gone to an occasion regarding the 100th commemoration of Franz Kafka facilitated by the Goethe-Institut Karachi on Saturday. The event, which was given the name “Dastangoee and Readings from Kafka Texts,” brought together the writings of Kafka and Saadat Hasan Manto and highlighted the artistic resemblances between the two literary giants.
The evening, which was put on by journalist Peerzada Salman and the Rung Munj Theatre Group, aimed to celebrate the anxieties and feelings of alienation that Kafka and Manto shared. One was shaped by early 20th-century Europe, the other by the upheaval of Partition, which I, a young person, never thought I could relate to.
A zillenial is a cross between a millennial and a Gen-Zero who doesn’t fall on either side of the spectrum. I like to refer to myself as a zillenial because I possess characteristics of both millennials and Generation Z.
The event’s choice of the institute’s outdoor garden might have been too ambitious. Karachi’s intensity and the consistently present annoyance of mosquitos hosed the experience to some degree, however the quintessence of the occasion stayed in one piece thanks to the smart curation and serious exhibitions.
The evening started later than advertised, which the organizers seemed to accept as a cultural norm. However, when the readings started, the wait was quickly forgotten.
The night’s highlight was the Rung Munj Theatre Group’s take on Franz Kafka’s The Country Doctor. The story, told with dramatic flair, took the audience into Kafka’s surreal world and immersed them in the startling absurdity and helplessness of the protagonist.
The Country Doctor resonated more strongly than Kafka’s Judgement, which was performed with the same level of excellence. The Urdu portrayal permitted Kafka’s work to rise above semantic limits, offering the neighborhood crowd a feeling of responsibility over his profoundly thoughtful subjects.
The group then moved on to Naya Qanoon and Manto’s Khol Do. Manto and Kafka’s relationship was striking and seamless. Khol Do — with its nerve racking portrayal of injury following Parcel — went about as a terrible ally to Kafka’s existential investigations.
Despite operating in distinct historical and cultural contexts, both authors dealt with alienation, loss, and societal collapse. As a Gen Z-millennial on the cusp, hearing these timeless narratives felt like hearing stories from a bygone era, a world plagued by real struggles prior to the rise of AI and digital anxieties.
Recalling the raw, gritty, and palpable realities of their time, which felt both familiar and distant, had an odd, almost eerie resonance.
Peerzada Salman and Khizer Salman led the second segment, which included readings of Kafka’s works in both Urdu and English. These texts, translated by Naiyer Masud, demonstrated Kafka’s universal appeal across linguistic and cultural divides. It’s difficult to decipher Kafka and afterward make it interesting to the nearby crowd without losing the social setting, yet Masud made a sensational showing!
The double language conveyance enhanced the experience, making Kafka’s stories open, however some could contend that Kafka’s solitary style loses a dash of its bizarreness in interpretation.
In the end, the event captured both authors’ essence: their capacity to transform individual and collective anxieties into eerie fiction. Dastangoee and Readings from Kafka and Manto proved to be an engaging encounter, despite some minor logistical issues.
The audience was reminded of how literature is timeless and how stories from different eras, languages, and continents can still elicit feelings of loss, alienation, and hope. Indeed, even in a world driven by innovation, the night filled in as an impactful suggestion to me, by and by, of how the phantoms of the past keep on addressing us, their voices resonating through the present.
Everyone ended the evening with at least one lingering thought: Perhaps we still require Kafka and Manto to remind us of the fragile threads that bind humanity, threads that may fray but never completely break, in a world that is becoming increasingly disjointed by virtual realities.
