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special
report review Character
sketches Music redefined
A chronology of freedom of press or otherwise in the country... All Information Ministers in Pakistan have kept alive the legend of the gramophone company whose long play records brought joy to millions of entertainment-starved people in the subcontinent throughout the first half of the twentieth century. But nobody has done this more, nor more faithfully, than the current information boss, Muhammad Ali Durrani, M.A.D. for short. He presents his exalted government's brief with such passion and shows such great deference to the wretched journalists in the land that one is convinced he does not know the truth. And he is a thoroughly honourable man. The media community could
not have forgotten the days of General Ziaul Haq who set The RPPO proved to be as hardy a survivor of successive regimes as its predecessor (PPO). It was replaced (and the PPO of 1963 finally repealed) by the Press, Newspapers, News Agencies and Books Registration Ordinance (PNNBRO) which was issued in October 2002, only a few days before the newly elected National Assembly was due to meet. Many enterprising people have tried to discover in the PNNBRO promulgated by the present regime any more freedom than was offered by the RPPO of 1988. In vain. Nor has any relaxation in the colonial period penal laws applicable to the media been reported. The APP is still controlled by the government despite a 46-year-old pledge for handing it over to mere citizens. Pakistan's journalists, at least quite a few of them, still are very proud of their trade union. There is nothing on record to suggest that the journalists' trade union has been exempted from the operation of the abominable IRO of 2002. The Freedom of Information Ordinance, also of October 2002, shows less respect for the right to know than was the case with a similar draft ordinance of 1996. The number of newspapers that are being punished by withholding official publicly is today higher than ever. But Durrani says the present regime has given the media persons much greater freedom than they ever had, and Durrani is an honourable man. Pakistan was ranked 130th out of 167 countries by Reporters Sans Frontiers for freedom of the press in 2005. In 2006 its ranking declined further -- to 150th place. Freedom House changed Pakistan's freedom of the press standing from 'Partly Free' to 'Not Free' in 2005. Hayatullah was killed in 2006 for daring to report the truth, another three journalists were killed during the year, and Munir Mengal who came from Dubai to set up a TV channel has been on the list of involuntarily disappeared persons for more than a year. According to a media watchdog, 66 journalists had been targeted in 48 incidents during the first half of 2006 -- 25 people were kidnapped or detained and 11 harassed, two were murdered and 28 injured. But Durrani says his governments has given journalists more freedom than they ever had, and Durrani is an honourable man. The regime claims to have generously allowed a rapid proliferation of electronic media. Any comparison with past governments is irrelevant as they had come and expired before the boom in the TV industry. But has the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation or the Pakistan Television Corporation been freed of official control? Anybody can tell the official spokespersons that both Radio Pakistan and PTV are no more free than they were some years ago. Some FM radio channels have no doubt been allowed. A few of them have become quite popular. But there is no loosening of restrictions on their right to tell the people what is going on in their country. And everybody is aware of what was done to more than one broadcaster for trying to put out news. That the government has allowed a number of private TV channels is true. But has this been done fi-sabil-Allah? Is it not a fact that all private TV channels have been giving more time to official proclamations and appearances by Ministers etc than they deserve? It was a private TV channel that brought home news to General Musharraf in his New York hotel suite. And yet... How much freedom has been allowed to the TV media? One demonstration of such freedom was seen in March when policemen in uniform raided Geo TV office in Islamabad and another was seen in Karachi on May 12 when Aaj TV faced a rain of bullets for hours, a period long enough to permit security forces to be rushed from Islamabad twice over. This government can also claim distinction for exploiting cable operators to cut off TV channels. Besides, are licences to broadcasters freely allowed or are candidates forced to seek relief from courts? Giving a broadcaster 48-hour permission for uplifting is called generosity! And Pemra! The ordinance that came in 2002 is reminiscent of press laws made by the colonial rulers in the 18th and 19th centuries. This black law has now been given more teeth. But Durrani says the present regime has given the media-people a taste of real freedom and Durrani is an honourable man, held in high esteem on a personal level by many, including the present scribe. A stage has been reached that whenever Durrani or any of his likes says they are going to grant more freedom to the media, many journalists run for cover, to escape the consequences of greater freedom to sarkari vigilantes. But Durrani says the media is to blame and Durrani is an honourable man, for he is one of those about whom it was said: wohi qatl bhi karay hai, wohi lay sawab ulta. Diversity of ideas, maturity of execution and skillful handling of technique turned the degree show of BNU as an exciting exhibition of contemporary art Truth can sometimes be
misleading too -- as was the case of recent exhibition at Contrary to all that, the degree show of the Fine Arts Department at BNU, the first ever since the school started its programme four years ago, suggests a completely different scenario. The exhibition of the graduating students does not only portray their efforts, ideas and skill but also denotes a number of other art issues. The exhibition was 'shockingly' different -- its layout, selection of exhibits, and continuity of display, which turned the whole show into a grandiose narrative, contributed towards making the exhibition an unforgettable experience. In the first gallery of
Alhamra the show began to unfold its uncommon nature. Here a Like Sajana, another Nepalese student, Raju G.C, also tried a similar visual paradox. He painted the military plane seen through window panes, but the distortion of vision converted the patches of camouflaged parts of the plane into some kind of animal with uneven outer skin and organic shape. The interplay of vision was seen in his other works too. These pieces, mainly made as line drawings, were combined views of a single object/entity. Yet the titles such as 'King' and 'Lady' in the Great Wall of China suggested a rather satirical tone. The level of skill and sharpness of concept visible in Raju's work was also evident in the paintings of Sana Mustafa Ali. Focusing on urban landscape, she blended multiple scenes in order to construct a complex image. Another student, Fatima Haider sought simplicity from the accumulation of multiple items. She applied fabrics and paint and found objects to produce one of the most painterly pieces in the whole show. The strong ability to utilise things, which are not associated with artistic activity, and to create highly personal and visually delighting surfaces, indicated her potential as a significant painter. Mahwish Shaukat approached
the act of painting in a different manner. She tried to With all these works related to body, Ayesha Sultan, a student from Bangladesh, found a unique pictorial method. She composed paintings based on fiction and reality, which denoted civic settings. Young people standing or crowding in the streets and lanes were rendered in a meticulous manner. She added text in neon signs on top of these paintings. The words, such as 'Sigh', or lines like 'They Sighed a Toast of Denial', not only complemented the visual, but introduced a feeling of urban environment, due to light and its shadow cast on the painted areas. Her solution to incorporate neon letters enhanced her content and was a testimony to the creative approach of the artist. Along with these a number of other students too showed a diversity in terms of ideas, maturity in execution and skill to handle their media and technique. Elements which turned the degree show of BNU as one of the most exciting exhibitions held at Alhamra in recent years. But apart from the remarkable standard of professionalism shown by the students, there was another reason for the high quality of the degree show (it was so impressive that several failed to recognise it as a Pakistani show, since we are used to associate everything of some quality with the outside!). It was the connection of BNU with time. One realised that the students (and their tutors) were not bothered by the role and status of 'tradition' -- something which often becomes a burden. It seemed that for them, the tradition was not an issue nor was there a conflict between the East and West. The link with time was observed -- in a physical sense -- by forms, which are appropriate in creating narratives of this age like installations and the use of projectors. This clear position on the question of tradition and the realisation of the currents of our time (the preference for new media) were the factors responsible for BNU degree show being an extraordinary exposition of ideas, images, expressions and intentions!
'Trade Union', an exhibition in which 28 artists portrayed other artists confirms John Berger's argument 'Trade Union', exhibited at NCA from May 30 to June 15, 2007 was an expression of the complex process of seeing artists, their works and worlds, through the eyes of other artists. In this exhibition 28 artists portrayed others through their works. The result was a unique, diverse and a very rich offering. But before we delve into
commenting on these works, let us remind ourselves with Of particular notice, and perhaps the pick of the exhibition was Zahoor ul Akhlaq's oil on canvas on Jamil Naqsh. Cast in shades of black, it had Naqsh's trademark pigeon wrestling with the chalky black of the background, while on the other darker patch, the other pigeon was already taken in red, its outline collapsed with that of a figure could not be discerned. Another wonderful offering was Amin Gulgee's sculpture of his father, Gulgee. Infused with the marked intensity of Amin's other works, Gulgee was composed of copper and rock crystal, cast brass and coin. Its lips blew out of proportion and facial features which fused into each other, starting most distinctly with the brows. The face was covered with crescents of two rupee coins and the third crescent, which extended to the back of the half-head, had rock crystal fixed. A star at the back of the head (which was 'half' by conventional standards) also had crystal. This work evoked the sense of a character whose labour, mind and riches were one, and a fitting tribute to a father who was an artist par excellence himself. The other noticeable work
was Sadequain by Laila Shahzada and it showed Sadequain in Sadequain's own sketch of Ali Imam would come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Sadequain's work -- same lines, treatment and tremendous draughtsman's hand. Similarly, Anwer Saeed's pencil work of Afhsar Malik showed the attention to detail of a meticulous craftsman. Abdul Rehman Chughtai's portrait in water colour by Abdul Rehman Ijaz was another breathtaking work. Colin David's rendition of Mussarrat Hussain and Moyene Najmi were also outstanding. But we must use this exhibition as a pretext to raise other important questions. John Berger, in his famous book, 'Ways of Seeing', makes an argument about the fundamental nature of the act of seeing. For him, seeing is more fundamental than expressing, and hence, image assumes primacy over words. However, seeing is a process replete with layers of complexities. Soon after we can see, we are aware that we can also be seen. The eye of the other combines with our own eye to make it fully credible that we are part of the visible world. This particular aspect vis-a`-vis this exhibition is important. These works are a result of a confluence of more than artists' own experiences. In many instances, they are commentaries upon the work of the subjects. And very often, one cannot be discerned from the other. The artists' works are not merely expressions of what they see, it becomes an act of seeing. This is the complexity with which we can see in such an exhibition. During this exhibition, therefore, one got a chance to experience the neat categories of seeing and expressing conflated in a way which was varied and insightful. Technology seems to have changed the rules of the classification of musical instruments The musical instruments that accompany a vocal recital are no longer as they used to be. Even in more traditional forms of singing some modern instruments have found a permanent place; like in the firebrand performances of Abida Parveen the keyboard figures more prominently as an accompanying instrument these days. A few years ago the presence of the keyboard was unthinkable as the harmonium was considered the favourite accompanying instrument of the vocalists rendering the thumri, dadra, ghazal, kaafi, film songs and other lighter forms of music. There has been an endless
debate about the role of the instruments in music. Some hold The recent inundation of the electronic instruments has also raised the question of the classification of the musical instruments. The four types of instruments since the times of Bharat and probably the beginning of the Christian calendar have been ghana (idiophones), avanaddha, (membranophones), sushira (aerophones) and tata (chordophones). The idiophones are the oldest instruments because these do not require special type of tuning like stamping on the ground, clapping of the hands or hitting any other part of the body, shaking the finger in the mouth while shouting. Historically after the idiophones come the membranophones. These are framed vessels that are plucked, like the drums, dhol, daff, khanjari, surahi or kuja (the drums which are open on one side), mridanga -- unifaced tashas --, nagara.(also known as naqara), tabla, pakhawaj and tasha, -- the bifacial dholak and dhol. Sushira Vadya (aerophones) is instruments in which the air is either directly or indirectly used to produce sound. The earliest instruments made of hollow tubes were readily available to man like horns, human animal bones, bamboo shoots, air reeds with beaks and without beaks followed by bansi, bansuri, murali, beaks alghoza, satara, shehnai, shankh, seengh, coonch, mechanical reeds. Pungi (snake charmers pipe), been, tumbi, naferi, sundari and clarionet. Tata Vadya. (chordophones) are instruments using stretched strings, be they of grass, animal gut or metal wire. One of the commonest assumption is that earliest string instrument was the hunters bow. One primitive instrument is the bamboo zither. Swarmandal and the santoor found their primitive beginnings in such bamboo zithers and are also thought to have developed the eiktara. It may even suggest that the very idea of stroking and rubbing could have led to bowing which is a finer method of the same process. There is also not much doubt that early types of stringed instruments were the harps and the lyres. Right from the Indus Valley inscriptions till about the 11th century we come across visual representations of harps of some kind or the other. It is also clear that the finger board zithers existed side by side with these even from the times of Bharata. Harps were gradually displaced by fingerboard instruments of various types and these days we know the polychords as the swarmandal and the santoor. Monochords are those wherein all notes of an octave and even melodies can be got on the strings depending on the mode of excitement -- the struck, the plucked or the bowed. The monopoly of the natural sound both in the East and West ended with Robert Moog who developed electronic music synthesiser. He was no musician himself nor was he a theorist who made the practice of music subservient to his understanding of the role and peculiarities of music like notes and chords. He was basically a scientist more interested in the frequencies, waves and building new circuits capable of producing sound. In the 1960s in association with Herbert Duetsch and Walter Carlos he developed the electronic music synthesiser and the success of Carlos album 'Switched on Bach' using Moog synthesisers was the first leap from the electronic avant garde into commercial popular music. In those early days of pop music Beatles bought one synthesiser as did Mick Jaggers. In retrospect, the invasion by new instruments poses interesting questions: Where would R&B, Rap and Hip-Hop be without the usage of the keyboard by Parliament and Funkadelic, what would have become of Jazz without Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea fusion on the keyboard and would the resurgence of classical music have taken place without Wendy Carlos and her modular Moog synthesisers? The so called western influence on our music started with the introduction of orchestration by the turn of the 20th century but then the instrument used in the orchestra produced natural sounds be it the piano, violin, harmonica, viola or harp. The real impact of techno music was initially felt with Biddo's Nazia and Zohaib compositions and then the flood of popular music in the last decade through the numerous bands, mostly home grown pushed natural sound to the margins. Film music too was given a new twist by R.D Burman and now A.R. Rehman seems to be the master of this marriage of technology with creativity. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan too attempted to maintain this balance by a synthesised orchestration accompanying his natural sound trained in the traditional method. The traditional classifications of the musical instruments have dealt with the natural sound. But now electronically computer generated sounds can produce all kinds of musical sounds. The ubiquitous keyboards have all the instruments contained within its sound bytes and all kinds of natural sounds can be electronically generated. Only that the sounds are not natural. All other types of sounds which are not natural sounds can also be produced on this instrument. It can produce the sounds of idiophones, membranophones, chordophones and aerophones. Should it be called an instrument that does not produce natural sounds, only electrically generated computerised sounds of all instruments. There may be a compelling need to revise the traditional system of classification of instrument as we have another instrument or the technology of producing musical sound that has forced upon us a redefinition of traditional concepts of music, sound and instruments.
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the record for curbs on the media-flogging of journalists, strangulation of
nearly a score of publications with a single stroke of one of the many pens
in his armoury, and the longest ever censorship regime in Pakistan's history.
But God had mercy on the hapless breed of pen-pushers and the Federal Shariat
Court struck down several provisions of the Press and Publication Ordinance
of 1963 (PPO), the principal instrument for suppressing the media and denying
the people's right to publish at that time. God also added a few days to Gen.
Zia's life so that he could watch the replacement of PPO with the
Registration of Printing Presses and Publications Ordinance (RPPO) at the
hands of the caretaker (after Junejo's dismissal) regime of 1988.
Alhamra Art Gallery Lahore. That it was a degree show of Beaconhouse National
University (BNU) is a statement based on fact, but this description does not
justify the event in its essence. Because the degree show of BNU did not look
like one. It seemed more like an exhibition of contemporary art, starkly
distinct from the usual degree shows, which one is used to seeing, with works
cluttered on the walls, pieces stacked as if in a bazaar and young graduates
eagerly making quick sales, as well as carpets, lamps, plants and dry flowers
arranged in spaces next to their art pieces (to allure the buyers!).
large cart fabricated with animal skin was put close to chairs made with goat
skins along with a big car constructed with snake skin. The work of Sajana
Joshi -- translating the outer layer and material of familiar items (domestic
usage and means of transportation) into strange creatures -- could be
interpreted as a comment on the attitude humans have towards animals. But to
some extent the skin of animals served to infuse a sense of life in the
objects which are normally built with hard materials such as wood, steel and
plastic. Sajana reversed the consumerist glamour of these items and infused a
sinister element instead.
extend the boundary of two-dimensional surface, by joining figures fabricated
in latex to these. In one of her works the figure of Christ, cast in latex,
was attached to the background panels. Similarly the body shape latex pieces
were hung like clothes on hooks. This fascination with body was apparent in
other students' works too, for example Mehr Javed. Her installation and
digital works spoke of sensual and sinuous connotations. A long strip of
actual hair was placed in a curl, next to another work in which the hair was
glued to make a book like form. In her performance, she covered her face with
a hair do and invited the viewers to put pins in it. This interest in hair
led to another piece that dealt with a subtle scheme. In this work, Mehr put
eyelashes joined to steel rings, which resembled eye lids, and were moving
constantly. The perpetual motion and the sound of metal touching and ticking
reminded of human habit of blinking eyes.
earnest humility that it is no easy task to comment on these artists' works.
Because of such difficulty, and because the commentator has to choose his
subjects among equally good works, the choice could only be justified on
extremely subjective criteria. Equally, there are other difficulties
regarding the nature of the paintings -- one can go only as far as commenting
on the works as presented, not on the personal relations of the artists, even
though that might be the determinant of these works in the first place.
shades of colours that the subject did not employ himself! Sadequain, who
used greys, morbid shades of green and blue, is shown broken along many
places, his fingers -- not cacti-like, and his feet. Sadequain did not
usually emphasise the feet of his characters. Here Sadequain's one foot is
rolled up, while he sits in lively pink and light blue hues of his clothes.
the view that the instruments only follow the music that is created, but
there are many others who insist that the musical instruments themselves play
a decisive role in shaping of the musical forms and styles.