KARACHI: A one-day literature festival at T2F on Saturday organised for a term project of 32 students of the Shaheed Zulnkar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (Szabist) titled Paish-i-Lafz was an event that should have been attended by more people than the actual number that did manage to be there.

It all started with a lively debate on cricket, conducted by Usman Mazhar and participated by Shoaib Mohammad, Ahmer Naqvi and Sikandar Bakht. Mr Mohammad spolce on the Pakistan Cricl(et Board (PCB) and the arrival of a new coach, Mickey Arthur. He said he was one of the better coaches in the world but there were other aspects of the game that needed to be looked into. Commenting on the PCB, he said its own face was covered in dust but it was cleaning the mirror.

Mr Naqvi pointed out the different problems that impinged on the game in general.

For example, he said Sadaf Husain had been performing well on the national circuit.

Unfortunately, he had a tiff with a strong member of the board as a result of which hewas being ignored for selection, he said.

Mr Bakht said the national side did not need a coach; rather, coaches were required at the Under 19 level. He also gave a few examples of nepotism, one of them was of Inzimamul Haq who, he said, had recently done a favour to his nephew. He also talked about the set pattern of behaviours of our cricketers. In that context he narrated an interesting incident. He said once Richard Pybus (who was part of one of the previous coaching staff of the Pakistan cricket team) scolded Imran Nazir for eating parathas.

When Pybus left the scene, a senior cricketer came to him (Bakht) and mockingly remarked that he had made 6,000 runs by eating parathas.

The second session was called `A tale of three cities` moderated by Marium Durrani.

It did not kick of f on scheduled time because the Pakistani panellist Madeeha Syed arrived a little late. To kill some time, Adeel Hasan, a teacher at Szabist, engaged the other two panellists, Naveed Mahbub from Bangladesh and Ganapathy Balagopalan from India (both joined via Skype) on discussing traffic issues and the recent Sharhukh Khan blockbuster Fan. It did not take them long to realise that they shouldbegin the session come what may.

The first question that the moderator put to the panellists was about the importance of humour in cities such as Dhaka, Mumbai and Karachi. Mr Mahbub (who is a standup comedian and was speaking from London) said humour was important to discuss many social issues. He said it helped deliver strong messages through comedy. He said there was frustration and humour helped us get rid of that.

Mr Balagopalan said the ability to laugh at yourself was a sign of cultural maturity. He said it was evident in the 1(ind of stories they told all across India. He said so much was happening all around us and we should take it in our stride.

Ms Syed agreed with the other two panellists and said humour was important because people were constantly trying to survive, even when they tried to get from one place to another.

Answering a question about street culture elements, Mr Balagopalan said in Mumbai there was auto-rickshaw humour, local train humour etc. He said money and dreams drove his city.

The third session of the festival, moderated by Zainab Dar, was called `NaNoWriMo`in collaboration with Desi Writers` Lounge (DWL). Its topic was `The risky art of writing in groups` Speaking on NaNoWriMo, panellist Christie Lauder said it was formed 17 years ago in the US by a group of 20 friends to give everyone `validation for writing`. She said the writers were required to write a 50,000-word first draft in 30 days. She said it also gave the potential writers a goal and a community.

Farheen Zehra said she had been associated with the DWL since 2012 and looked after its offline events. She said it was a daunting task to write 50,000 words in a month. Highlighting what drew her and her team to NaNoWriMo, she said it was about collaborative editing and critiquing to help writers with their worl<.

The third panellist, Sheba Sultan said it was a useful process because creative writing could sometimes get very lonely.

Ms Lauder said she`d been with NaNoWriMo since 2007 and the success levels had been varying. She said, the community aspect was gratifying.

In the final segment of the festival an Indian film Ankhon Dekhi was screened, followed by a question and answer session with its director, Rajat Kapoor, on Skype.