Hasan Zaidi - who had been asked by Jamil to speak at the event - delivered a crisp and witty speech: comparing being spoken of as a "creative" to feeling like a "Tetra-Pak", talking about his memories of Jamil as a child and how the questions put forth to him by Jamil when she interviewed him for her thesis were unlike anything he'd ever been asked. Taking a dig at the 'Taliban-deniers' and playing down his own contributions in the form of Kara, Zaidi rounded up his remarks by referring to the cacti that features on the book's cover: saying it proves that creativity, like cactus, can grow anywhere and be found everywhere.

And that creativity was all around, from the installations put up to display the interviews and design of the book to the attendees at the event to the venue itself, the school which has produced graduates that continue to excel in the fields of design and architecture. The short documentary made to introduce the book was yet another example, featuring answers from the people featured in the book to the question: 'Can creativity be learned?' to them describing their work environment or singing a verse from their favourite song.

What stood out though, is the feeling of celebrating a different profile of people in Pakistan. In a time when the world media is running about 20 stories a day on Pakistan and its fight (or lack thereof) against the Taliban, and profiles of people like Baitullah Mehsud and Sufi Mohammad are common place; it is truly refreshing to recognize talented people like Hasan Zaidi who have made events like the KaraFilm Festival happen, create music such as Josh's, entertain hundreds such as Saad Haroon does or put Pakistani fiction on the global literary map ala Kamila Shamsie. It is also important that this is documented.

Pakistan has a incredible dearth of information available on any of the creative personalities such as poets and musicians that have been born in this country; and it is via books like Raw Life that one can actually understand what makes them tick and continue to work, despite "the trappings" - as Khaula put it - that come when trying to work in Karachi.

It is also interesting to note that this may be the first project of its kind in Pakistan that was born out of a web blog. Khaula has run a photo blog for the past few years (lifemeansdrama.blogspot.com), which served as inspiration for the thesis, and culminated into the book. The blog - which features snapshots taken of scenes of daily life with Jamil's captions on them - has been extremely popular within the Pakistani blogosphere and continues to attract dozens of comments everyday. And it is examples like these that could very well become Pakistan's very own PostSecret (a highly successful blog run in the US which people submit postcards with secrets to, and that has had several sell-out books published with the featured postcards). And so kudos are in order to Kiran Aman and Khadija Malik of Still Waters for taking on Jamil's thesis and publishing the book.

As one looked around at the creative conversations, the video installations and people clutching their copies of Raw Life, it was a moment to rejoice. The event was an occasion to decry those people who one hears complaining far too often about the dearth of things in Pakistan. And the launch of Raw Life proved that creativity is still very much alive and kicking in this country, despite all the doom and gloom in the air.

Event organized by Lotus PR
Photography by Umme Hamdani and Kohi Marri