When it comes to events, Karachi is easily the most happening city of Pakistan. The mega city held another classy affair recently called Karachi Literature Festival (KLF) at the Beach Luxury Hotel. It was the sixth edition of KLF which featured discussions, debates, lectures, book readings, book signings, book launches and various other activities spanning over three days.
I decided to visit KLF on its second afternoon along with a couple of friends. One of my biggest motivation to visit KLF was this brilliant initiative by Coca-Cola Pakistan. This year they set up book banks to collect old text books from visitors. These books would then be donated to The Citizen Foundation. The books that are not found to be relevant in terms of children education would be sold in the market and the money earned would again be donated to the same organization. A team of talented and hardworking individuals from Asiatic Public Relations Network (Pvt) Ltd were there to represent Coca-Cola Pakistan. Besides the book bank activity, they also set up a twitter wall featuring live tweets from twitter users who were tweeting the hashtag #CokeKLF2015.
Among the sessions that we attended was one called "Crossing Genres : Transmuting Fiction into Drama" featuring renowned author and novelist Kamila Shamsie along with Nimra Bucha, Framji Minwalla and a few others. However, few sessions which catered to my interest were scheduled for the next day namely "PTV aur Aaj ka Drama" featuring the likes of Haseena Moin, Sania Saeed, Samina Ahmed, Sajid Hasan among others. Similarly other sessions like 'A Traveller's Tales : Lahore se Yarkent tak' with Mustansar Hussain Tarar, 'The complete performer' featuring Bushra Ansari and 'Serial aur Soap : Rang Badaltay Dramay' featuring Sahira Kazmi were also scheduled for the 3rd day. I really wished I could visit KLF on its 3rd day to attend these sessions but I couldn't because of prior commitments.
After the Kamila Shamsie session we headed for the food court which was set up right in front of the entrance serving good quality food. We enjoyed our food with some good music being played in the background. After that, we went to take some pictures by the water at the back side of the hotel followed by a quick visit to the book fair.
One criticism I would like to make is despite the vast area of the hotel, I found the place too crowded at times and due to that sometimes it gave the impression of a fish market. Maybe organizers should look into this matter and arrange a bigger facility to accommodate next year's KLF. Amongst this sea of visitors, we spotted a number of celebrities, such as Savera Nadeem, Sajid Hasan, Gia Ali, Asma Jahangir and Farooq Sattar to name a few.
Around 125,000 people visited Karachi Literature Festival this year over a period of three days. It was a wonderful experience for me for all those 4 to 5 hours I spent there. I would recommend it to everyone as a must visit each year.
I decided to visit KLF on its second afternoon along with a couple of friends. One of my biggest motivation to visit KLF was this brilliant initiative by Coca-Cola Pakistan. This year they set up book banks to collect old text books from visitors. These books would then be donated to The Citizen Foundation. The books that are not found to be relevant in terms of children education would be sold in the market and the money earned would again be donated to the same organization. A team of talented and hardworking individuals from Asiatic Public Relations Network (Pvt) Ltd were there to represent Coca-Cola Pakistan. Besides the book bank activity, they also set up a twitter wall featuring live tweets from twitter users who were tweeting the hashtag #CokeKLF2015.
Among the sessions that we attended was one called "Crossing Genres : Transmuting Fiction into Drama" featuring renowned author and novelist Kamila Shamsie along with Nimra Bucha, Framji Minwalla and a few others. However, few sessions which catered to my interest were scheduled for the next day namely "PTV aur Aaj ka Drama" featuring the likes of Haseena Moin, Sania Saeed, Samina Ahmed, Sajid Hasan among others. Similarly other sessions like 'A Traveller's Tales : Lahore se Yarkent tak' with Mustansar Hussain Tarar, 'The complete performer' featuring Bushra Ansari and 'Serial aur Soap : Rang Badaltay Dramay' featuring Sahira Kazmi were also scheduled for the 3rd day. I really wished I could visit KLF on its 3rd day to attend these sessions but I couldn't because of prior commitments.
After the Kamila Shamsie session we headed for the food court which was set up right in front of the entrance serving good quality food. We enjoyed our food with some good music being played in the background. After that, we went to take some pictures by the water at the back side of the hotel followed by a quick visit to the book fair.
One criticism I would like to make is despite the vast area of the hotel, I found the place too crowded at times and due to that sometimes it gave the impression of a fish market. Maybe organizers should look into this matter and arrange a bigger facility to accommodate next year's KLF. Amongst this sea of visitors, we spotted a number of celebrities, such as Savera Nadeem, Sajid Hasan, Gia Ali, Asma Jahangir and Farooq Sattar to name a few.
Around 125,000 people visited Karachi Literature Festival this year over a period of three days. It was a wonderful experience for me for all those 4 to 5 hours I spent there. I would recommend it to everyone as a must visit each year.
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ReplyDeleteThis is a great piece of writing indeed! And I do agree with you about the venue getting overcrowded. They should have the event ticketed the next time so as to attract only those who are seriously interested in attending their sessions.
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks for the compliments regarding our team, it's so kind of you! :)
I agree with ticketing. But the pricing of that ticket should be reasonable. Don't want to reduce the number of people from 125,000 to 1,250 only :)
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