At T2F, nothing has changed but it's just not the same

Sabeen made T2F what it is, and her absence is strongly felt

KARACHI: This Sunday, T2F reopened, and it felt as if nothing had changed. It was as if Sabeen Mehmud's spirit was still lingering on, even though she was not present physically. 

The corner where she once used to introduce her guests, now sported a board bearing remarks from her well-wishers and supporters, with the words “Braveheart” standing out. In the gallery, we found PTV’s fomer MD Raana Shaikh talking about Sabeen to another journalist. Her staff Chand and Mamoo, both bore a forlorn look on their faces. Chand managed to utter the word, “surviving” when questioned on their well-being, while Mamoo did not answer.

The 'braveheart's' absence begins to sink in, numbing your thoughts. It becomes less obvious on the first floor, where the activity level seems the same as before. The café is abuzz with young students ordering their favorite meal or talking out loud about their studies. In one corner, theatre performers Joshinder Chaggar and Fawad Khan are talking and you know something is off. The two were due to present a play, Ancient History by David Ives, together at T2F, but now it won’t happen. All T2F events for May stand cancelled, they say. However, they might take the play to NAPA.

We share some banter, and Joshinder smiles. Fawad says, “I love to do intimate plays, focusing on a relationship.” Chaggar adds, “This is one play that we plan to take to the other universities of the city too.”

The silence is deafening, yet there seems no one to break it. The culture Sabeen attempted to revive seemed to being drawing its last few breaths.

Dancer, theater actor, civil rights activist, Sheema Kermani says, “I think freedom of thought, freedom of speech and freedom of expression are essential not only for arts and artists to thrive but they are also essential for the development of society."

She continued, "Civilised societies are those where these freedoms are not only considered basic human rights but are also cherished and respected. A major reason for the anti-people and anti-human aspect that our present society has is the very fact that we have not given the public access to the arts of dance, drama, theatre and music. People who are involved with the beauty of all the arts are less inclined to pick up arms and kill people because the arts help to refine the human mind and make better human beings.”

Asif Aslam Farrukhi, noted writer, translator and one of Sabeen's close friends said, “It is obvious that art and culture cannot thrive in the kind of situations you describe. Or at best, they can only eke out an existence, in clandestine and underground shapes and form, like the samizdat from the Communist regimes. But there would be fake and counterfeit officially sanctified culture which will cover all spaces like fungus. And the real, genuine art survives in the diaspora. The world has seen such situations in the not too distant past. We may get to see what others have seen.”

Aren't then all artisans a rebel with a cause, promoting literacy and education to the best of the ability? Ali Rez, a tech geek who was often spotted at T2F on his visits to Karachi, says, “I'm not sure if one can make that sweeping a generalization. Of course, some art does promote literacy and education, but not all, and it doesn't have to. Art can simply make life more beautiful. There are countless causes for which art is created, of course, and infinite messages. But not all have to do with rebellion, or with furthering social causes.”

Farrukhi speaks out against the silence, “Silence is an awful but ultimate condition. I think with a shudder of certain situations where some degree of cultural activity is allowed or permitted which is completely redundant and devoid of the power to create any impression, like children at play.”

Are we civilized enough to tolerate the other? Will we be the torchbearers who will shine the light of reason in the darkness? Farrukhi claims, “Very hard to say. Everyday some friend posts photographs from T2F programmes and I keep going back to the wonderful memories of the programmes Sabeen organised with her extraordinary strategy vision and capacity to plan and organise. I recall pleasant and insightful evenings.”

For places like T2F to thrive, all we need to do is just be there. “There was simply no other place to go. A city as large as Karachi is so impoverished and deprived that we do not have other places besides T2F. I do not about the city but I know what I am left with after Sabeen’s going away, memories and bitter tears. Shock and a sickening sense of deprivation. If only Sabeen was here to tell people like me what to do,” adds Farrukhi.

Rez says, “One hopes that tomorrow sees T2F standing strong, and others pick up the torch and starting more spaces like it.”

"Otherwise what are we? A society that has no poets, no writers, no dancers, no singers, no painters is a dead society. A society that does not tolerate dissent cannot be considered a civilized society,” Sheema Kermani chimes in.