Deviating a little from Manto, we also wanted to know that as a historian how does she analyse Muslim identities in modern South Asia and read Pakistan’s identity as a ‘modern’ country. “There has always been a certain amount of tension between Pakistan as a homeland for the subcontinent’s Muslims and its quest to be a modern nation-state. However, the conceits of high modernism have been called into question the world over in the last two decades. Historians have learned to question any simplistic modernity versus tradition dichotomy. Pakistan (and India too) needs a state structure and ideology that can accommodate regional distinctions and multiple identities of its citizens. To be a modern country one does not require an over-centralized state,” asserts Ayesha who will be discussing this question of ‘identity’ in an age of transition with Francis Robinson and Tariq Ali as other panelists at the festival.
The courtesan in literature: Who was Umrao Jan Ada? When we think of Umrao Jan Ada, our imagination stops best at our admiration for her as a poetess or perhaps her repute as the most attractive courtesan in 19th Century Lucknow. But does she have more to her or is her existence all together a big dispute for scholars? The discussion on ‘Courtesans in Literature: Umrao Jan to Gohar Jan’ with panelists M.A. Farooqi, Afzal Ahmed Syed, Navid Shahzad and Zehra Nigah is precisely going to achieve a reconciliation to this conundrum or so it seems. “Both Umrao Jan and Gohar Jan as depicted in the two novels are fictitious characters, so they really do not have histories beyond what is known to the readers. And in this session I hope the discussion will not remain confined to only the novels. Courtesans have played a very important role in Japanese literature as well, and, culturally, the Japanese ‘geisha’ comes closest to the ‘tawaif’ of the sub-continent. In Japanese society the word ‘geisha’ still retains its worth as a cultural icon which is not the case in our society. So I think there could be an interesting conversation on the transformation of the connotations of the word ‘tawaif’ in our culture, and the degeneration it suggests from a courtesan to a prostitute,” explains M.A. Farooqi, the author of the much acclaimed book ‘Between Clay and Dust’.
