Faiz Ahmed Faiz, born in Sialkot on February 13, 1911, was the first Asian poet to be awarded Lenin Peace Prize in 1962.

For more information, go to http://www.lifestooshort.pk/

Entries will be judged by a panel consisting of Muhammad Hanif, Kamila Shamsie and Daniyal Mueenuddin.

First prize is Rs. 100,000/-, Second prize is Rs. 20,000/- and Third Prize is Rs. 10,000/-.

The ten best short stories selected by the judges will be published as an anthology.

Participants must be of Pakistani origin. Stories should not exceed 5,000 words. Entries must be in English. Poetry will not be accepted.

Entries must be mailed to entry@lifestooshort.pk

Submission deadline is 30 June 2009.

Please SMS at 03335188663 or email {razarumi{at}gmail.com}  if you plan to attend.

The 23rd Lahore International Book Fair, being held at Fortress Stadium Grounds, has started from Februrary 14 and is going to continue till 18th of this month. Iqbal Academy, the organizers and their sponsors this year, Zong and Express Media Group, should be appreciated for supporting Lahore’s biggest book fair which has grown in size and popularity over the years. At the same time  Lahore International Book Fair has also become a regular mark on the city’s spring calender of exciting activities.

Just as you enter the make-shift yet spacious venue filled with books, books and books all around, it gives you an overwhelming sense of serenity while watching crowds of visitors indulged in reading, browsing or just roaming excitedly provides you with a satisfaction that people still do read. And a lot of them do it still now!

The Fair is hosting about 30 to 40 different publishers, book houses and agents. All big names in Pakistan including Vanguard, Liberty Books, Paramount, Sang-e-Meel, Ferozsons, National Book Foundation, Oxford University Press, Cambridge Press, Lahore’s own beloved Readings as well as publishers from India and the United Kingdom are present with mounds and loads of ‘readings’ to offer. There is also a visible presence of publishers of the Holy Quran and other interesting Islamic multimedia products for children.

Most of the stalls are giving lucrative offers and discounts ranging from 15% to 25% which will help you extract the maximum utility out of your limited budget especially if you are a student.

Even if you do not plan to purchase any books, it is highly recommended that you should visit the fair, roam about, browse through stuff and enjoy the essence of a literary phenomenon which is fast depleting from our society.

Lahore Revisited at Dawn Lifestyles Exhibition

‘Revisiting Lahore A Photographic Journey’ comprises of a rare collection of the city’s history from F.S. Aijazuddin’s book titled ‘Lahore Recollected’. So, if you want to revive your nostalgia about Lahore as it used to be, vow not to miss it.

Dawn Lifestyles features display of consumer and commercial products by leading local and multinational brands. In addition to autograph and book signing sessions with eminent authors at “Books & Authors” pavilion, visitors can also enjoy an “All Breed Championship Dog Show”, a “Paintball competition” and tantalizing specialties at the Food Court.

The exhibition kicked off today and will continue up to 10 pm Sunday evening tomorrow. Like every year the venue remains Fortress Stadium’s Inner Ground.

Here’s to a fun-filled family weekend for all Lahoris to enjoy!

We Lahoris are a Lahore-obsessed tribe. There is a whole course in LUMS called “Imagining Lahore” taught by the Dr. Furrukh Khan, one of the experts on the subject and the head of our Literature department. In another course “Food and culture”, the discussion is never far away from the type of food that we Lahoris eat, and what we perceive food as. I should know.

But anyway, we are never happier than when something big is happening in our own city, and forget the firecrackers for some time. LUMS has had the recent honor of being selected by prominent Pakistani writers for launching their latest books. Recent, did I say? Well, it has been around for some time; it is a famous story that someone here brought a pirated copy of a Bapsi Sidhwa work to be signed by the author—and the author flipped out! Lol…well…but no, let’s leave my thoughts on piracy fro another time.

After ‘A Case of Exploding Mangoes’ was launched last year, now, in less than a week, Kamila Shamsie is launching her new novel “Burnt Shadows” here as well!

Am I happily excited? I don’t know. Her books are beautiful, but….she is amazingly talented but…always a but and I fear I cannot express it as anything but but…

Maybe this one will finally explore the hurts of the common man more than the hurts of the elite, but I’m still excited. Here are the two mails that have been sent to us so far. First, there is her profile, and then the announcement.

Writer Kamila Shamsie, 33, is one of Pakistan’s most promising literary talents. First published at the age of 25, she now has four highly acclaimed books to her credit. She also received the Prime Minister’s Award for Literature in Pakistan in 1999.

Kamila’s four published novels – ‘In the City by the Sea’ (1998), ‘Salt and Saffron’ (2000), ‘Kartography’ (2002), and ‘Broken Verses’ (2005) – were written back to back, and each novel has spilled over into the other. She was still in grad school when she was revising the first, writing the second, and had already written the short story that grew into ‘Kartography’. As she worked on one novel, she would think that an idea could be worked on more. That would turn into the next novel. ‘Broken Verses’ coincided with 9/11, and US publishers didn’t want to buy it.

She had fallen into habits of writing – for example, “this generational thing”. In each of her novels, a younger generation figures out the secrets of the older one, but this was really a solution to a technical problem – a novel requires conflict, a secret is a good way to do it.

http://www.boloji.com/wfs5/wfs859.htm

Dear All,

The sensational contemporary  English writer Kamila Shamise is coming to LUMS for the launch of her latest book , “Burnt Shadows”. Sweeping in its scope and mesmerizing in its evocation of time and place, Burnt Shadows is an epic narrative of disasters evaded and confronted, loyalties offered and repaid, and loves rewarded and betrayed.

Date: Monday, 9th January 2009
Time: 5pm

Venue : TBA

The launch is open to all (you can invite your non-LUMINITE friends and family )

Best,

LUMS Literary Society

“In a split second, the world turns white. In the next, it explodes with the sound of fire and the horror of realization. In the numbing aftermath of a bomb that obliterates everything she has known, all that remains are the bird-shaped burns on her back, an indelible reminder of the world she has lost. In search of new beginnings, she travels to Delhi ….” ~ an excerpt from the book

KaraFilm is not alone here; in Lahore, Peer Festivals’ much celebrated World Performing Arts Festival was blatantly sabotaged in 2008 when suspected blasts occurred at the venue of the event.

But the question is, is the security situation or availability of corporate sponsorships to be blamed alone? Isn’t our love for arts, culture, literature and our own aesthetic identity fading away. What was the last time you went out alone, or with your friends or family to an art exhibition, a lok virsa show or to any of the Alhamra concerts on ethnic music?

If we look around our immediate surroundings, and closely observe our collective pshyche, it would not be worng to say that we are rapidly loosing the artistic thought, the softer brain and the very essence of cultural identity. Today, the only entertainment considered entertainment is a Bollywood movie screening (at cinema or at home), a ‘western’ rock concert or in majority of the public’s case; cheap and vulgar theatre.

We may not realize this now, but in due time this realization will come and hit us hard when the damage to our unique cultural identity and the youth’s attitude towards it will be irreparable. And that would happen even without the help of extremist ideologies whether they be from the mullahs or the government.

We’ll lose it and never know when it happened unless our common perspective towards arts and culture changes; unless parents don’t feel undermined of their investment in children who opt for arts; unless we change our attitudes towards everything local and unless we do not support the only catalysts of revival i.e. our local artistes, the lok-musicians, the artisans and the craftsmen of our rich cultural heritage that spans over more than a couple of thousand years as well as welcoming and embracing international flavors in contemporary arts, theatre, music and film.

Nothing is so great as dust

When we are alive it is below our feet

When we are dead it is above us

Eat dry bread and drink cold water

Farid, if you see someone else’s buttered bread, do not envy him for it

Farid, my clothes are black and my outfit is black

I wonder, I am full of sin

Yet people call me a dervish, a holy man.

For the past hour, my little sister has been chanting these verses, first in their original Punjabi, then in the English translation. I typed them as she repeated them over and over again, with her back turned to me. She has a Punjabi exam tomorrow. Just a little glimpse of the educational system in schools in Lahore: Punjabi is compulsory in grades 7 and 8 in Lahore Grammar School, one of the best schools in Pakistan. Ever since our beloved principal learnt that Sindhi is being taught in the schools of Karachi, Punjabi has been a struggling subject in the Gulberg branch of LGS, at least.

Hence, Baba Farid, no less, is being chanted by my thirteen year old sibling; who is, put bluntly, a tensed-up workaholic who simply wants the highest score in every exam or test or assignment she’s given.

The sad, sad part of it is that she has no idea of what she is saying. I am myself ignorant of many things, and the essence and appreciation of Sufi poetry is one of them. Especially these Punjabi verses. Only a slight enjoyment comes to me from hearing the well-known rhythm of the Punjabi words. But at the moment, I would give anything to have had someone force me to learn Punjabi Sufi poetry and give me an exam on it. But then, what kind of exam and what kind of a joke of Punjabi is being offered to us?

One must face it; Punjabi is a joke among us ‘educated’ people. But literally. Punjabi comedy plays are the most that we come up with in appreciation of the language that gave us Waris Shah; Bulle Shah; Baba Farid.

At the most, what do we middle class and upper class Lahoris do with this language? Comedy, or for bantering with friends. Or to elicit a ripple of laughter from students in a university audience during a lecture that is almost solely in English.

It is a joke for us to study Punjabi; it was for me when I was in grades 7 and 8, and it still is for my sister, and all LGS students who are studying it. But I cannot blame the students. I blame the teachers and the school.

While this subject is there in the curriculum, the manner in which it had been handed to these kids is…abysmal, to say the least.

Imagine, as I am now remembering: one of my fondest memories of Punjabi class was of us playing catch with the teacher’s backpack. He used to bring in a little deck to play Punjabi songs for us, and when he took it out of the backpack, the latter went all around the class with the teacher chasing after it! It was a mean, mean thing to do, but the question is; why were seventh-graders allowed to do such a thing? Why did we not feel the beauty of the language we were supposed to be studying, and why has the situation not changed in eight years?

As of now, my sister comes home on the days when she has Punjabi and gives us all a complete parody of what their teacher said and did that day. Hold on…no, it’s not a parody; it’s a complete reenactment of what happened in Punjabi class that day. This teacher-person stands in front of her class (eight-grade) and recites a Punjabi poem with all the actions and embellishments that drive the kids crazy with mirth. She waves her hands to depict a floating breeze; bow and jumps and makes a fool out of herself, but there’s nothing anyone gets out of it except a good laugh. Little sister mimicks it to perfection; she’s a born actress in that sense.

And this same teacher, when the exams are near, goes and tells her students exactly what is coming in the exam paper! I mean, what’s the point of teaching something if you’re not even going to test it in the proper manner? It’s a joke, that’s all it is then, isn’t it? You’re making Bulle Shah and Baba Farid and all the rest of the Punjabi Sufi poets just something to be learnt by heart, three puny couplets at a time, for one exam, and then forgotten! A hundred out of hundred in the Punjabi examination…bravo…

They’re eight-graders, for heaven’s sake. I myself started studying Shakespeare seriously before that age. It’s not that Punjabi poets touch on concepts that are only for the fading elites to grapple with, but how many preteens can fully grasp the beauty of Shakespeare? They can’t, but it’s still thrust upon them, and no one dares laugh at the Bard, do they, now? So why laugh at Punjabi poets? Why not respect them? Why not respect what we have been given? What’s wrong?

Date: October 09, 2008

Venue: Model Town Library

Time: 6:00 pm

So, be there and share any pictures or videos that you may make.

Today, 49 years later the All Pakistan Music Conference maintains its poise and is held every year without fail reminding us of the art that breathes in the same ambience as we do. Classical music and dance is in the air of the subcontinent. We can choose to ignore it but not eradicate it.

The remaining APMC Festival 2008 has been postponed but the last of the few events was last month when Hajrah Khan, a Social Sciences Major from Lahore University of Management Sciences read an academic paper on “Urdu Ghazal & English Sonnet” very intricately interlacing the two and reminding us , art has no boundaries, geographical or demographic. The esteemed presence of Shaista Sirajuddin to read out the English Sonnets selected by Hajrah and Dr Arfa Syeda Zehra to recite Urdu Ghazals added to the magic.

The research paper was followed by Tabla maestro Shahbaz Hussain from Manchester, who gave a talk on different components of Tabla(solo) playing again resembling those of an English Sonnet and and Urdu Ghazal. Shahbaz Hussain is a student of Ustaad Allah Rakha’s son, Ustaad Shaukat Hussain and Ustaad Fayyaz Khan. He has also performed with Ustaad Valayat Khan on his last concert in London. Shahbaz Hussain teaches at NewCastle University which happens to be the first university in the world to have introduced a degree in Tabla. Himself being born in the UK, his parents hail from Lahore and so here’s a son of the soil making us all proud of the fact that we share his roots. This event was by far the best account of playing any classical instrument and the accompanying talk (given in English) was surprisingly free of any (greek!) jargon  and completely comprehendable by the common man.

The best part was where he told how long ago a girl from Lahore was married into a musical “gharana”(family) in Delhi and her father gave her 500 “gats” as her dowry. Shahbaz also played one of those Lahori Gats in the end.

All Pakistan Music Conference is an association which is truly (and quietly) conserving our heritage and not letting it wash away with the graffiti of all things new.