Sixty-seven years old Pulitzer Prize winning American writer Roger Ebert is considered a cult figure in film journalism. His official website -- www.rogerebert.com -- is a film lover's choicest and most trusted guide, regularly updated with Ebert's scathingly critical but hugely enjoyable, no-punches-pulled reviews and assorted essays on practically every movie made under the sun. Interestingly, for somebody who displays such a great intimacy with the art and craft of film making and who is able to justly critique a movie from all aspects worth critiquing -- be it the cinematography, editing, production design or the screenplay -- this doctorate in English Literature from the University of Chicago never studied Film at school nor assisted a director. Though he authored an occasional motion picture script when he was in his 20s and also famously hosted a TV show, it is for his enormous body of film writings -- including over 40 books -- that he is best regarded. Today, Ebert is one of the world's most widely syndicated film critics.

There are several other known examples of journalists who have risen to the ranks of critics or 'expert commentators' even though none of them was educated or trained to be the 'specialist' of their particular beat. This is especially true of Arts and Culture editors/reporters most of whom never attended an Arts school.

"They don't need to," says veteran journalist I. A. Rehman, currently Director, HRCP. "It is not necessary that those who report or comment on a piece of art should be able to create art themselves. In order to tell a bad egg from a good egg you don't need to be able to hatch, do you? But, yes, you must have a fair knowledge of the subject's history, its basic components and its growth.

"If you were to review a cubist's exhibition and you had no clue about Cubism in abstract painting or the works of previous artists in the genre, you wouldn't be able to produce a credible copy."

The question whether a journalist is 'qualified' to comment on a given subject commonly creeps up into the professional careers of most scribes. Culture reporter Taimoor Aziz (real name changed), 28, relates how one of his first magazine interviews with a top-notch fashion designer turned out to be a nightmare for him, "because he (the designer) started lecturing me on the qualification of a fashion journalist. He was adamant that only those who had studied Fashion Design were supposed to write on the subject."

There are certain beats that require a 'specialised' familiarity. For example, Commerce and Business usually attract people with some formal education in Economics, although -- again -- not all business reporters/writers are 'economists' in the strictest sense of the word.

The trend varies from place to place. According to an international survey, 64 percent of legal affairs reporters in Washington are found to have graduate degrees from law schools.

Sarmad Bashir, Deputy Executive Editor, The Nation, contends that the hiring (of reporters) is not always based on what a person studied at university. "It is assumed that people have come to us with a certain level of education and knowledge and they will learn on the job.

"Most initial reporting is plain reporting," he adds. "It's only as you go along that you develop a deeper understanding of your beat."

Likewise for Sports. Osman Samiuddin, Editor, ESPN Cricinfo, Pakistan, is a graduate in Economics but he has always done what he calls "cricket journalism". "What you need is a passion for what you do," he tells TNS. "I've been into cricket for as long as I can remember. I was a voracious reader of Cricketer, an international magazine. Anything on cricket, I would simply devour. I used to obviously watch a lot of cricket as well. So when I started in journalism, all of that helped me. And I found that you pick up a lot of things on the job. I benefited from having good editors, people who guided me and told me how to shape a story, things like that."

He also jokes about the prospect of changing his beat sometime in the future, "I don't think I'd be held back by anything because I have a degree in something else. Luckily, I am thinking of getting into Commerce reporting and I have a degree in the same. But, for me, it would definitely be starting all over again."

Most journalists begin as generalists. However, if they stay on any one particular beat for long, they are likely to evolve into experts or 'specialists', so to say. To quote Osman, "What is important is that you are an inquisitive person and you should be able to build up your network of important professional contacts and develop useful sources of information."

Leading arts columnist and Professor of Musicology at NCA, Lahore, Sarwat Ali identifies another quality that is true to an expert commentator: A flair for writing and a command on the jargon (particular to a beat).

It is a quality that is a big give-away. "To be knowledgeable is one thing, to be able to write -- and write well -- is another; it's a separate skill."

He distinguishes a journalist's expression from that of an academic, saying that a journalist's job is to reach out not to a specialised audience but to the common reader. Therefore, his style should be lively and not austere."

Sarwat Ali laments the fact that Culture is the most impoverished beat in any newspaper organisation in Pakistan. "Most reporters know nothing about Art and Culture. It's because Culture is never considered a 'serious' beat and also because Art is always given a low priority."

In the words of Sarmad Bashir, Culture is mostly an additional or "covering beat" for a Secretariat or even a Crime reporter."

No wonder very little credible reporting -- or comment, for that matter -- has come out in recent years. As I. A. Rehman quips, "Koi bhi, kuch bhi likh raha hai!" (Anyone is writing anything).

Mira Hashmi -- actor, film critic and a trained film director, presently associated with Lahore School of Economics as Assistant Professor, Film -- notes: "When I read (film) reviews in newspapers and magazines, I find a glaring lack of background knowledge of what cinema is, besides other things.

"It is fine if you watch a lot of movies and read a lot of stuff in film magazines, but it will certainly help to know a little bit of film history and, maybe, film theory also.

"People like Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael are not armchair critics. They have been out there, done a lot and lot of research. And that reflects in their writings."

Email: usmanghafoor@gmail.com

According to many connoisseurs Ustad Ali Akbar Khan of the Senia Maihar Gharana who died last week was the greatest musician of the second half of the 20th century. Being the son of Ustad Alauddin Khan he was trained very rigorously in the traditional mould to take over the mantle from his illustrious father. It was clear in some of his first public performances that a very significant musician had arrived on the scene.

His sister Annapurna Devi too was a great musical mind and a musician if the accounts of her brother and shagirds are taken as evidence; for she hardly performed in public, as is the wont with hereditary musicians. She is known to be a great surbahar player and a source of inspiration to many great musicians like Hari Prasad Chaurassia.

Ustad Alauddin Khan who was managing the orchestra of Uday Shanker took under his wings the younger brother of Uday Shanker. Ravi Shanker who was probably in the process of discovering his immense talent and waiting to find the right mode of expression decided to give up everything and devoted himself to the sitar on the advice of Ustad Alauddin Khan He left the glittering world of the performing arts, went into their retreat where Alauddin Khan was involved in rigorously training his son Ali Akbar and daughter Annapurna, other than advising Panna Lal Gosh and Nikel Bannerji.

Ravi Shanker joined them and after many years this most famous trio of Ali Akbar, Ravi Shanker and Annapurna emerged from their recluse to dominate the world of music for the next half century.

Ali Akbar Khan was also a very quiet man who just concentrated on his music. Public relations was not his forte -- it was left to Ravi Shanker and both realising that there was a bigger better world to perform went to the West and were soon acclaimed as great musical minds. After a while Ali Akbar Khan shifted from India on a more permanent basis and set up a school of music in the US, which became an instant rendezvous of musicians and students because of his presence.

Born in 1922, in East Bengal he began playing the sarod -- a 25-stringed instrument -- and other instruments as a boy. He made his first public performance at the age of 14 in Allahabad, and in his early 20s made his first recordings and became a court musician for the Maharajah of Jodhpur, a post he held for seven years until the Maharajah's death.

For part of a series of 78 rpms that he recorded in Lucknow for HMV in 1945, he composed and performed the three-minute Raga Chandranandan, a blend of four evening ragas, which became a national hit and a signature piece. He later recorded a 22-minute version for the album "Master Musician of India" on the Connoisseur label.

In the early 1950s, violinist Yehudi Menuhin visited India and became aware of the power of Indian music. Menuhin invited sitarist Ravi Shankar to the US in 1955 to present a concert at the Museum of Modern Art in New York but Ravi Shankar declined and a reluctant Ali Akbar, whom Menuhin called "the greatest musician in the world" took his place.

The concert introduced Indian music to the West. While in New York, Khan also made his first US recording of Indian classical music on Angel Records and gave the first performance of Indian music on Alistair Cooke's program "Omnibus," aired on CBS-TV.

Ali Akbar Khan had opened his college in Calcutta but it could not be sustained and was closed down in the 1960s. In 1965 and 1966, Khan was invited back to the US to teach under the auspices of the American Society for Eastern Arts in Berkeley, Calif. From that foundation, he was encouraged to start the Ali Akbar College of Music initially in Berkeley and then in Marin County with a satellite school in Basel, Switzerland. Over the years, he has trained an estimated 10,000 Americans on the sarod and the tradition of North Indian music.

Alauddin Khan had elevated the status of instrumental music, previously regarded as inferior to vocal performance, by synthesising various regional styles into a modern concert style. His son absorbed his encyclopaedic knowledge of North Indian music and eventually outstripped him as an instrumentalist. Alauddin Khan could play many instruments and as a sarodist even touched heights of brilliance but he was also keen to experiment with the instruments and musical forms. Besides his music for the Uday Shanker troupe he had also formed a band or an orchestra in Maihar of Indian instruments. Ali Akbar Khan remained in touch with the orchestra long after he had migrated to the United States.

Sarod was not a very developed instrument for expressing the subtle nuances of South Asian Music. It was probably used for the purposes of percussion and the strings did not have the flexibility to express the Meend -- the shades between the notes particular to our music. It had been introduced in South Asia comparatively recently and the first well-known sarod players Alauddin Khan and Hafiz Ali Khan employed it in raagrdari by making changes in the instrument and the style of playing to enhance its distinct timbre.

The sons of both the Ustads that is Ali Akbar Khan and Amjad Ali Khan then took the sarod playing to unprecedented heights. Both these musicians have dominated the music scene for many decades with the sarod becoming well-known all over the world because of them.

But there was an essential difference in their music. Amjad Ali Khan has been much more flamboyant with his music exuding the satisfaction of a composition. Ali Akbar Khan was much more austere, treading the lonely path of exploring the raag, extracting every bit of music from the unrealised potential of a note, remaining true and faithful to an inner exploration of a spiritual quest.

Ali Akbar composed music but sporadically for the films. Chetan Anand's Aandhiyan (1952), Satyajit Ray's Devi (1960) and Tapan Sinha's Hungry Stones (1960). Later he composed music for the first Ismail Merchant James Ivory feature film The Householder (1963), and Bernardo Bertolucci's Little Buddha (1993).

Considered a "National Living Treasure" in India, Ali Akbar Khan recorded more than 95 albums and was nominated for five Grammy Awards and composed scores for both Indian and Western movies winning Golden Disc at the Madison Square Gardens. He was the first Indian musician to receive a MacArthur Foundation grant in 1991. He was also awarded the National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Fellowship, the highest US honour in traditional arts in 1997. He received the President of India Award twice. He also won Kalidas Sanman award from the Madya Pradesh Academy of Music and Fine Arts and The Mahatma Gandhi Cultural Award in London. He was awarded Padma Vibhushan and Padma Bhushan and doctorates of Literature and Letters from Shantinekketan, University of Dacca, Rabindra Bharati University, Calcutta, University of Delhi, Degree of Doctor of Musical Arts, Santa Cruz, Honoris Causa from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Honorary Doctorate Degree in Arts from the California Institute of the Arts "Sangeet Samman" from the Dover Lane Music Conference in Calcutta. He was also Adjunct Professor to the Department of Music at the University of California.

On a relatively relaxed day, you may want to sit on your computer, search for a specific topic, and click on related links one after the other... new sites emerge on the screen, related information and details unfold in quick successions. Soon everything looks confused. The initial subject you started to search for is lost or at least faded away. Yet, the exercise gives an illusion of achievement, for you think you have acquired some knowledge.

What happens on the flickering screen of a laptop or a desktop computer is a phenomenon well known to contemporary people -- whether living in the West, East, North or South (it is difficult to define these boundaries though), or migrants. They all share a common experience -- that of abundance of information, possibilities and opportunities, which so often choke their physical, virtual and mental space. At the end, they are reduced to mere consumers.

Such encounters with multiple choices extend to other areas of life as well. We keep accumulating ideas and objects, often without sorting them out or using them properly. Shelves filled with books, racks lined with shoes and cupboards packed with clothes may indicate how a person collects numerous items. These heaps of collected items create confusion and chaos, so much so that it often becomes difficult to find a thing of need. That chaos in some cases is converted into complex structures, kind of physical and psychological labyrinths, which occupy a person throughout his lifetime. Normally we are so familiar with this situation, that we are delighted or at least content with it.

The multiplicity of this sort may have parallel in other forms and creative expressions, such as assemblage, inter-textuality, architecture and philosophical rhetoric. In each of these, the basic element is repeated, extended, explored, multiplied and varied in order to make large and complex products or artworks, something to which Gilles Deleuze, one of the leading theorists in the Western world, alludes to in his essay 'What is a Multiplicity?' He explains the concept of multiplicity in terms of punctual system, illustrating it through horizontal and vertical lines and the relation/tension between these. He writes: "Lets summarise the principal characteristics of a punctual system: (1) Systems of this kind comprise two base lines, horizontal and vertical: they serve as coordinates for assigning points. (2) The horizontal line can be superposed vertically and the vertical lines can be moved horizontally, in such a way that new points are reproduced, under conditions of horizontal frequency and vertical resonance. (3) From one point to another, a line can (or cannot) be drawn, but if it takes the form of a localizable connection: diagonal thus play the role of connectors between points of different levels or moments, instituting in their turn frequencies and resonances on the basis of these points of variable horizon or vertical, contiguous or distant."

The text of Deleuze is translated pictorially in the work of Nauman Humayun. In his forthcoming solo exhibition, titled 'Logical Progressions' at Alhamra Art Gallery, Lahore, Nauman is showing a set of drawings in graphite along with oil on canvases. His paintings, with a variation in size, have a uniform structure. All of them are composed of lines that are superimposed, and suggest interlocked volumes and structures. This kind of image-making is closely related to Deleuze's philosophy, as he writes in another essay "On the Lines": "Whether we are individuals or groups, we are made up of lines and these lines are very varied in nature".

Nauman Humayun admits his deep interest in the French theorist's work as well as in literature and music. So, instead of drawing his influences from the visual arts, he is more inclined to other sources, which are normally not favoured by majority of artists in our surroundings partly because most of our image-makers are not keen on literature, poetry, philosophy, cultural studies, or even a few lines on art. For them, reading is a waste of time.

One must mention here that, creating art out of one's personal history, sexual repressions and gender problems is beyond the normal course. So, in that context, Humayun's interest in philosophical and literary works is intriguing -- because these provide a basis for his imagery. Literary and conceptual background of these paintings seems an impressive reason d'art at the first encounter, but these have other associations, for instance with the structure of music. The artist, a graduate from Edinboro University in Pennsylvania, USA, also "enjoys listening to very loud, innovative electronic music"; hence connection with the music is established through his forms. Stripes of different shades, built on top of each other suggest a resonance of sound, which is affirmed once the artist admits about his passion in the invitation card of the show.

All these references have infused something unusual in his art. The ability of exploring one visual element -- line; distribution in different directions and converting these into squares of diverse dimensions has produced a sense of space, managed through flat tones. The work also invokes feelings of warmth, growth and movement with its non-representational and geometric imagery. Humayun's decision to restrict himself to this kind of language is commendable, because it confirms his distance and distaste from the temptation of easily identifiable and readily saleable visual baggage. However, one hopes that at this stage of his professional career, the artist remains open in his approach and experiments, unless Deleuze, music and literary references are employed as another kind of marketing device.

The exhibition opens tomorrow, June 29, and will remain on show until July 4, 2009 at Alhamra Art Gallery, Lahore.