said that he had fallen in love with novels more after being involved in the making of the film.
The audience heaped praise on him as the session wrapped up and a student’s revelation that he had decided to come study in Lahore because of Moth Smoke, summed up the impact and influence of Hamid’s work perfectly.
When history is devoid of stories
History, politics, current affairs and the on-stage rapport between Ahmed Rashid and William Dalrymple during the session titled ‘Cultures in Conflict’ was a good way for the Lahore Literary Festival to sign off for this year after a successful weekend.
Mr Dalrymple introduced his book ‘The Return of the King’ to the audience with a multimedia presentation made up of pictures. His oratory skills had the whole house chuckling every now and then at the jokes about the British and gasping in shock at the description of how Afghans treated their slaves.
The historian acknowledged that he did not consider himself an authority on present day Afghanistan, adding that he consulted Rashid for anything concerned with Pakistan. After Dalrymple’s presentation, the discussion focused on the impact of the withdrawal of the US forces and how it would impact Pakistan and the region.
Rashid said there was a real fear and uncertainty about what will happen after the withdrawal in 2014, adding that “Unless Pakistan backs the peace efforts in Afghanistan it will be left completely on the sidelines.”
Talking about history, Mr Dalrymple said that in Pakistan, people considered history a boring subject and many did not pay much attention to it. If the storytelling element is added to it, it does become interesting, he said.
Elaborating on why it seems that the British never learnt their lessons, Dalrymple said that Britain had forgotten its imperial history and that the modern day history syllabus in Britain did not include the imperial history which is why the mistakes made at that time were being repeated.
