I set up the Salam Award to encourage creativity in Pakistan

While growing up in Karachi, I was as captivated by the novels of Ishtiaq Ahmed, Mazhar Kaleem and Naseem Hijazi as I was with Jeffrey Archer, Robert Ludlum or Ken Follet.

I had to satisfy the curious gene in me so all I cared about was 'what happens next?' and didn't see the nationalist and sectarian undertones in a lot of these stories. After a while, I graduated from these and started reading more science and speculative fiction and authors like Jules Verne, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Kurt Vonnegut and others kept me fascinated with the 'What if?'.

My love for the fantastical grew with time but with it came the sad realisation that I am solely dependent on western writers to challenge my imagination and take me to the enticing worlds of endless possibilities.

There are no writers to show me how Pakistanis would fare in space battles with aliens; or what mythical creatures from our own folklore may roam earth one day; how would Karachiites survive in a post-apocalyptic world; what magical worlds may exist beyond the Himalayas or under the ruins of Thatta; how would an attack by giant marine monsters from the Arabian sea be tackled; what would happen if there is a war between Pichalpairees and Djinns and countless other alluring scenarios that can only be conjured up at an intersection of Pakistani culture and imaginative fiction.

I am not suggesting that there have been absolutely zero accomplishments in this area. On the contrary, epics like Dastan-e-Amir Hamza and Tilism-e-Hoshruba, books like MA Rahat's Kala Jadoo and shows like Ainak Wala Jinn are all great examples of what our culture can produce, but sadly, creative endeavors like these are so rare and infrequent that they fail to cultivate a taste of this genre in our society.

I ask myself why -- when I try to find recent science fiction stories or criticisms coming out of Pakistan -- I only get a few names like Usman T. Malik, Mahvesh Murad and Sami Shah? I cannot believe that it has anything to do with our writing ability mainly because we have been able to produce world class writers in all the other genres of fiction and non-fiction.

The only reason one can think of then is lack of an environment conducive to creativity. We still don't encourage ourselves to think outside-the-box and don't sufficiently appreciate those around us that do so. Even today, we'd encourage a child who wants to become an engineer or doctor, more than a kid who wants to be, let's say, a video game designer because we think that is too contrastive to the mainstream choices.

Similar sentiments have also been echoed recently in various articles written by prominent Pakistani intellectual and scientist Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy. He has been highlighting the sad state of our education system that promotes orthodoxy and disincentivises unconventional thinking.

This mindset may help us to grow our GDP and foreign reserves, but will impair our ability to innovate and lead. It is time we change our attitude and start rewarding those who can let their imagination run wild and who dare to think or believe differently. If we are to progress as a society, we need to embrace diversity rather than conformity.

Just to clarify, many of us would picture alien invasions and zombies when thinking about imaginative fiction, but a quick glance over the kind of stories and books being published these days would show how broad this genre is. From magical and apocalyptic to time travel and monsters, and everything in between, falls under this category. Any story that is out of the ordinary and makes you explore ideas that you have never thought about before, is a good example of imaginative fiction.

A valid question here would be why reading, writing and watching more imaginative fiction is important. The answer comes from a small anecdote shared by prominent science fiction author Neil Gaiman, in one of his articles:

"I was in China in 2007, at the first party-approved science fiction and fantasy convention in Chinese history. And at one point I took a top official aside and asked him Why? SF had been disapproved of for a long time. What had changed?

It’s simple, he told me. The Chinese were brilliant at making things if other people brought them the plans. But they did not innovate and they did not invent. They did not imagine. So they sent a delegation to the US, to Apple, to Microsoft, to Google, and they asked the people there who were inventing the future about themselves. And they found that all of them had read science fiction when they were boys or girls."

I hope we learn from our Chinese friends and start focusing on ‘Innovating’ rather than just ‘Producing’, and to do that we need to promote all forms of art including imaginative and speculative fiction. Reading and writing imaginative fiction may seem a very trivial effort in the grand pursuit of our progress as a society, but it can be a key factor in beginning to transform our way of thinking, and consequently, our lives. We should appreciate those around us who challenge the status-quo and are willing to think outside-the-box.

Tehseen Baweja is an avid fan of imaginative stories and the founder of The Salam Award for Imaginative Fiction.