{"id":3045,"date":"2017-04-11T13:50:33","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T08:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/?p=3045"},"modified":"2017-04-11T14:02:55","modified_gmt":"2017-04-11T09:02:55","slug":"llf-testament-of-strength","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/2017\/04\/llf-testament-of-strength\/","title":{"rendered":"LLF 2017: A Testament of Strength"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I went the long haul for the Lahore Literary Festival (LLF)\u2014or at least, that\u2019s what it felt like, anyway\u2014landing in Lahore at midnight before, through bus.<\/p>\n<p>For the past few days, I had just been checking and rechecking the LLF&#8217;s official Twitter and Facebook pages for <em>any<\/em> new updates. \u201cIt\u2019s never going to happen,\u201d many had said. \u201cThey haven\u2019t even uploaded their schedule.\u201d And when the tragic DHA blast happened just one day before, I gave up hope. It looked like a no.<\/p>\n<p>But then, this tweet:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tammyhaq\">@tammyhaq<\/a> erroneous information. The Festival is going ahead!<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 LLF (@lhrlitfest) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lhrlitfest\/status\/834699351918333952\">February 23, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>And I thought, right, I\u2019m getting on the bus straight from work. Best decision ever. The festival, sadly shortened to one day, was beautiful nonetheless. The panels were wonderful; the star power was shining; the book stalls were bustling; even the disorganized chaos around the food stall was endearing.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<blockquote>\n<h5><strong>It was, overall, a testament of strength.\u00a0Here we all were, a day after a horrific explosion, milling about around our favorite authors and their books. Every person and every conversation coming from the same literary hivemind, with the same urge for stimulation, inspiration, and lively creativity.<\/strong><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n<hr \/>\n<p>I was feet away from Michael Palin, in a selfie with Teju Cole, in the same seating row as Kamila Shamsie. I listened to the earnest, well-spoken, and thought-provoking words of Mohsin Hamid, as he talked about his struggles with his novels, his writing process, and his suggestions to budding writers. I drank in every word that Teju Cole spoke about Lahore reminding him of his own childhood city, Lagos, and how his writing caters to people who have their foot in two or more worlds\u2014something he probably accurately described everyone in the audience of having. I watched Daniyal Mueenuddin describe Pakistan as his dark love, something that has imbibed him and won\u2019t let him go. I laughed at Michael Palin\u2019s quips, jokes, and chuckles; watched him take us back into his childhood, into all his influences as a young boy from the obscure city of Sheffield that have made him who he is. Kamila Shamsie, acting as the moderator for\u00a0most panels, did a wonderful job of guiding the conversation to its most interesting elements, effortlessly keeping everyone in the audience engaged.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\"><p>\n&#8220;Pakistan is my dark love. It&#8217;s like a drug. Once you&#8217;ve imbibed it, it will never let you go.&#8221;-Daniyal Mueenuddin <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LLF2017?src=hash\">#LLF2017<\/a> \u2014 Ifra Asad (@ifra_asad) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ifra_asad\/status\/835421539151532032\">February 25, 2017<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>It was, overall, a testament of strength. Here we all were, a day after a horrific explosion, milling about around our favorite authors and their books. Every person and every conversation coming from the same literary hivemind, with the same urge for stimulation, inspiration, and lively creativity. I made more conversations with random people on that one day than I have all year, and each one was more welcoming, open, and unquestioningly friendlier than the last. It was a testament to the adage\u2014forgive the cringeworthy clich\u00e9, but it must be mentioned\u2014that the pen is, after all, mightier than the sword (or bomb).<\/p>\n<p>The day ended with a wonderfully crowded tent, where all had cozied in to see Michael Palin\u2019s last panel before he was escorted off. He took us through a photo slide of his journeys through the Himalayas from the early 2000s, singing praises to Peshawar, Chitral, Kalash, and then on to India, Nepal, and Bhutan.<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/451500316\" target=\"_blank\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/451500316?et=T3AhVLRcQNV0_VhXdztn1Q&amp;tld=com&amp;viewMoreLink=off&amp;sig=kCwy-pGWb-s-YJqVX3IsP8IN9NkXEy935p6oJhoHBv0=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cPakistan has a wonderful, lively, vital energy to it,\u201d Palin said, before he was abruptly cut off. A note had been handed to him: \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.themichaelpalin.com\/the_latest\/\">Sir, Time Is Over. Please Finish. Thanks. Lahore Police.<\/a>\u201d We all laughed, but they were serious. Before I could trail after him for an autograph, he was being whisked away by security, and I had no chance.<\/p>\n<p>I left the festival after that, feeling absolutely rejuvenated. I am a book lover who often feels left without an outlet, and without an outlet, one\u2019s passion tends to deteriorate. But being around ardent bookworms and bibliophiles, established writers, speakers whose intellect burst out from between their words, I felt infected\u2014with the best kind of virus. I only wish this was more accessible to everyone in the country, and not just the elites. Everyone deserves to feel this sort of belonging.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em><strong>Ifra Asad<\/strong> is a poetry editor at Papercuts magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Papercuts poetry editor Ifra Asad made a mad dash from Islamabad to Lahore to attend LLF 2017 and here she explains why it was worth the journey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":3074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[365],"tags":[272,251,736,424,737,741,14],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3045"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3091,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045\/revisions\/3091"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}