‘Twas brillig…

Indeed they did, and there was much gyreing and gimbleing on the part of any number of slithy toves at the Karachi Literature Festival, 2013. It was also distinctly brillig, in fact one of the most brillig events I have attended for some years. Although my attendance was limited to three hours on the afternoon of day two, I would say the entire affair was blessed with oodles of brillig.

The slithy toves were easily spotted. The literary types and orbiting begums toting handbags of indescribable ugliness along with a sprinkling of simpering acolytes; stood out in a crowd that was notable for being neither slithy nor having much by way of toves. It was that lack in the slithy and tove department that made this an event that was being enjoyed by a cross-section of the Karachi population that was neither elite nor stuck-up and stuffy; but was made up of good and ordinary folk out for the day and determined to have a good time.

The place was packed to the gunwales with young and old, bearded and clean-shaven, veiled and unveiled (several skirts of modest length were observed but nothing likely to bring about the end of civilisation as we know it) and eager bibliophiles soaking up a range of interesting and thought-provoking presentations like the proverbial sponges.

All mimsy were the borogoves and the mome raths outgrabe. The mimsy borogoves sat in respectful serried ranks listening to some very erudite mome raths giving an outgrabe of stellar quality. The one I was party to from beginning to end was on the future of Pakistan and Afghanistan after.

The Great Satan and his cohorts have slouched off over the horizon in 2014. As a distillation of bad news it was up there with The Great Plague…or perhaps four hours being forced to listen to Justin Bieber. These mome raths knew their stuff. What a pity, I mused, that our TV channels and their hyperventilating and apoplectic anchors could not take a leaf from the tomes the mome raths of the KLF read from.

Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Quite so. You never can tell with Jabberwocks these days. Tricky customers. In truth, they were not much in evidence, perhaps biding their time, lurking beneath the stalls of the booksellers who seemed to be doing rather well considering this is supposed to be a nation as much in love with reading as it is with sticking red-hot needles through its collective eyelids.

Yes, this was all about books and it was an illustrated edition of the collected works of Lewis Carroll who, I have to say, was probably a tove of the slithiest though nobody has ever proved it that prompted this minor excursion into a dissection of one of his better-known poems. So the Jabberwocks held their fire, happy looking children did things with paints and brushes and paper that probably exceeded the desires and expectations of the organisers and the pizza-sellers did a roaring trade.

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch! Excellent advice, Dear Reader. Some of the Jubjub birds had decided that for whatever reason they were not going to grace the KLF with their mellifluous and lambent presence but this detracted not one jot or tittle from a line-up that made the very best of locally-bred Jubbers.

As for frumious Bandersnatches, well we had to wait for the closing ceremony for a certain Bandersnatch of the British variety to regale an adoring crowd (watched by me on an internet link as I had departed northwards on Day 3) with a gig of vintage Bander, that was thin on snatch but long on hyperbolic cliché and which pandered to the lowest common denominator.

He took his vorpal sword in hand; long time the manxome foe he sought. Ah yes, the vorpal sword. And the manxome foe. Suffice to say that the visiting Bandersnatch did what he does best, doubtless pleased those who invited him and they should, before inviting him for a repeat performance next year, check out some of the things he has said in the past about Pakistan and its people. Digging up the remains of Saddam Hussein and inviting them to speak at the 2014 event may be a preferable option.

Leaving aside the demise of the Jabberwock who whiffled through the tulgey wood and burbled as he came (…one does wonder what Lewis Carroll was smoking when he wrote this stuff) and the one-two of the vorpal blade that snicker-snacked its head off – what we have at the end of it all was a beamish boy.

The KLF had seen off any number of Jabberwocks and not a few trolls by the time it closed its doors on Sunday evening. ‘Twas indeed brillig, and the slithy toves and the hoi-polloi, the groundlings (yes…Shakespeare not Carroll but allow me a little poetic licence) and the doubters, the rain-gods and a range of sponsors who must have gone home satisfied at having backed a winner – all might find themselves with food for thought.

Not everything worked but most things did. If there is to be an event of similar scale next year then there needs to be a bigger venue with adequate parking. And keep it free. This was an event that attracted the rich and the poor alike. It was not as had been widely predicted – an event for the elite crowd; it was truly cosmopolitan. The atmosphere was happy, the mimsy borogoves well behaved and breaking new ground by actually throwing their litter in the bins rather than on the ground around them, and I watched streams of people leaving with smiles on their faces.

‘Twas brillig and the slithy toves/Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:/All mimsy were the borogoves,/And the mome raths outgrabe. That they did. And the Karachi Literature Festival 2013? Brillig…bloody brillig!

The writer is a British social worker settled in Pakistan. Email: manticore73@gmail.com