drive
Scheme or scam?
The Punjab government's free laptops scheme is receiving a mixed response  and for obvious reasons
By Waqar Gillani  
The Oval (front lawn) at Government College University in Lahore at 10am on April 3 looks crowded. Hundreds of excited students are here with their parents to get laptops from the Punjab government against their high university grades. Like many other universities, where these ceremonies have been held, Pakistani flags are flying all over the ground amid high-pitched national songs.  

Raw reality
Ayesha Zulfiqar brings the contemporary art to our doorsteps in her recent show
By Quddus Mirza
Normally a work of art is seen in two contexts — one, in its place of origin and two, with reference to other cultures, art history and international art scene. Often these two streams collide but, with the passage of time, combine and turn into a single streak.
In that respect, Ayesha Zulfiqar Sheikh’s new work (displayed in her solo exhibition ‘Undercover’ from April 2-25, 2012, at The Drawing Room Art Gallery, Lahore) had multiple dimensions. Seen in relation to the majority of art works produced here, Ayesha’s exhibition maps the conversion of Pakistani art from traditional and modern mode to contemporary idiom.

Ms-Understanding
Dear All,
Recently, I was astonished to hear that a senior bureaucrat I know had actually changed her surname after her marriage some years ago to a fellow bureaucrat.
I was surprised because in this, the 21st century, you would expect women to want to keep their own names and professional identities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  drive
Scheme or scam?
The Punjab government's free laptops scheme is receiving a mixed response  and for obvious reasons

By Waqar Gillani

The Oval (front lawn) at Government College University in Lahore at 10am on April 3 looks crowded. Hundreds of excited students are here with their parents to get laptops from the Punjab government against their high university grades. Like many other universities, where these ceremonies have been held, Pakistani flags are flying all over the ground amid high-pitched national songs.

Many students are wearing special shirts displaying the picture of Shahbaz Sharif promoting the laptop scheme while some are shouting political slogans in support of the Sharif family. Some student speakers on the stage are pleading the PML-N's case against the government in Islamabad.

"We don't want to ask you to vote for us (PML-N), but we request you to vote for the best and the most suitable candidates," Hamza Shahbaz, son and political heir of the Punjab chief minister and chief guest at the ceremony, said while addressing the gathering.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)-led Punjab government has launched the laptop programme with record publicity all over Punjab. Television ads, hoardings, billboards and banners publicising the distribution of laptops have become a major source of attraction for students of all grades.

The distribution ceremonies are said to be quite expensive affairs. The ceremony in the Punjab University has, reportedly, cost Rs8.5 million, which is almost one fourth of the total cost of the laptops, "and was more focused on the PML-N and the CM" according to some students.

"It took us one month to prepare for this grand ceremony in our university in which more than 3,400 laptops were distributed," an official of the GCU says. Initially, Nawaz Sharif, who is an old Ravian, was scheduled to preside over the ceremony but he had to go somewhere else and Hamza Shahbaz filled in for him.

"The scheme, initially worth two billion rupees, was scheduled for the current fiscal year. Now another two billion rupees have been diverted from the education budget, which were going to lapse in June, to expand the scheme," says Jodat Ayaz, additional project director of the scheme explaining how the idea came about. "Around 125,000 laptops will be distributed among the bright students purely on merit by the end of this April." The students are supposed to give an undertaking that they will not sell this laptop.

He says the government has planned to allocate funds in the next fiscal year for another 300,000 laptops. He says the scheme was designed after setting up state-of-the-art and well-equipped computer labs in 4,286 higher secondary public schools in 2009. There are at least 15 computers in each lab in these schools.

Ayaz says the chief minister has also planned to give free laptops to students in higher education institutions. "Around 100,000 laptops will be distributed among day-scholars while over 25,000 laptops will be given to high grade achievers from the afternoon and evening classes. The total cost of the project now stands at Rs4.20 billion."

Apparently, the scheme is not specific to Pakistan. According to Ayaz, there are 38 countries which have initiated such schemes, including Tamil Nadu state of India. The total cost of the project was almost five billion rupees which was reduced by getting discount from DELL (the manufacturing company) and exemption from the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) of around Rs500 million as tax.

Economists may not necessarily agree with the scheme. Dr Salman Shah, former finance minister, says the scheme can yield maximum benefit if schools and universities labs are properly equipped and proficient trainers are employed to offer good information technology courses. He says giving laptops is not enough and the real empowerment of students can be achieved by opening more IT parks and software houses, getting more trained teachers and making IT courses compulsory for all students.

Shah says the scheme seems more focused on political point-scoring which is unethical. He says there is lack of institutional support in this scheme. "We also need better teachers, especially in IT, and better courses. Otherwise, these devices will remain underutilised."

Majority of the students benefiting from this free laptop scheme are thrilled and more than happy. "We never expected that we will have laptops this way," says Zainab of Government College University. "This will help us in research work and assignments." She says there will be more social networking through this too.

"The literacy rate of Pakistan, including Punjab, is pathetic and even less than India," says another noted economist Dr Kaiser Bengali. "Giving laptops to untrained students seems to me sheer political gimmickry. We should stop governing with gimmickry," he says, adding, "The use of these laptops will be nothing except playing games and Facebook-ing."

He views that rather than launching such projects, there should be serious efforts to improve education standards, enhance teachers' skill, produce good IT experts, science and English teachers and offer good courses and equip the schools and universities labs. He believes such schemes are a total waste of money and the diversion of budgetary allocations towards such scheme means there is no sanctity of the budget and the assembly that passed it.

"I think it is a necessity, not a luxury," contends the additional project director, Ayaz. "Nobody dislikes this scheme and it all depends on how students use it. These necessities were a dream when we were university students and such things help students in assignments and research work."

"Such schemes are always good for students. But I guess laptops cannot change political loyalties," says Afifa Aslam of Lahore College for Women University. She says there is an impression that these schemes are being launched by the Sharifs to attract youth showing sympathy for Imran Khan, "but this will not happen".

Meanwhile, majority of students in the evening programmes are staging protests to get laptops while some seminary students from Jamia Naeemia are also raising their voice to benefit from this scheme.

Some people suggest that rather than giving laptops, the government should try to develop a small tablet of its own with the help of IT experts and technologist for school-going students.

 

vaqargillani@gmail.com

  

From time to time, one hears on television or reads newspaper reports that cultural activity is being resumed in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Recently, it was announced that the Nishtar Hall in Peshawar is being opened for cultural activities.

It is good news for those who view cultural activity as essential for society not only because it provides entertainment but engages the hearts and minds of those involved as both artistes and audiences. It is also viewed as providing the fundamental contours of the cultural definition of people living in a certain territorial jurisdiction.

The fact that such news appears every now and then signifies the difficulties that must be involved as the government of the province makes a determined effort to restore some semblance of normality to a society that is tethering on the brink of implosion. The party in power in the province has been known for its promotion of values that stand for dignity, honour, self respect but also for advancing cultural traditions that ensures all this does happen in a civilised manner without the use of violence in any form.

The task must be difficult because despite the determined effort of the government and the repeated initiatives, the cultural life has not regained its own momentum.

In other parts of the country, equally blighted by extremist tendencies but not quite, one has seen three parallel attitudes that exist side by side. Those insisting vehemently on establishing a puritanical order generally condemn and label all such activity as immoral and pure and indulgence, while others consider it vital for the cultural life of a society; in the middle, probably is the mass that enjoys seeing films, listening to music, surfing the internet but mouthing disapproval of the deteriorating moral values in society and may attribute it to the easy access to film, music, internet, and television channels. Ironically this big section of the population is probably the most keen to participate as audiences in all cultural activity, particularly the performing arts.

When things had really become tough in Kabul and in other parts of Afghanistan during the Taliban rule, the musicians and the performing artists had migrated to or had to flee to Peshawar and other parts of the Frontier Province where Pushto/Afghan Music had become a thriving business. But, by the beginning of this decade, some kind of a reverse migration had started to take place as the new governmental setup in the Frontier Province went about closing down the businesses of these recording companies. For some time during this phase, musicians and singers could breathe more freely in Kabul than in Peshawar where some activity had picked up as well.

There are many Afghanistans now. Satellite channels are functioning promoting Afghan culture-music, plays and dance while radio networks are also quite viable in pursuit of the same. But, in other parts of the country, a different line is being taken on the issue. On the Pakistani side the artistes are mostly out of work; some have changed their profession while others have migrated. Unfortunately some have even got killed for singing songs.

Though the reign of terror was being unleashed in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in other parts of Pakistan in 2007, the vigilantes went about raiding peoples houses in Islamabad and other outfits like the beauty parlours in the name of wiping out immoral activity and then it moved to Lahore where Internet Cafes, theatre hall, cultural festivals were targeted as well. The authorities through active complicity, silence or sheer indifference wanted the artists and the production unit to comply with the moral code and, in the bargain, win the support of the public on this decisive action for the sake of righteousness.

Usually, the argument carried against cultural activity is that it is not synonymous with the values of our society. It is given a slant as if it is something that is imported, is foreign and participating in it is either a corrupting influence or part of some grand conspiracy to weaken the moral fibre of our society. In this context, tradition is taken as something static, moribund and any change in it is seen as deviating from the straight and narrow. This is truer of societies which are more conservative or bound by codes which may be seen to be sacrosanct to that particular society.

But society is never static, and music, art, dance in one form or the other has been always been part of our cultural existence. This irrefutable fact cannot be made the basis of denouncing our preceding generations for being dissolute or immoral.

In our society, a huge premium is laid on the door of the past. The nostalgia for the past is amazingly widespread, and praised universally in uncritical broadstrokes. There is much in our culture that can do with change; some of the cultural practices, thought structures and values are extremely retrogressive and should be changed at all cost. And so much has changed in the last hundred odd years and for the better that to consider the past as one entity is only a construct of some primal yearning for the golden age. How we dress up, the food we eat, the system of education, the process of knowledge creation, political systems and the language we write and speak is not the same it was about two hundred years ago.

The dread of change and the disruption which change brings is the best advocacy for maintaining the status quo. All past is not praiseworthy and all present is not condemnable — the choice lies with what kind of society we want ours to be.

Civilisation has arrived at a consensus in creating a society that is more inclusive — with the gumption to allow difference of views and accommodate dissent as part of normal healthy existence. That divergence of ideas does not mean persecuting and eliminating people who think differently, have a different belief system, speak different language, and have a different shade of pigmentation or a different mode of expression like singing, dancing, writing, acting or painting.

 

If Maqsood is called the “Father of satire” in present day Pakistan, it would not be wrong, which is why the young director Dawar Mehmood confessed that he had come to Karachi with a dream that he’d be able to shake hands with Maqsood. When that dream came true, he convinced Maqsood to write a theatre play for him. Maqsood closed his eyes, opened them, came up with the name (Pawnay 14 August) and within their 90-minute-conversation came up with the outline of the script of his first theatre play.

At the Karachi Arts Council’s auditorium bursting at the seams with people, a stampede-like situation seemed inevitable when Maqsood started by addressing the emotionally-charged audience, and quietened them eventually with extempore brilliance. He started by drawing an imaginary situation of a gathering of the dead poets’ society — of Faraz, Faiz, Ghalib, Mir, Josh and others. And that Faraz, from the heavens, was inviting Maqsood to anchor the “heavenly” centenary celebration of Faiz. His pun was both funny but painful when he said that if this is how Karachi’s situation remains, “Anwar will be anchoring that jalsa next year.”

The play is set in present-day Pakistan when, in an imaginative scenario, we see the three central characters, Quaid-e-Azam, Maulana Shaukat Ali and Allama Iqbal, visiting Pakistan for March 23 celebrations to see what became of their dream — Pakistan. As they wait in the waiting lounge of the Karachi airport to catch a flight to Islamabad, they meet an assortment of characters that interact with them, providing all of humour, catharsis and the tragedies of the unrealised dream of our original leaders.

The choice of characters is interesting. Veena Malik’s character provides zing and shock value for poor Iqbal when she uses his poetry out of context. In this, Maqsood reminds us how we use powerful poetry like Iqbal’s to mean what we want it to mean.

The conversation with a Bengali reminds us of the tragic 1971 Dhaka fall. Perhaps the hardest jibes of Maqsood’s pen were reserved for the armed forces, the recurrent martial laws, and the fact that the biggest budget drain is the forces. General Pervez Musharraf got the brunt of Maqsood’s sharp wit, when a lady is shown flying to Dubai to see him for a “private corner meeting”. Representatives of the many Muslim League factions were a metaphor also for how the nation is split into factions.

The colourful, “burger”, English-speaking representative of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf provided comic relief. Punjab and Sindh had representatives, but those from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan were not included and were sorely missed. Jamaat-e-Islami’s dharnaas were highlighted by the burqa-clad JI female wrokers. However, Maqsood remained gentle on the Muttahida Qaumi movement.

The brilliance of this play lies in not just the ingenious way in the subject matter has been dealt, in which Maqsood has sensed the pulse of his audience; the acting is praiseworthy too. The stately Umer Sultan was particularly convincing as the Quaid (and by that word I mean Jinnah), with a few dialogues but such powerful facial expressions that they made one emote and connect. Talal Jillani was good as Iqbal, but his role should have been given better emphasis. Aamer Agha as Maulana Shaukat Ali provided laughter, fun as well as profound poignancy. But to me the surprise star performance was of the young lady acting as the air hostess. Her timing was superb, and timing is what makes theatre what it is.

Maqsood’s dialogues would need a separate review. Some of the really worth remembering ones would include Iqbal being told that “jis raat tum ne Pakistan ka khwaab dekha tha, us raat tumhain sona naheen chahiye tha”.

Pawnay 14 August made the audiences laugh and made them cry. It revitalised patriotism. It left a lump in your throat on every second dialogue. It raised questions that need to be raised. It was not overly simplistic at any stage (pun intended) but was also not unnecessarily complicated. Most importantly left us not just with pain but hope.

 

 

 

Raw reality
Ayesha Zulfiqar brings the contemporary art to our doorsteps in her recent show
By Quddus Mirza

Normally a work of art is seen in two contexts — one, in its place of origin and two, with reference to other cultures, art history and international art scene. Often these two streams collide but, with the passage of time, combine and turn into a single streak.

In that respect, Ayesha Zulfiqar Sheikh’s new work (displayed in her solo exhibition ‘Undercover’ from April 2-25, 2012, at The Drawing Room Art Gallery, Lahore) had multiple dimensions. Seen in relation to the majority of art works produced here, Ayesha’s exhibition maps the conversion of Pakistani art from traditional and modern mode to contemporary idiom.

Actually, in an interesting way, Sheikh’s art is distinct from several other such attempts which generally rely on re-presenting and reviving traditional ingredients to create contemporary art. It is also different from those who revisit modernistic devices (such as abstract painting, stylised sculptures and expressive drawing etc.) to fabricate their version of contemporary art.

Although both strategies are understandable and stand on their own (since art can not be created in the void), the two satisfy a deep rooted desire of being valid at two points: to be admitted into the global art (market) and simultaneously remain acceptable in the indigenous art circles. Therefore many contemporary artists’ works have been collector items, both at home and abroad. This is a successful approach because their work, due to its multifold complexion, addresses two types of audience and meets their expectations.

But the reason a work of art survives in history is that it challenges and changes the vision and view of art. The greater this modification is, the stronger is its presence and the safer its position in the history of art.

In that sense, Ayesha’s work investigates the idea and perception of art in our circumstances. In her exhibition, instead of banking on tradition, she has picked a more primary element — nature. The three works in the show are constructed in mud, plaster and concrete, added with a few pieces from nature such as green grass and branches of tree. One comes across all these materials daily (especially in urban public works), and never considers their aesthetic aspect and value, but when these are discovered by an artist and utilised in her work, these open up new possibilities of ideas and imagery. And what is art, if not (in the words of Henry Geldzahler) making it new.

So Ayesha, in her recent works, has selected mundane and ordinary substances and by placing these (altering their context) transformed them into works of art. In fact, this metamorphosis is more conceptual than physical because the viewer, while inside the gallery space, notices the blocks of dried mud with tree trunk trapped in the middle, or section of a sewerage pipe inside a concrete square with painted pattern for pedestrian walk (upside down and touching the gallery floor) and a small branch stuck inside, or a large lumps of clay/earth with thin layers of grass in-between.

To a spectator, the methods of making or the nature of material do not pose any surprise, but the astonishing aspect is their presence in the gallery space — and their status as art.

Apart from this shift in the meaning and context, Sheikh has dealt with other issues in her work. All three pieces signify a conflicting situation between nature and man-made (art) objects. Trees and grass, embedded and cut in columns of clay or suspended in the middle of concrete tunnel, allude to how nature is caught, mutilated and subjugated by man’s surge for ‘development’ and ‘progress’. Ironically, man is exploiting clay, stone and sand, too, in order to erect structures which interfere and intercept our direct contact with nature.

With their unusualness of medium and content, Ayesha’s works also demonstrate the sensibility of the artist. The way the material is used leads to create visually tactile and aesthetically delightful surfaces. Likewise, the decisions about size, shapes and formats enhance the seductiveness of coarse substances. A contradiction for the visitor who is faced with another conflict: seeing something from our surroundings that is not art.

Probably Ayesha Zulfiqar represents a new generation of artists (mostly trained as sculptors) who have been focusing on raw materials and presenting these as works with multiple interpretations — thus bringing contemporary art to our doorsteps. This is a difficult task both for the maker and the gallery (if not the viewer) but an essential service in defining the new reality of art.

 

Ms-Understanding

Dear All,

Recently, I was astonished to hear that a senior bureaucrat I know had actually changed her surname after her marriage some years ago to a fellow bureaucrat.

I was surprised because in this, the 21st century, you would expect women to want to keep their own names and professional identities.

Some months ago, I received a Facebook friend request from somebody with an unfamiliar name. I was about to decline this when, upon closer examination of the photo, I discovered this was actually a young cousin of mine, who had now changed her surname following her marriage. When I enquired why she had done this, her reply was rather vague and had to do with “romance and notions of one-ness.”

My cousin was born and bred in London, educated at elite schools and prestigious universities and works as a medical professional. She was born in the last quarter of the 20th century and has been familiar with issues of gender equality, social progress etc, yet she chose to take on her husband’s surname.

I too am a married woman, but I have chosen to retain my own surname.

My husband, a charming bloke from Lahore, was surprisingly mature about this and even though he occasionally teases me about “not being part of the Qureshi clan”, his attitude has been progressive. But even in the western world this has not been easy to manage: initially there was a lot of confusion in terms of airline bookings and explaining our situation to various quarters. I often had to explain that although my surname was Khairi and I was married, I was not Mrs Khairi as I was not married to a Khairi.

But things seem to have become easier now: the children’s school, for example, sends us mailings in both our names and when they phone they call me Mrs Qureshi.

But, oddly enough, keeping one’s own surname and using as marital status the neutral title ‘Ms’ is not becoming the norm in the western world where legislation for equal opportunity and gender neutrality continues apace.

Last year, I attended my 25th class reunion at Princeton and was intrigued to see that 171 of my women peers from our class year had actually changed their surnames. Out of these 18 had attempted to reach some sort of compromise by switching to a hyphenated surname, combining their own last name with their husband’s. I was astonished by how few had retained their own surname after marriage.

Why are women still changing their surnames when they marry? Is it because they are expected to, by their husbands and their social class, or is it because they themselves want to? And if so, then why do they ‘want’ to?

In my parents’ generation, not only were women forced to take on new surnames, often their first name would be taken away from them too. They would be given a whole new name as if to obliterate any past life they may have had before marriage, a new name to be recast as the dutiful Hindustani wife.

In most western societies, and even in the world’s richest, most-powerful country, bright professional women like Hillary Rodham and Michelle Robinson have had to take on their husband’s surname (Clinton, Obama), presumably because of social and political pressures.

I am very happy that as a journalist I still have the same byline that I have always had, and that I still use the name that is on my birth certificate and my university degrees and certificates. We have different surnames but, even after 20 years of marriage, my husband and I still feel thrilled when we refer to the other as ‘my wife’ or ‘my husband’.

But the whole notion of ‘Ms’ continues to be misunderstood. This is a title which does not reference marital status at all — just as Mr does not. Yet the use of this is still perceived as some great feminist gesture rather than mere progressive usage. For some reason, the use of Ms is seen as such a rabid feminist statement that even young educated girls will not use it for fear of being perceived as eccentric women’s lib activists.

Yes, we live in a patronymic society: I have my father’s surname, my children have their father’s surname, but that doesn’t mean that I cannot continue to have my own name — the name on my birth certificate, and my degrees... the name in my memories. Assuming a husband’s surname reinforces the idea of dependency and ownership of the female; it panders to chauvinistic male notions that women want to be ‘rescued’ and married and dominated. Educated people everywhere need to be aware of this: we are in the 21st century now, we need to move forward.

 

Best wishes,

Umber Khairi

 

|Home|Daily Jang|The News|Sales & Advt|Contact Us|

 


BACK ISSUES