When the whirlwind generated by the Mumbai affair subsides, as at some stage and in some form it certainly will, an independent historian is likely to find little to commend in the performance of the three directly involved countries -- India, Pakistan and the ubiquitous United States.

What happened in Mumbai in the last week of November 2008 was indisputably an act of barbaric lunacy. It was one of those events that test nations and their governments for their capacity for long-range thinking and maturity of conduct in distress and anger. At the moment none of the three parties mentioned above seems to have fared well in this test. And one shudders to think of the enormous cost the innocent people of South Asia will have to pay for a long period.

The most painful fact again unravelled by this outrage is that both India and Pakistan are ruled by a mindset that does not admit of any reconciliation between them and which has decreed that they are the only twains in the world that shall never meet.

India had good reason to feel hurt and angry at its failure to prevent the most incredible invasion on its west coast in its entire history and its inability to finish off the small band of terrorists quickly and cleanly. There was nothing abnormal in its first reaction of horror and indignation but it did not care to ponder the consequences of repeating the US blunders in dealing with the Afghanistan regime in 2001.

Pushed into a corner by a howling media and an unscrupulous challenger's impatience for capturing power, the government in India chose to match their incendiary rhetoric. In this it might have been influenced not only by the US example but also by memories of the ideas of launching a punitive strike at Pakistan that lie buried in its archives. India was right in urging Pakistan to fulfil its responsibility in tracking down the perpetrators / sponsors of the attack on Mumbai and punishing them. But references to unilateral action against Pakistan, even if they were meant to keep the wolves at bay, did not help, to put it mildly. Attention was shifted from terrorism to war being the only way to resolve matters between Pakistan and India. There is no evidence that any bilateral or regional initiative to deal with the situation was considered. Once the US jumped into the fray, the task of making Pakistan behave was transferred to the ring master. That was a costly error.

As the author of the modern version of the theory of the right to aggression against weaker countries the United States was incapable of taking exception to New Delhi's noise about keeping all options open, which clearly meant that war was not ruled out. This caused jitters in Washington as an eruption of hostilities with India would surely compel Pakistan to pull its troops out of the operation against the al-Qaeda-Taliban axis. It should be worth somebody's time to find out whether the US merely tried to avert the possibility of a war between India and Pakistan or whether it contributed to raising the bogey of war to cut through Pakistan's alleged reluctance to commit itself fully to the war against terror.

In the end neither its advice to India to exercise restraint, unrequired perhaps, nor its urging Pakistan to do more to help Indian government beat off the warmongers at its gates meant much. The view that the possibility of a war could frighten Pakistan into overcoming its military's thinking had no basis in fact, it could only send the anemic civilian part of the state scurrying to safety under the military's umbrella. The US could have earned some credit if instead of frequently lecturing to Pakistani and Indian leaders it had tried to persuade them to seriously talk to one another.

A Pakistani should however concentrate more on the doings of his government instead of always laying down the do's and don'ts for India, the USA and the rest of the world.

Islamabad failed to overcome the temptation to use the international community's fear of war to ignore its duty to bring the terrorists to justice and thereby landed itself in a quagmire. The Pakistan government appeared to be unafraid of risking the security of 150 million people for the sake of saving a relatively small band of terrorists within the country.

Now, Pakistan cannot possibly deny the existence of its home-grown terrorists. When Pakistan says, and rightly, that it has suffered at the hands of terrorists more than any other country it amounts to acknowledging the threat from indigenous terrorism. Nobody has claimed that the suicide bombers that have caused havoc across Pakistan have all been aliens. A government that refuses to entertain the possibility of these terrorists planning 'something big' across the border will gravely undermine its own credibility. Pakistan may have been within its rights to deny any state agency's involvement in the Mumbai affair but it was wrongly advised to claim that no non-state actor from its side was involved either. This tactic harmed Pakistan's case enormously.

It was on the basis of this fallacious denial theory that Islamabad astounded public opinion at home and abroad by denying that Ajmal Kasab had anything to do with Pakistan. The extraordinary effort expended on rebutting his claim that he came from a village in Pakistan betrayed the working of a terminally diseased mind. This manoeuvre caused much greater damage to Pakistan than the belated spilling of the beans by Mahmud Ali Durrani. The clumsy and hasty manner of the Security Adviser's dismissal on the one hand confirmed the view that one arm of the Pakistan government sometimes did not know what the other arm was doing, and on the other hand it painted the image of the an executive that could take the most drastic steps when it wanted.

Islamabad also increased its difficulties by emphasising the unreasonableness of India's effort in securing the custody of persons it accuses of indulging in terrorism on its soil. Pakistan might have fared better if it had not delivered to the United States hundreds of people the US had accused of being terrorists although Islamabad did not have any proof of that.

In the case of Ajmal Kasab and his accomplices who were killed as well as those who might have survived, Pakistan perhaps crossed the limits of logic in making its actions contingent on submission of evidence by India. Regardless of India's success or otherwise in presenting solid evidence of the Mumbai raiders' Pakistani connection Pakistan had a duty to investigate the matter. This was not done. On the contrary the government was visibly apologetic even about the ban on some militant outfits by repeatedly blaming it on the Security Council. If India does not present evidence and the UN does not call for action, will the government abstain from proceeding against terrorists?

This attitude stems from a refusal to realise that Pakistan has to fight terrorists in its own interest. The conflict in Afghanistan may be America's war but what the terrorists are doing in the tribal areas in particular and elsewhere in general makes the conflict with them a matter of Pakistan's own survival. The government's inability to accept this bitter reality has emboldened the militants to burn schools, blast polling booths, and scare large populations into submission.

The way out of the morass is not easily visible and could become even harder to find with the passage of time. The first requirement is that the government should stop defending the terrorists. The factors that prevent it from coming down effectively on militant factions are known. They must be overcome. The federal and the provincial governments should get together and evolve a concerted plan to deal with the militants before they set the whole country ablaze. This alone will enable Pakistan to withstand the pressure from India and check the US meddling into the region's affairs. On the external front Pakistan should propose a regional response to terrorism. Finally any attempt to view terrorism or any campaign against it as a Muslim vs non-Muslim issue will be suicidal.

The way to peace, progress and prosperity in the sub-continent does not lie through its states' bleeding one another for forcible resolution of disagreements and disputes. The way to settlement of disputes lies through persuading India and Pakistan to live as friendly neighbours and cooperate with one another against their common enemies, who are not limited to terrorists.

Time has a peculiar effect on people. As life moves on -- with its repetitive acts like sun-rise, sleep, meals and even breathing -- we have a problem noticing the passage of time, from past to present. Usually months and years pass by, without anybody realising the movement of time and its quick pace. This often happens when we are dealing with unpleasant occurrences. In an unconscious manner, we tend to forget how much time has passed after, say, the death of a loved one.

It was only when I got a call from Scheherezade Alam informing about her husband Zahoor ul Akhlaq's 10th death anniversary falling on Jan 18 (today) that I became conscious of the time that had passed. Now, a decade after that unfortunate and bloody incident in Lahore, when the painter was murdered along with his daughter, one feels that the manner of his death is immaterial. What is more important is the omnipresence of Akhlaq in our art. Since artists and other creative individuals like writers, philosophers, reformers and leaders, too, enjoy this privilege to outlive their perishable bodies, so does Akhlaq.

In that sense Zahoor ul Akhlaq is still alive. He taught generations of students at the National College of Arts, who are active practitioners of art in Pakistan and are making their presence felt on the international scene. Beginning from Akram Dost Baloch and Anwar Saeed to Shahzia Sikander and Rashid Rana, his imagery, sensibility and formal concerns influenced several artists, even though they have paved their own individual and separate paths. It would not be an exaggeration to say that no other painter in the brief history of Pakistani art has inspired so many artists working in a variety of formats, mediums and techniques, as Akhlaq did. Glimpses of his art can be traced in movements as diverse as the revival of contemporary miniature and new media art.

Even though, during his life, one could have asked, what is it in his art that has such a strong visual appeal for the artists working around him, now, after a distance of ten years, this question has turned into a serious inquiry. It is a fact that other artists from Akhlaq's generation or even before him are not as relevant as he is today. Other artists did make an impact which proved to be short-lived and superficial. On the contrary, Akhlaq's presence is more pronounced and prevailing and seems like a permanent motif in our art.

It would be interesting to trace the reasons for this phenomenon, not only in the art of others but in Akhlaq's too. It is important because one feels that in a manner of taking physical steps, Akhlaq -- once described as the painter's painter -- is not remembered the way he should have been. So despite being the most 'visible' artist in the art scene of his country, his is now a somewhat diffused figure. Unless one dedicates a place such as a museum to his art, or arrange a large retrospective of his work in a space like National Art Gallery in Islamabad or Mohatta Palace Museum in Karachi, or have a few monographs published on his art, it would be difficult to celebrate or remember him. It is ironic that neither the painting gallery in Lahore Museum, nor the Permanent Art Gallery of Alhamra at Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore -- a city where he lived, taught and painted for his whole life -- has any of his major works on display. Unfortunately none of these appears possible in the near future. One does find him in occasional group exhibitions, both in Pakistan and abroad or a few of his canvases are on display or are for sale in commercial galleries, but that's about it.

However, in spite of this physical absence, Akhlaq is still active and important – not only as a significant painter at one stage of our art history, but as an individual who has inspired a number of artists to the extent that they owe their art practices to him. His shadow looms on their art and his personality lives within and through their canvases. The whole new practice of reviving miniature painting in the modern world is an exercise initiated by him. His work is an amalgamation of traditional elements, such as script, format of illuminated manuscript and structure of miniature painting, recreated with the eyes and vision of a painter living in the second half of the twentieth century. This blend of two aspects, tradition and modernity, not only in art, but in the patterns of our lives, in a seamless manner has really invoked the new debate of treating past forms in a contemporary vocabulary; and led to luminaries of our art, like Shahzia Sikander, Imran Qureshi, Aisha Khalid, Talha Rathore, Nusra Latif and many more.

Likewise, Akhlaq's approach towards pictorial field and translating it into a two-dimensional space has inspired artists such as Rashid Rana, Imran Mir and Mohammed Ali Talpur. His investigations in this direction can be witnessed in the formal concerns of all three -- even though they are working in different schemes. Being intelligent artists, they have transformed and pushed further these concerns to the extent that Zahoor ul Akhlaq's presence is felt in their art but not seen.

Thus not knowing Akhlaq may be a sad state, but it is not a gloomy picture altogether. Because, the painter's ideas have surpassed his self, body and work, and are now manifested in many forms across the Pakistani art. As we remember an artist who died ten years ago, this fact that must be respected, recognised and acknowledged.

Khwabon key Musafir staged by Napa's repertory group (Arts Council Auditorium, 10-20 January 2009) is the first of the six productions promised by Napa to the Karachi audience for the year 2009. Written almost 52 years ago by Intezar Hussain, one of Pakistan's leading writers, the play is testament to the enduring power of engaging literature.

The play is set in the first decade of post-partition Lahore and revolves around a middle income family that has migrated from Delhi and in whose way of life there lingers the dreams of an era gone by. The sourly patriarch Mian Jan and his fickle-minded wife Booji have a young unmarried daughter Kishwar. Booji plays the traditional role of over-anxious mother obsessed with finding a husband for her daughter though Mian Jan shoulders the additional responsibility of two nephews, both about the same age as his daughter. The brother's son, Iffo, a tremulously naïve and ineffectual young man lives with his uncle and aunt, and tries hard to come up with a plausible scheme by which to earn a living, (with a little monetary help from his uncle) but his ideas never materialise beyond the planning stages. Mian Jan's widowed sister, referred to only as Bari Bua, has a son Shahid who has been provided an education by Mian Jan. Shahid is a pompous braggart, but understandably the light of his mother's eyes on whom she has pinned her hopes for a brighter future.

The story takes place in the courtyard of Mian Jan's home and the atmosphere and language create an aura of nostalgia that doesn't leave the stage throughout the play. The dialogues of the play are charming and sweet, not high-brow but idiomatically grounded to an age where a play of words and expressions even in every-day speak was considered the norm. In fact, before the play begins, the audience has been familiarised with a list of words we hear later in the play that the director has deemed to be out of use in modern-day idiom and therefore incomprehensible to us, as an addendum to the catalogue for the play. What is alluring is a certain intangible appearance and sensation of post-partition artlessness and simplicity and a hopefulness of things to come. Iffo has all the ideas of setting up a factory for press buttons one day and bangles another, both of which have merit in the virgin industrial landscape of the time and his uncle tries to encourage him. The references to science are interesting. The Russian satellite Sputnik that was launched in 1957, becomes a notion for all that is marvellous and mysterious in science.

If there is one word that describes the play Khwabon key Musafir that would be "understated". A simple story is told, much of it in indirect terms, without the use of histrionics or even much action for that matter. But it is here that the play falters. As much as audiences may seek profundity in a staged play, it is not called drama for nothing. The Chekhovian formula that Zia Mohyeddin refers to in his written introduction is slightly off the mark because in Chekhov's plays such as The Cherry Orchard or Uncle Vanya, the tension is high wired and the ending wraps up to a startling and moving climax though not necessarily a dramatic one. Intezar Hussain's story doesn't get off the ground and in fact hovers and then dissipates to an unresolved end. All these elements are not uncommon to the art of the playwright but the degree to which the audience is affected, though intangible and immeasurable, is what finally rates the play. Intezar Hussain has endeavoured to write a story about nostalgia and the loss of innocence and missed opportunities, but it is a story better read curled up in a sofa than viewed as a play staged by a cast.

The characters in the play suffer from a lack of three dimensionality and in fact required better acting to strengthen a play already in danger of teetering on the edge of inadequacy. Mian Jan's open-mouthed, paan-chewing vapid-looking character comes up short. He doesn't fit the bill of a respected father figure that everyone should be looking up to, nor is he wise and erudite, for his ignorance is shown up in a conversation with the Master who is the informed scholar. Sometimes Mian Jan's impatience with his sister seems unnecessary and his hurtful comments towards his nephew uncalled for. Thus he remains a half-moulded personality, though we are uncertain whether he is meant to be just such a character or if the actor failed to live up to the promise of the persona. His wife Booji is the stereotypical ignorant wife who sways with the wind and will go to any length to get her daughter married. The daughter Kishwar is also the usual innocent, sweet-faced girl caught between the procrastination of her beau and the wilful nature of her parents; able to see the bigger picture but unable to speak out.

While we may disagree with the level of understatedness in the play, it is not without its merits. For one thing, we are saved from the horrors of absolutes. The good-bad-ugly-pretty sentimental formula only turns away an informed audience. If there's one thing that Napa has achieved during its brief but active term is that it has created a play-going culture. The up side with that scenario is a presently euphoric willingness to indulgently embrace what they are handed out now without being overly critical. The future down side will be that come a few years and a few dozen plays later, the audience may not be so indulgent.

A number of bomb blasts in and outside the two theatres of Lahore were a grim reminder of the violent and dangerous time that we are living in. The blasts followed by the familiar explanations advanced by all and sundry as to why the blasts took place outside these two theatres. Even within the art circles people were seeking solace from the explanation saying it was the kind of theatre that drew response from those who did not approve of it.

This usual camouflage has always advanced, of linking the arts with immorality. This is a familiar justification that is used universally and used with much greater self-righteousness in our society that is, obsessed with cleaning its Augean stables but has been unable to get rid of the stink. But one can ask what kind of obscenity was taking place at the World Performing Arts Festival held at the Alhamra Cultural Complex where bomb blasts took pace about a month and a half ago? What does happen in schools where girls go to equip themselves with the skills to live in contemporary times

The problem raises its head again and again because there is no cut and dried definition of vulgarity. If the society is conservative and those guarding over the morals even more zealous, the first casualty of such a cleansing drive are invariably the arts. No distinction then is made between art and obscenity as understood in the conventional sense; both are considered synonymous, treated at par and targeted. Actually, it is the lack of acceptance of distinctions that lump the two together.

If the series of bomb blasts are placed in a sequence then it makes a lot of sense. The musical activities were discouraged by acts of terrorism in Peshawar and the frontier Province before they were almost banned by the government –even blasts took place in private sessions of music and dance that were being held in people's houses. The then government, even before the bill to cleanse society of all immoral practices by legislature had been moved vigilantes were set up that went about terrorising all artistic activity and getting the advertising boards removed or besmirched with black paint. It was followed by targeting girls' schools repeatedly in many part of this country. The education of girls is putting ones life on the line.

When things had really become tough in Kabul and in other parts of Afghanistan the musicians and the performing artists had migrated or had to flee to Peshawar and other parts of the Frontier 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 set up in the Frontier went about closing down the businesses of these recording companies. For sometime during this phase musicians and singers could breathe more freely in Kabul than in Peshawar where some activity had picked up as well.

In 2007 the vigilantes went about raiding houses in Islamabad and beauty parlours in the name of wiping out immoral activity. Then it moved to Lahore and where internet cafes were targeted as well. The authorities through active complicity, silence or sheer indifference through these means of terror 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.

A certain pattern is emerging from all these acts of terrorism as artistic activity as well as girls' education, other activities involving women are being targeted. The space of discourse, debate, discussion and an open democratic environment needed to thrash out the issues bedevilling a society is being squeezed out. The only recourse left is to physically eliminate the person or stop the activity that is not approved of. The state too has been cancelled out from this equation as the self-righteous take the matters into their own hands and decide to refashion society in a certain manner.

Who has ever said that the arts and also the performing arts are sanitised forms which have been dipped in antiseptic and follow the straight and narrow. Art is not supposed to do so and reinforce the order -- it is meant to challenge the order, to question the values and the systems being imposed or are in vogue- and these could be any, political, social ,religious and cultural. Artist have always been looked at with suspicion, as being loose canons that fire in any direction and at any time, and the arts have been suppressed in most of the eras of human history. But then civilisation had arrived at a point where it was decided that a consensus should be arrived at to create 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.

These tactics are becoming bolder by the day, gradually creeping upon freedom of expression and the arts. As it has happened with other activities as well, the wisdom of women education will be questioned and putting them behind seclusion will be seriously considered. As it is in certain areas of this country the entry of women in the otherwise harmless shopping area has been banned.

Are we moving towards a social order where all arts are tainted and merely seen as obscenity? If it is following the precedence set by the government of the Taliban where society or those running society gave no space to the arts then there is no room for music, the visual arts, theatre and the film in the first place. The question of quality is not even relevant if such a blanket condemnation is a priori assumption on which the policy is based.