Where Cicadas Sing
By Athar Tahir
Lightstone Publishers
ISBN: 978-969-716-306-9
359pp.

Athar Tahir, the author of Where Cicadas Sing, is a highly acclaimed scholar and writer. He is an English poet, an essayist, a short story writer and an artist. At one time a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, he is the recipient of the Tamgha-i-Imtiaz and Sitara-i-Imtiaz, and is an elected Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and a Fellow of the Pakistan Academy of Letters.

He has also been awarded the Patras Bukhari Award for literature in English four times. His debut novel, Second Coming, was extremely well received. Where Cicadas Sing is the first independent but linked book of a quartet.

With all these credits to his name, Where Cicadas Sing had to be good. And it is. It is an elegantly structured novel, presented through the eyes of a young lad, Athar. The story spans about three years that he spends with his family in Malaysia (then called the Federation of Malaya) in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

According to the author, the symbolism of cicadas has a definite place in the novel. This humble insect figures in Greek and Roman mythology as well as in Eastern literature. It is often mentioned in Japanese poetry. It is proof of the author’s scholarship that he uses cicadas to bring the native and the foreign together for Athar.

An elegantly structured novel, told through through the eyes of a young lad, is the first part of four interconnected novels and has stellar prose but is let down by the lack of much happening in it

The writer never forgets who is telling the story, so the sentences remain short and the vocabulary stays simple. But, even within the confines of the innocence of childish reactions, the reader is made to understand the dynamics of both the boy’s immediate family and the complications abounding in the extended one.

The novel revolves around the father, for he is Athar’s hero. He is the one who shows Athar the world and interprets it for him. His most wonderful trait, from Athar’s point of view, is the love he shows to his children. He is interested in all that they do. He is a big part of their school life, eager to see them excel and willing to help in achieving this goal. Under his tutelage, Athar thrives. He learns myriad new things: to swim, to take good photographs, to keep a diary, to use a knife and fork and to behave correctly when meeting dignitaries.

Fortunately, the parents’ close relationship and love for their children create a safe haven for Athar and his siblings. Whatever changes occur in their lives, the strong and tender family bond keeps them centred and secure.

And there are changes galore. First, the family comes to Kuala Lumpur from Karachi. Athar and his sister are enrolled in a school and have to make new friends and deal with teachers whose very names are strange to them. After two years, they moved to Penang and have to get used to a new school. Athar yearns for the friends he leaves behind in Kuala Lumpur, especially for a classfellow, Azizah, to whom he has lost his boyish heart. After a year in Penang, the final change is wrought when Athar is sent to a boarding school in Pakistan. As he flies out, he wonders whether he will ever meet Azizah again.

Where Cicadas Sing is written exceptionally well. Tahir is at the pinnacle of his craft. This is a deceptively simple book, made possible only by the author’s command over the language. It is written for adults, but children can read it easily. The depiction of Athar revelling in his new surroundings, absorbing new sounds and sights and making friends and meeting people from different religions and ethnicities is masterly. The awe and wonder that young Athar feels at each new event are superbly conveyed to the reader.

The vehicle used, first person singular, gives the boy’s experience immediacy. It seems that he is relaying his impressions even as he is living through the incidents. And there are no filters. Athar’s thoughts and observations come through with the naturalness of a nine- or 10-year-old. Yet, in oblique ways, adult themes are also touched upon. With an endearing guilelessness, Athar comments upon the extramarital affair of one of his father’s acquaintances and the pornography on view in another one’s home.

Even though the first-rate prose makes the book easy to read, it is not a quick one. Interest begins to flag because nothing much happens in the story. Athar finds going on a picnic, attending a scout meeting and spending time at a funfair enthralling. But for the reader, these are all very humdrum. The absence of any real conflict or dilemma makes for a desultory read. The reader does not feel compelled to turn the page and see what happens next. The novel can be put away for later.

Moreover, many chapters are stand-alone narratives. They do not take the tale forward and can be omitted, just like a pearl on a string, though exquisite in itself, can be removed without harming the integrity of the necklace.

Many extremely captivating books have been written from children’s perspectives. To Kill a Mockingbird, The Book Thief and The Ice Candy Man are just a few of them. But Where Cicadas Sing has no mystery and no challenge. A chronicle of a happy child from a stable family going about his daily rounds of living and learning, even in a foreign country, does not make for an engrossing storyline.

However, this book is only the first of four interconnected novels. It has laid the foundation by introducing young Athar and his family. Tahir’s facility with words and clarity of thought can be trusted to take the saga to pinnacles of adventure and drama and so create an outstanding quartet.

It is sure to be worth reading since the last of the tetralogy, Second Coming, which is already in print, has already won the nation’s highest award for literature in English.

The reviewer is a freelance writer, author of the novel The Tea Trolley and the translator of Toofan Se Pehlay: Safar-i-Europe Ki Diary

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, February 22nd, 2026

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This year, it looked like cultural and literary activities were squeezed into a small timeframe across Pakistan in general and in Lahore in particular, due to the impending start of Ramazan. It meant that all cultural and literary events had to be held before that. In Lahore, the Lahore International Book Fair, Basant, the Asma Jahangir Conference and the Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) all coincided on February 6, 7 and 8.

There was a lot of hullabaloo and commotion due to Basant that was taking place after a gap of about two decades. Nobody wanted to miss it, including Gen-Z, whose memories are not attached to the cultural event that was once almost synonymous with life in Lahore. Initially scheduled for the weekend prior, LLF was forced to shift to the dates clashing with the much-awaited Basant Mela because of administrative orders and it was a brave call by the organisers to accept the new dates.

On the same days, the Karachi Literature Festival (KLF) was also taking place and some of the panellists were featured in both these festivals, taking flights from Lahore to Karachi or vice versa to ensure their presence. While booksellers and publishers were making hay while the sun of literary events was shining, the impact of all these activities did have some effect on the LLF and it was visible in the crowds.

The 14th edition of LLF appeared like an attempt to diversify the festival that generally focuses on English language literature and art. The organisers put more focus on history this time and that took the central space during all the three days. There were about 16 sessions, including book launches, on history and about an equal number of sessions on Urdu and other regional languages.

The 14th Lahore Literary Festival put its focus on history and in diversifying away from English but was impacted by scheduling clashes with the much-awaited Basant festival, among other goings on

Historian and Oxford University Professor Robin Lane Fox delivered the keynote speech to open this edition of the LLF. He, very intelligently, chose a subject that the Lahori audience as well as non-Lahori delegates could relate to — Alexander the Great, who conquered parts of India more than two millennia ago. Prof Fox painted a picture of Alexander based on facts, not the legends that are popular around the world as well the legends that he left behind when he returned.

He deconstructed the myths surrounding Alexander as well as his great teacher Aristotle, the biggest of them all being that both the disciple and teacher had no sense of geography when the former came to India. Prof Fox also talked of the five “Ws” that were important vis-à-vis Alexander’s time spent in India — war, war elephants, women, weather and wealth. Prof Fox repeated almost the same lecture when he went to Karachi later.

Other scholars featured in the LLF included Audrey Truschke of Rutgers University in the US — whose work on Mughal emperor Aurangzeb and, recently, on 5,000 years of the Subcontinent’s history is well known — and British-Pakistani Ziauddin Sardar who has written extensively about Muslim thought and societies.

Indian-Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta, director of movies such as Fire, Earth and Water, was perhaps the most anticipated delegate of the festival. Her session was well-attended and she spoke of how she ventured into filmmaking under the influence of her father, learning the art of editing as the start. She also spoke about how chance played a big role in leading her to make her Aamir Khan-starrer Earth. In addition, she shared the politics and political interests that brought about a backlash for some of her films, including Water.

The first day of the litfest had few sessions but its pace picked up on the second and third days, though Basant had affected the number of people in attendance.

Saad Abbasi, a vet who has been attending the LLF over the years, also felt the difference, saying that he did not find it as good as the previous years.

“There are fewer people this year. Basant can be the reason. But I did find some sessions to my liking and liked the views of the panelists,” he tells Eos. One of the sessions that he liked was about world politics, ‘Remains of the Day: The Post-1945 World Order and Diplomacy in a Time of Resurgent Great-Power Rivalry’, which included Michael Pembroke, historian and former judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales in Australia; former Pakistan foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar and Mohammad Yahya, the UN’s Resident Coordinator.

Moderated by Lyse Doucet of the BBC, the session discussed the dirty role the US has been playing in the world since World War II. Pembroke pointed out that the CIA’s precursor, the OSS, played a similar role in undermining the Italian Communist Party as the CIA and Israel’s Mossad played recently in Iran. Khar referred to a “civilisational regression” in the West.

However, not everybody comes to litfests like LLF with views like those of Saad Abbasi. People attend them for a myriad of reasons. Litfests are an attraction not just for those interested in world politics, culture and literature, but also provide space for socialising with like-minded people.

Freelance journalist and rights activist Umaima Ahmed attends the LLF every year but she does not go inside the halls of Alhamra Art Centre. She stays on the lawns and sits in the food court, hanging out with friends and those she meets only at such events. “I come only for socialising,” she admits, “otherwise, nobody has time in their busy routine.”

During the festival, there were talks on art, history, economy, migration, regional languages and literature in English, Punjabi, Seraiki and Urdu languages.

At the book launch of Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia by Sam Dalrymple — the son of noted historian William Dalrymple — the younger Dalrymple spoke about, among other things, the real reasons for Mohammad Ali Jinnah leaving India and his return. According o to him, Jinnah left mainly because of his daughter’s schooling and returned mainly to answer Jawaharlal Nehru’s taunt that his political career was finished.

At another session on Seraiki, novelist and journalist Kashif Baloch asserted that liberal order and nationalism had replaced feudalism and its aesthetics. While Seraiki poets and writers were aware of the oppression of aesthetics, he claimed no significant parallel voices were heard in Punjabi.

Pakistani-British novelist Kamila Shamsie, in her session, spoke about the impact of migration on her. She also discussed how important it was for the writers to venture into the subjects that they are unfamiliar with, just as she did with Burnt Shadows, her novel set in Nagasaki.

Fatima Bhutto was eagerly awaited after the publication of her recent memoirs, but could not make it to the festival. The LLF was sandwiched between Afkaar-i-Taza, ThinkFest and the Faiz Festival, three main literary events of Lahore, and comparison between all three becomes natural if they happen in such close proximity.

The LLF had the least number of visitors while the Faiz Festival, the weekend after, had the most, so much so that, on Sunday, the organisers of the latter had to shut doors in some halls of the Alhamra due the rush of people. One obvious difference is that of language. The LLF caters to mainly the English-speaking class while the Faiz Festival is held mostly in Urdu and a majority of Pakistanis can relate more to the latter than the former, hence the obvious pull.

What can be the other reasons for lower attendance should be left to the LLF organisers to ponder. However, for holding the event despite the obvious challenges, including Basant, they deserve kudos. One hopes that next year the clash of schedules will have been worked out.

The writer is a member of staff.

X: @IrfaanAslam

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, February 22nd, 2026

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I am sharing an excerpt from my forthcoming memoir: Whirlwind of the Heart:

I grew up with Urdu poetry, learning to recite verses from ghazals as soon as I could talk. Words held only visual meanings for me but that changed as I grew older and began to enter the world of poetry. Now I teach poetry whenever I can gather a group of students to take my class.

I enjoy explaining why ‘longing’ is an emotion filled with ‘rasa’ [relish] that should be experienced… Sanskrit poetics emphasises that the content of poetry is emotion and so does the classical ghazal: why love’s arrow stuck in the heart creates a wound that should not heal, why pain is a cleanser. But love is also the source of creation, the reason for existence. Love is both universal and personal; it transcends time and space; it carves light from darkness.

The heart is also a mirror of the self and, in the ghazal, the analogy of the mirror-heart is carried to great lengths. The heart’s depth cannot be fathomed; but the heart can also grow narrow or constricted. Why and how is the heart perceived as narrow? Perhaps because the pain of love is greater than the space in the heart, and the heart is filled with emotions. In the classical ghazal, another organ –– the liver, or jigar –– is equal to the heart in being a locus of love. The heart and liver are often in sync; they speak to each other and are equally affected by love. The liver, it was believed, produced blood while the heart expended it. But while the liver is perceived as the locus of life, the heart is the locus of Divine Radiance.

Altaf Husain Hali and Shibli Nomani, two important Urdu critics of the early 20th century, were critical of the role of emotions or jazbaat at the core of the ghazal. Under the influence of British colonial literary practice and Protestant values, Hali and Nomani advocated, instead, for the role of ethics as a more important component of poetry.

Another path-breaking early modern critic, Muhammad Hasan Askari, was also critical of the importance given to emotions in Urdu poetry. He emphasised the importance of qalb, the heart-mind, as the core of poetry, and argued that Islah-i-qalb or improvement of the qalb should be the goal of the ghazal. Qalb, the heart-mind, should not be confused with nafs or breath, self, soul, essence.

Askari’s thought merged the ghazal entirely with tasawwuf or mysticism. Earlier, Sufi poets such as Hafez and Rumi had taken the ghazal to profound spiritual heights, demonstrating that ishq-i-majaazi or worldly love could be a template for ishq-i-haqiqi or spiritual love. In the ghazal, love of the earthly kind can be a step or stage toward the opening of the heart to love of God.

Koi mere dil se poochhay tere teer-i-neem-kash ko
Ye khalish kahaan se hoti jo jigar ke paar hota

[Would someone ask my heart about your half-drawn arrow/ Could such gnawing pain be there if it had gone through the liver?]

While the ghazal can glide from majaazi to haqiqi love through poetic devices such as tropes and metaphors, I believe that the ghazal, in both its classical and modern forms, transcends any kind of binding themes. Within the realm of the ghazal, themes can be infinitely refined and polished, subverted and reinvented. Thus, I was shocked to discover that Askari considers this famous verse of Ghalib to be weak because it only addresses the external world of love, ishq-i-majaazi, and not the internal or spiritual realm or ishq-i-haqiqi.

He claims that if the love represented in this ghazal was spiritual or haqiqi, then its khalish [gnawing pain or compulsive thought] would continue to escalate, even if the beloved’s arrow had pierced through the heart to enter the liver. He quotes a verse from Ghalib’s great contemporary, the master poet Zauq, to prove his point.

Khudang-i-yaar mere dil se kis tarha niklay
Keh us ke saath hai ai Zauq meri jaan lagi

[How would the Beloved’s arrow leave my heart?/
O Zauq, my life is attached to it]

Zauq’s verse is undoubtedly effective, almost electrifying. Yet, I find myself arguing with Askari’s assessment. I don’t think Ghalib’s verse is any less accomplished, even if it does not allow a spiritual interpretation. After all, there is so much going on in Ghalib’s couplet. It begins with a piquant dialogue between the poet-speaker and the reader-listener: would someone ask the heart about the anguish or khalish that it is experiencing due to the arrow stuck in the liver?

The Urdu word ‘khalish’ has many meanings, including pain; one of them is curiosity or prying intensity. Ghalib’s verse enacts a playful and subtle slippage between arrow, liver and heart, where the arrow itself speaks through the liver, and addresses its question to the heart.

There is no easy way to translate jigar, a powerful and poetic ghazal trope, into English. ‘Liver’ in English, sounds simply gross. However, within the ghazal’s complex repertoire of the bodily metaphor, dil, the heart — a wayward, passionate, wounded, pain-filled, aching piece of the lover’s anatomy — is closely associated with jigar, the liver, which is constant, staid, filled with life-giving, life-sustaining blood. When the ghazal’s beloved throws her nigaah, her piercing gaze, it falls like an arrow to enter the heart, piercing its way down from the heart to the liver in one stroke, making both parts of the lover’s body consent to her power.

To take pleasure in the world of the ghazal, one must learn to appreciate the role of the liver alongside the heart. But the liver-heart connection also carries other serious physiological resonances. When one’s heart is medicated, one’s liver function is constantly monitored. The liver sympathises with the heart’s struggle, but tries to keep it in check from self-destruction.

The columnist is Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Virginia in the US. X: @FarooqiMehr

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, February 22nd, 2026

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