LAHORE: The speakers in the LLF-2025 session on `Viewing Home from Afar` shared their thoughts on what constitutes home, new omelands and the lure of nostalgia.

Author of In the Shadows of Love Awais Khan, Wimbledon BookFest festival director Fiona Razvi, author of 2 Chamba House Shams Haider, author of Snuffing Out Moon Osama Siddique and short story author Arslan Athar were the panelists while Saba Karim Khan was the oderator.

Awais Khan said that if anyone living abroad comes to Pakistan then the people would question him about what he earned and did not show respect to his writing, etc. He said the writers were not given the respect they deserved in Pakistan, while adding that he is a native Seraiki, but he was asked to avoid speaking his native language as it would leave a negative effect on his other language pronunciations.

He said that during school days, he had spoken a word of Seraiki in Urdu class, and everyone mocked him. He said he loved his native language Seraiki, and also his country as it was their only home, and no one should forget where he or she comes from.

Ms Karim said Fiona is an Irish Pakistani, and she returned to her father`s home in 2023. She asked Fiona to talk about her journey of returning home. Fiona said she grew up in London, and her father belonged to Pakistan.

She said that she denied her Pakistani identity in the past, as her father migrated to a foreign country before Partition. She was not born at that time, and she was brought up as Irish. She said she came to Pakistan after her father died, and they went to Karachi, Islamabad, Peshawar and his father`s home in Lahore and met her cousins. She said that after being connected to the family of his later father, she received love and affection from them, and now she has become more Pakistani than Irish.

She said she received an invitation about the LLF and she wanted to connect to her lost heritage and agreed to come to Pakistan to get a sense of another home.

Arslan said his parents belonged to an army background, and he was brought up in Saudi Arabia and Dubai. He said that they had official Pakistani nationality but did not have a connection and he did not have any proof of living in Pakistan.

He said he had joined a university and he was questioned by people about his caste and other properties, etc.

He said that his parents told him that they were Punjabis and hadland, etc in Pakistan, and he came to get connected with it. He said that he went to register a theft case in a police station where policemen questioned him about his caste, etc and he did not know about it and the policemen put Muslim in my caste column. He said that he had written the stories to get connected with his Pakistani background, and now he also cherishes being Pakistani.

Mr Haider said that he belonged to a political family that remained legislature before Partition and went abroad to study after graduation.

He said that when he was coming back to Pakistan, everything felt like home. He also joined politics and remained a member of the Punjab Assembly. He said that he is proud of being Pakistani and it`s a beautiful country and people are loveable. `Common people (a cart holder) should come to become members of the assembly, and this caste-based system adopted from Hindus should be demolished.

He said most of the supporters in politics were downtrodden people.

Currently, some people blame the country for not giving them respect; he said that these people were liars who did not respect their country, which had given them everything. He said people question the position of Pakistani passports, and they should have to feel proud like other nations. The moderator questioned Osama as to why he started writing in Urdu. He said that the way things are in most post-colonial states and English is the language of the government and law.

He said he started writing in Urdu as it`s the language of themasses in the country, and he thinks there`s something earthy and organic about the languages, which really resonates with him.

He said that he started writing his second novel in English and was envisioning some characters in the Lahore Old City but when he tried to write about them in English, they sounded like a caricature. `If he writes their dialogue in English, it does not go well. And when he envisioned them, you know, in Punjabi, they became a lot more real.

He said he realised that he wrote it in the book to capture the music of Lahore because Lahore is easy to speak to music, whether it`s mystical poetry or various other singing traditions.

He said that the humour of Lahore is something that you could only capture really well in your own language.

He said that he was reminded of the various sayings and adjectives in Punjabi, which are just so poignant. `What it also did is that in dialogue, we are part of this very small component, which can well say the language. And a lot of people get intimidated by English, because we have been completely confused in our educational policy.

He said that we have neither completely owned English nor Urdu, nor Punjabi, or Pashto and Sindhi.

`Whereas I thinl( we should be proud of the fact that we have these multiple linguistic traditions; people everywhere try and learn a second language. And we should be using English as a language of business, Urdu as a language of great civilization, and have our sort of other terms, because they define who we are.