The 26-year-long struggle of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to establish a state of their own in the northern part of Sri Lanka ended two weeks ago with the fall of their last stronghold to government forces and the death of their legendary leader, Vellupillai Prabhakaran.

The outcome had been foreseen for quite some time, especially since the beginning of this year, when the Sri Lankan army had regained control of the LTTE-held territory except for a 175 square kilometer patch. In the end, the LTTE received no quarter from a rejuvenated Sri Lankan army just as it had offered none to a wide variety of its victims, that included besides prominent Sri Lankan leaders and defence personnel many independent-minded Tamils. It was one of the ugliest conflicts of its kind in the history of the world and the parties surpassed each other in committing heinous excesses.

In the final phase the world was more concerned about the plight of the civilian population trapped in the fast-shrinking LTTE enclave than in the horrors of an all-out conflict.

Although Prabhakaran was widely reviled for his ruthlessness and a substantial contribution to terrorist tactics, especially the production of a new version of suicide bomber, the world will continue studying for long the organisational skills displayed by his outfit. Claiming to speak for no more than 12 to 16 percent Tamils in a total Sri Lankan population of around 21 million, he succeeded in establishing a de facto authority that assumed most of the functions of the state. At the height of its power LTTE held complete sway over the territory under its control, collecting taxes and providing services. Besides a well-drilled army it could boast of an air force and some naval units.

Also a subject of discussion for long will be the terrible conjunction of historical forces that has exacted a heavy price from the people of Sri Lanka, Sinhalese and Tamils both, -- the colonial rulers’ policy of pitting the Tamils against the Sinhalese majority (shades of Palestine and India?), the difficulties in managing the tide of Sinhala nationalism, the problems created by the concept of a unitary state as a sacred entity that could offer no accommodation to communities that had become conscious of their distinct identity and rights, the compilations caused by India’s ill-fated military intervention, and the changing moods of international power brokers.

There was a time when many powerful nations of the world sympathised with Prabhakaran no less than they had with the Zionist Stern gang, Tchombe of Katanga, or the secessionists of Biafra and Kosovo, but things changed when the Big Powers retreated from their ideals of democracy and human rights (and this not entirely due to the 9/11 events). Over the past few years all those who advocated a negotiated settlement of the LTTE-Colombo conflict became weary of their missions. When, on the one hand, LTTE’s supporters (never in the open) melted away and on the other, the Sri Lankan government received increased backing from the European Union, the United States, Japan, China and Pakistan, Prabhakaran’s fate was sealed. (Unfortunately one does not have requisite information about Pakistan’s role in the conflict and it is not possible to gauge what this country has gained.)

Public opinion is divided on the issue of responsibility for the failure of peace efforts and schemes of autonomy for the Tamils. Perhaps the rigidity of posture on both sides left no scope for a mutually acceptable formula for co-existence. Particularly regrettable was the collapse of the 2002 peace accord negotiated by Norway despite the display of considerable patience and perseverance by the Nordic mediators. One cannot say whether Prabhakaran courted disaster by resisting Kumaratunga’s autonomy offer or not going along with the Norwegian peace makers or whether he was sight in considering these offers inadequate or the other party not wholly dependable. These questions are unlikely to be resolved.

Despite the efforts of the present-day global managers to dump all national struggles for liberty and political autonomy as terrorism, the legitimacy of such struggles cannot always be denied. For those who are not willing to abandon this cause the LTTE story has many critical lessons. The most important of these lessons are, firstly, that the success of a liberation struggle depends less on its merits and more on the interests of "donors" at a given time, and secondly that forces supporting the classical theory of a coercive state are still stronger than the forces of participatory rule, justice and equity.

That the Sri Lankan government cannot afford to be carried away by its military victory is obvious. Indeed the hardest part of its trial has just begun. LTTE may have been routed but the issue of satisfying the Tamil aspirations for equality of citizenship with the Sinhalese and autonomy in areas where they are in a majority will not disappear.

What Sri Lanka and countries facing similar problems have to realise is that everywhere highly centralised state structures are yielding ground to models based on decentralisation and devolution of powers. Failure on this count will mean Sri Lanka may find itself facing a reincarnation of LTTE sooner rather than later.

One of the classics of Urdu theatre 'Mirza Ghalib Bunder Road Per’, staged at the Alhamra last week was directed by Muhammed Qavi Khan, a veteran artiste of stage radio and television. It was refreshing to see that the production team had many new faces. Actually the effort was a mixture of the old and the new -- a combination that works well in most cases.

Mirza Ghalib, a great Urdu poet of the 19th century, has become a kind of a symbol of the cultural consciousness of the Indian Muslim civilisation. One wonders whether any other literary/art figure from our history has been fictionalised more and made a character in plays/films than Mirza Ghalib. Some other great artists like Tansen, Baiju and Surdas have been made into fictional characters as indeed painters and architects, specially the architect of Taj Mahal. Mir Taqi Mir and Waris Shah come to mind and so do Bullah Shah and Shah Hussain in plays. It would be quite a challenge to make a character out of a poet like Iqbal for in a sanctimonious society like Pakistan perhaps such a move would invite a barrage of criticism as he has been raised to the level of sainthood.

A classic is supposed to be staged again and again but the important thing is the interpretation that the director has given to the play. This should be reflected in the style of production, the emphasis as well as the movement of the actors as indeed the set. There has also been a tendency to edit the plays for the directors have considered it their prerogative to mould the script according to the interpretation that they clamp on the play. Shakespeare has been going through these editing rounds in productions for many centuries now. Actually some directors even chose to add a thing or two to the original play according to the demand of the audience.

In Pakistan, since very few plays have been written and even fewer have attained the status of a classic the general trend is to produce the play as it was originally conceived. It has been rare, though not unknown, that two directors have produced the same play differently and it was a relief that Qavi Khan’s interpretation of the play was not wholly realistic and faithful to the productions that one has seen in the past.

Having played the role of Mirza Ghalib in a number of plays and features, Qavi has almost become synonymous with the role. Another well-known artiste, Subhani Ba Younus, has played the role of Mirza Ghalib in many radio and television plays. He was probably the actor chosen by Khawaja Mueenuddin to play it in the initial productions. His presence and timing too was spot on.

Khawaja Mueenuddin was a refugee like millions of others who had chosen to make their new home in Karachi. Hailing from Hyderabad Deccan he had seen the loss of his place of birth and the consequent squabbling over its political future by the governments of India and Pakistan. His play 'Zawale Hyderabad’ pointed to the decline of the Muslim civilisational dominance after more than 800 years in India. He had written a play earlier on Kashmir, 'Naya Nishan’, based on the annexation of Kashmir by India.

'Zawale Hyderabad’ was staged in 1949 in the Katrak Hall and the proceeds from the play must have been substantial for the foundation of the Bahadur Yar Jung Schools was laid. His other plays were 'Taleem e Balighan’, 'Mirza Ghalib Bunder Road Per’ and 'Lal Qile se Laloo Khet Tak’. The recurring theme of his plays was partition and the reconstruction of a new country based on certain values. But he found the two incongruous, as the pain of leaving the homeland was not assuaged by the reconstruction effort, which did not proceed according to high expectations brought about by independence.

He opted for comedy where humour was generated through satire. He was perhaps still optimistic about the future of the country -- for satire does provide enough space for laughter and humour as a consequence of failing to meet with the established standards. Satire is usually the outcome of a stable society that has some principles to uphold. The ability to laugh at not living up to those standards signifies the strength rather than weakness of the society.

His first play that became very popular was ’Taleem e Balighan’ and his other two plays 'Lal Qile Se Laloo Khet Tak’ and ’Mirza Ghalib Bunder Road Per’; both satires again mapped the decline of the Muslim civilisation in its downward course. The current conditions juxtaposed in the first play with the dream of an ideal independent society. The slums of Karachi, where teeming humanity lived, were contrasted with the magnificence and munificence of the royal palace symbolised by the Lal Qila. 'Lal Qile se Laloo Khet Tak’ was written in 1952 and 'Mirza Ghalib Bunder Road Per’ in 1956 was perhaps a more conventional play, where the symbolic epitome of culture was contrasted with the current situation.

The cast included Qayyum Arif, Mehmood Ali, S.M Saleem, Anwar Khan and Subhani ba Younus. Our greatest poet of the Urdu language was made to wander in the environ of the culturally diverse city of Karachi where culture and language were in the process of evolving from slang to dialect, being farthest from Urdu e Muaalah. This new society was seen from the eyes of the oppressed and the wretched of the earth. The aspiration of high culture juxtaposed with the stark reality on ground, as people eking out an existence on the sidewalks by sheer wit, made a statement on high culture that refused to acknowledge or encompass the needs and aspirations of the common man.

Qavi’s interpretation was perhaps darker than the earlier ones. There seemed to be little light and no hope. His performance was very good and the others too acted well. Anwar Ali, Rabia Durrani and Munir Raj to name some. Such classics should be staged from time to time so that the directors have a better chance of putting their own stamp in understanding the work of a master.

Skin is a frontier that separates two realms: outer from inner, visible from hidden, public from personal, beautiful from biological, and social from individual. But Nausheen Saeed’s new work, currently on show in Lahore, defies this notion. Her sculptures, cast in metal or created in other materials are contradictory: naked and draped, organic and industrial, human and manmade.

Saeed, in her current exhibition, is showing a fresh body of work. She blends female torsos with either bags made of printed fabric with leather straps or traditional milk containers with the anatomical details and hooks and handles.

Nausheen Saeed signifies a certain departure from her previous art practice. Earlier, she was interested in freezing the fragmentary moment in the visible world. One could see views of neighbourhood from a window concealed with thin curtains or bodies forged in metal wire mesh preserved as fleeting glimpses in solidified forms. They denoted the ephemeral nature of her object of attention.

Now it appears that Nausheen Saeed’s work has taken a turn -- not only in terms of medium, technique and imagery but also in her approach towards sculpture. Compared to her earlier works (especially produced during her M.F.A at Wimbledon School of Arts and later), her new collection concentrates on the idea of volume and voluminous. In a way, the new works are connected to her sculptures displayed at her degree show in 1990 at NCA, even though with a definitive difference. If before her work indicated a fascination with female form, its beauty, perfection and seduction, her recent work takes the same figure into another world, where it’s not a girl rather it’s a woman, who is a mother, is aware of the changes in her physique after child birth and of various phases of life. It’s not an object of desire or emblems of attraction but represents a totality of existence. Hence a look at her fat women, with sagging breasts, bulging waist and heavy thighs cast in steel reminds an onlooker of the traditional milk cans that the milkman lugs on his bike while going door to door. The colour, substance, treatment of surface and crucial details such as handles, hooks and caps indicate the attributes of a mother.

Her sculptures, with all the anatomical details, are physically attractive. Probably on this stage, Saeed is playing with two aspects of womanhood – relevant to a child and an adult. If on one hand this situation reminds of Freudian thoughts on family relationships, at the same time it links her work to the earliest examples of sculpture (or art) in the human history – with the tiny statue of Venus of Willendorf, a pregnant woman with her sexual organs exposed and exaggerated.

Interestingly, Nausheen does not restrict her depiction of women to a combination of reproductive and sexual necessities alone. In fact, she explores their psychological and emotional dimension as well. Her women are not passive characters, to be carried or emptied by the other gender; rather they are strong and dominating individuals. Although their role is defined in a male-dominated society, yet they are assertive. And since they are constructed as containers of milk and travelling bags, their postures defy the typical image of woman as a weak entity.

Nausheen’s portrayal of women is a step ahead (or perhaps away) from her predecessors -- the female painters (writer too), who were influenced by feminism and so aimed to liberate women and make her an effective and esteemed part of the world of art and culture.

The work of Nausheen Saeed, quite understandably, marks the new positions of a female artist, who has gone through multiple experiences -- of being a rebel, conformist, detached, angry and content human being -- states of a being which may appear conflicting, but in reality reflect the actual mode of existence in our post-modern epoch. In this state, multiple (often contradictory) identities merge into one, and a person learns to live happily with this apparent contradiction – of being a strong feminist, loving mother, supportive wife, conventional family member and a daring aesthete. All of which is found in her sculptures, because one can not distance a maker from her creation.

The solo exhibition of Nausheen Saeed is being held from May 27 to June 2, 2009 at Rohtas 2 in Lahore.

I think I am having a mid-life

crisis.

I suppose that if I were a man, I would by now have had a hair transplant or acquired a nubile young wife or girl friend or bought a flashy sports car or a few packs of blue pills... But since I am not a man, I have done none of these things, instead I reflect, increasingly often, on life and death and mortality.

I see my face in the mirror as it acquires more worry lines and wrinkles and I realise that I can now recount and measure past events in my life in decades rather than in days, weeks or months. I realise that I have known many people who have died violently in the turmoil that has punctuated Pakistan’s recent history. And I realise that so many people I took so much for granted as part of a certain landscape are now exiting this life, one by one.

The death of Dr Sarwar last week also brought home to me the realisation that I have failed to fully make use of any time I could have spent learning more about interesting, politically-committed individuals like him. I had heard of course, about his days as a student leader but never really tried to learn more from him about his struggle or the political climate of the early 1950s. I knew him as my friend and colleague Beena’s dad, as somebody whose student politics and integrity my mother spoke admiringly of, as a friend of my khaloo’s.

What sort of journalist am I, I ask myself? Why do I waste opportunities to learn the stories of people like Dr Sarwar (and so many of my parent’s friends) who been part of tumultuous periods of history and who have tried to live their lives according to certain principles or ideals?

When Justice Sabihuddin died suddenly a few weeks ago I had a similar feeling -- not because I knew his family but because he was such a well-respected individual, whose integrity was praised by so many people for whom I have great respect. When I read the piece that Baber Ayaz wrote on him in Newsline, this sense of loss was intensified. Baber Ayaz’s loss was personal but his piece underlined the fact that in the sudden death of his friend we had all lost a great deal because we were now minus someone deeply committed to principles of law, justice and progress. I worked briefly in The Herald magazine in the twilight of the Zia era, and I realise now how very privileged I was to inhabit the same space as so many remarkable individuals, so many of whom have now passed on. There were in Haroon House in those days both the Sabihuddins (Ahmed and Ghausi), there were some of our most outstanding (and yet remarkably understated) journalists: Razia Bhatti, Ameneh Azam Ali, Saneeya Hussain and Najma Babar. There were also there at that time well-known lawyers like Makhdoom Ali Khan and Iqbal Haider, and various other individuals who are now well-known in politics or who are working for human rights or social justice. They were all there then, and so many of them have passed on.

I was privileged because my life’s path crossed theirs but I realise only now by reflecting on this how much we tend to take associations like this for granted, how little I appreciated each person’s individual story, each one’s ideological or professional commitment.

My mid-life crisis is really that I have started to entertain suspicions that I have not fully availed of all the opportunities that came my way to somehow contribute to making this world, in some way, a better place. I have not made sense of my experiences to create anything that appeals either to the intellect or the spirit or which in any way institutionalises or makes accessible learning and education.

I suppose life is all about trying to learn, trying to improve oneself, and about constantly trying to make sense of human life and society. At the end of the day what truly matters is human endeavour, and the ability to communicate with other individuals, to attempt to learn and understand their unique stories, to try to forgive and reconcile, to try to understand one’s own as well as other’s limitations.

My musings are not anything new -- individuals have been struck down by similar thoughts over the centuries, and perhaps -- as so many European painters pointed out -- such musings are all themselves a sort of vanity.

But I do feel humbled by these reaffirmations of one’s essential mortality, and by my lingering suspicions that I should somehow be a better, more useful person and more understanding person.

And really at the end of the day what matters is human beings, time spent together, laughter, understanding, appreciation.... all our formalities, petty jealousies, social aspirations and capitalistic conformities are but a waste of our time.

At least that’s how it looks from the mid-life crisis vantage point.

 Best Wishes

Umber Khairi