At the 16th Karachi Literature Festival (KLF), the two incisive keynote speeches in the inaugural session, by F.S. Aijazuddin in English and Asghar Nadeem Syed in Urdu, set the tone and tenor for the three-day festival the exchange of critical ideas between speakers and their audiences, courageously and freely, and raising matters related to culture, history, politics and economy that are seldom discussed in mainstream media.

Besides this, the programme was peppered with interesting book launches and talks by some erudite and insightful speakers. Outside the sessions, I was also excited to meet two academic and widely published individuals currently visiting Pakistan from Canada and the US, Dr Haider Nizamani and Dr Taimoor Shahid.

Nizamani teaches politics at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, but espouses a deep interest in art, music, cinema and literature. For the last few years, he has started teaching the spring semester at a Pakistani university as well. Earlier, it was the Habib University and now it is the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi. Perhaps, this is his way of paying back to his country, by bringing knowledge and enlightenment to young Pakistani minds.

In one of the evenings we spent together, Nizamani made a valid observation: `Why, in almost every Pakistani living room and gathering of friends, is it only current local politics that is the subject of discussion? Why don`t people ever discuss art, music, film, theatre, culture and literature? This is making the whole society lose its balance.

I told him that we have already lost our emotional and intellectual equilibria. Perhaps, literary festivals such as KLF, the Lahore Literary Festival, the Faiz Festival, and Arts Council Karachi`s conferences on culture and literature etc give us an opportunity to go beyond current affairs or raise questions and seek answers for the contemporary human condition, which includes but is not limited to politics.

Interestingly, on the next day, Taimoor Shahid echoed Nizamani`s observations about what Pakistani society is fast turning into depressed, desperate, lopsided and myopic. My introduction to Shahid was through the translation of the sequel of the famous Urdu novel Umrao Jan Ada by Mirza Hadi Ruswa.

In the sequel, Ruswa becomes Ada and writes a response to his novel on Ada`s behalf.

This interesting piece of work is not very well known.

Shahid co-translated and annotated it into English.

Later on, Shahid researched for his doctoral thesis the legend of Saif-ul-Maluk from across west and central Asia to countries surrounding the Indian ocean.

However, his focus remains on Mian Muhammad Bakhsh`s poetic rendition of the story in our part of the world.

The real highlight of my Karachi trip was receiving from Shahid a copy of an exquisite and moving collection of poems in English, titled Yardstick of Life: And Other Poems by M. Shahid Alam. Although he had published his verse in some journals, I knew of Alam as an occasional poet whose mainstay was being a professor of economics with a definite interest in global political economy.

Except for one of his works on master poet Mirza Ghalib, all his other books were about economy and politics. H is book Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilising Logic of Zionism came out in 2009 and must be re-read today to add value to our understanding of the perpetual Middle East crisis and the carnage that is happening today.

With the arrival of Yardstick of Life: And Other Poems in 2024, Alam, who is now over 76 years of age, establishes himself as a fine poet of the English language. His poetry collection offers an even blend of sadness and joy. In terms of style, Alam combines brevity and crispness with depth and wit. The collection is dedicated to the memory of Alam`s son Junaid, who died young.

The poems about Junaid left the same emotional effect on me that Taufiq Rafat`s poems for his younger brother did. In the poem titled `Mary`, Alam says: `All day, she grieves for him,/ For sunlit days unborn in him./ She tells her grief to stars./ She cancels spring for him.

Emeritus professor of English literature at Northeastern University, in Boston in the US, Guy Rotella has written the foreword of Yardstick of Life.

He says: `Of all the subjects this book takes up, time, with its repertoire of life-narrowing threat (death) and life-enhancing expansiveness (the grace of living), is perhaps the most insistent and central...` `Love Song in Eight Parts` is another gripping poem.

In the second part, Alam writes: `Gently, she/ took off/ the shoes/ he died in./ In death,he/ had more/ felicity/than in life.` `Nirvana` is another poem which soothes the reader. The poet says: `Set against the clarity/ Of a sky like this,/ time, flux and flow are overcome:/ motion ceases,/ motion of karma,/ setting free the ego/ from mordant vanities.` How we treat ourselves, our souls, our world and our existence is portrayed in the poem titled `Gaia`, which reads: `It`s your/ world/ for now./ Keep it,/ debauch it,/ gouge it./ Stuff it/ till your gut/ explodes./ We will/ be back/ when you/ go out.

Alam`s collection includes 13 ghazals in English as well. Promoted by the late Kashmiri-American poet Agha Shahid Ali in the later part of the last century, the genre seems to be taking roots, particularly among poets of the South Asian origin in our region and in the diaspora.

I end with the last two lines of Alam`s poem `Jesus` `Another era will seek/ plenitude in erasure.` I am not sure if Nizamani`s desire to see balance and sanity in our society can be fulfilled in the current time and age.

The columnist is a poet and essayist.

His latest collections of verse are Hairaa`n Sar-i-Bazaar and No Fortunes to Tell.