Numerous sessions includ­ing, music, literature, arts, speeches and many more

The third and final day of the three-day Pakistan Literature Festival 2023 or­ganised by the Arts Council of Pakistan Karachi at the Al Hamra Arts Council La­hore offered numerous sessions includ­ing, music, literature, arts, speeches and many more. Just like first two days peo­ple attended the final day with great zeal and passion and turned out in impressive numbers. Notables personalities from different walks of fraternities including politics, journalism, Showbiz, writers and poets participated in multiple events and shared their experiences with audience.

he final day began with a session on the topic “New Poetry and New Possibili­ties”, in which Yasmeen Hameed, Najeeb Jamal, Fatima Hassan, Jawaz Jafri and Aurangzeb Niazi talked about the topic while Shakeel Jazib moderated the event. They drew a relationship between the new poetry and new possibilities and said, only the readers will decide what is new and what is old. Like life, poetry is also connected with possibilities, Mir’s experiences are still useful for us today, an we should not get into the discussion of new and old because something new and something old is actually the beauty of poetry. When someone used to hang his poetry on the door of the Kaaba, this also created a possibility that someone could write better than that . A poet who takes care of the social and societal needs of the present age is a symbol of new and modern poetry. Today’s poetry is creative as well as critical, it falls under the category of resistance poetry and af­ter 9/11 the world scenario has changed, the effects of which can be seen on the literature of the whole world.

In the second session a segment was organised on “Pakistan’s Deep Air Qual­ity Crisis: Next Steps & Imperatives”. The experts stressed that how imperative it is to discuss the air quality crisis that Pakistan is suffering from today. They termed Pakistan’s air as “toxic cocktail” . It is a mix of the most harmful gases and elements that are not even monitored properly, they informed. They further ex­plained how Sulphur, Nitrogen and Lead are a large part of the smog that cause respiratory issues. Adding to the dis­cussion they commented on the flawed development policies, indoor cooking, sprawling urbanization and how Paki­stan is the consumer to the dirtiest pet­rol of the world therefore contributing to the poor air quality in Pakistan. During thethirdsession several literaturebooks of different writers were launched. The book “Meri Dharti Mere Log” by Ahmad Saleem, “Swanah Umri” by Fateh Muham­mad Malik, “Admi” by Irfan Javed, “Poto­har, Khita ¿ Dil Ruba” were launched.

A session on the topic of “Education’s journey forward?” was held in which Shahid number of intellectuals ex­pressed their views in the topic and said, s we have to understand the challenges of the education system and should re­vise the policy of new universities on po­litical basis, still a large number of youth remain out of schools. They also said that there should be separate institutes for conducting research it is not the final re­sponsibility of universities. Emphasizing the importance of social sciences, they said that we need to educate our genera­tions from philosophy and history. 

Irfan Siddiqui’s book “Grazpa Mosu­mon ki Khushbo” was launched, chaired by Khursheed Rizvi, in the sixth session of the final day. Khurshid Siddiqui said in the presidential sermon that poetry is the poetry of colors, fragrances, memo­ries and dreams and the reliability of language and expression. Irfan Siddiqui said that he has been writing poetry for a long time, but now I have complied it in a book form. At the end of the session, Irfan Siddiqui recited a few lines from his book poem “Pachtaon Ka Mosam”. The seventh session was held on the topic of “Saraiki Language and Literature, Pos­sibilities and The Worlds”. Hafeez Khan, Irshad Amin and Muhammad Mustafa expressed their views on the subject and said,the reason is that today’s mothers do not speak to their children in their own language, is simply because they do not know their own language. Mohammad Mustafa expressed his views and said that our mother tongue can never die because it grows in the soil, it is like blood in our veins, Irshad Amin said that I am very op­timistic about the Saraiki language and its future because Work is going on to pro­mote Saraiki language. (Thanks Nawa-e-Waqt)