The once great cities of the past such as Rome and Athens, Constantinople and Baghdad, St. Petersburg and the Forbidden City are marked by their history as much as they are by their unique architecture. As centers of formidable power they enriched themselves with the produce and exotic treasures brought overland or across the seas from subjugated lands greedily conquered through war. These are cities that straddle their past and present with the ease of a supreme athlete; living simultaneously in dual time zones.

Lahore too ranks among such cities which blur the boundaries between the old and the new. Built in the past by kings, patronized by doyens of the arts, the city was a thriving center of trade and national economy finding mention as a fabled city in Milton’s description of magnificent Eastern opulence in his most well known epic. Lahore’s historic siting at the crossroads of trade routes to and from the vast land mass known as the Subcontinent brought a rich exchange of cultures and languages, custom and innovation until it became a city richly deserving a reputation for literary activity and the arts.

Home to the oldest university in the country, Lahore constantly finds itself at the center of a vortex; jostling past and present, the complex and the simple, the spiritual and the earthly. It is fitting therefore that one of the youngest university’s in its domain should plant the seeds of an idea which challenges the differences between illusion and reality, creative writing and research, poetry and prose. At the heart of the enterprise has been the brilliant, persuasive, contagious energy of the students of the Department of Literatures and Languages as they celebrate the duality of the self and the universe that surrounds them.

The seeds of The Maya Tree were sown during a magical Spring in 2005 when Uzma Aslam Khan; fresh from her literary triumph Tresspassing; visited the School of Liberal Arts at the Beaconhouse National University. She was struck by the ferocity with which a passion for the written word was being nurtured by Zaibun Pasha and Nida Maqsud; both faculty members at the Department of Literatures and Languages. For me, it was a personal triumph when Uzma agreed to conduct a Creative Writing Workshop for us at the School. Sixteen creative writing pieces emerged.

By 2006, the seeds had begun to root and the team of ‘gardeners’; doubled and strengthened by the impassioned efforts of Jawad Haroon, freshly appointed as teaching faculty for literature started on yet another journey. With their backpacks of diverse readings in metaphysical poetry, Shakespeare and Kafka, Ibsen and Beckett, Women’s Voices and South Asian Writers; our students began the second critical climb towards an understanding of the creative process.

The Maya Tree is now a sapling. We like to believe that it is more than just a platform for young writers enabling them to explore both outer and inner landscapes with skill and imagination. It is an attempt to light up the sky with the soft, incandescence of glow worms; the desire to tell stories, to celebrate life, to find joy in scholarship, to test fledgling wings across vast expanses of unexplored regions and to savour the sweetness of research challenges.

Here at SLA, the ground is unusually fertile. The Maya Tree’s promise of healthy, organic growth within a short period of time evidences a passionate commitment to the written word, the visual image, the chord of music and all that the finest of human thought can create. More than anything else, this is an attempt to reach out to the many fine young writers who have stories to tell and no lantern lit campfire around which to tell them.

My own role has been that of a matriarch, content to sit under the growing shade of the Maya Tree as the children put their magnificent imagination to work. The Tree’s roots have been undeniably nurtured with the support of faculty but the credit for the quick growth of the seedling can only be attributed to the First Student Council of the enterprise. It is their effort that has seen the Tree weather the climatic vagaries of opposition, lack of financial support and incomprehension. Reminiscent of Johnny Appleseed’s efforts; the Student Council has scattered seeds in all directions- the harvest of research projects, creative writing, poetry, performance and photography promises to be sweet.

For the rest, I will let the writings of young Pakistanis speak for themselves…

Navid Shahzad
Dean School of Liberal Arts