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recollection public art Landscape of
the body Categories
of play
recollection Victory for Nusrat Bhutto’s struggle and the struggle for democracy run parallel — against ruthless military dictators and martial laws, facing treachery, wounds, injuries, tortures and defeats and finally emerging victorious By Suhail Warraich True to her Persian name (Nusrat)
which literally means victory, she fought against the Zia regime till the
victory of democracy. Begum Nusrat Bhutto’s contribution for the battered
democracy in this country has finally been recognised at the state level with
the PPP government bestowing upon her with the title of “Madr-e-Jamhooriat”,
but only after her death which has been condoled even by elements that were
deadly against the PPP. To me, Nusrat’s struggle
and the struggle for democracy run parallel. Both had to face treachery,
wounds, injuries, tortures and defeats. Nusrat and Pakistani democracy share
a similar history — of struggling against ruthless military dictators and
martial laws, and then emerging victorious. The last glimpse I had of
Begum Sahiba was in October 2004 when I, along with my wife, was invited to
Benazir Bhutto’s Dubai home. We were leaving from the main gate when we saw
Begum Sahiba walking with the help of a walker and a nurse. As soon as she
caught a glimpse of us, she tried to hide. She found it easy to take refuge
behind an architectural column. Her bid to hide could safely be translated as
weariness of public life and a reclusive retirement she had sought from the
pain and agony that politics had inflicted upon her. Whatever the reason, I
still remember Begum Sahiba’s last fearful gaze which seemed to show the
pain she had suffered — the judicial murder of her popular husband and the
mysterious killing of her two handsome sons. It may seem strange but her
illness was like a blessing since it saved her from receiving what perhaps
could be the worst piece of news for a mother — the death of her
charismatic firstborn. Unfair proceedings of the
Bhutto trial and an injured Begum Nusrat Bhutto after being brutally baton
charged at the Qaddafi Stadium are two of the most horrific and unforgettable
memories of the Zia regime. Later, I came to know how a mad policeman baton
charged Begum Sahiba directly on her head that fractured her skull and she
bled profusely. A horde of PPP In a critical assessment of
her role as mother to her four children, she emerges as a poetic character
— a Chaucerian woman who stands for sacrifice, self-negation for the
betterment of her family and undaunted courage against the odds. During the
Zia era, she led the People’s Party when Bhutto was in prison. She was the
PPP chairperson from 1977 to 1988 and would have been a legitimate candidate
for premiership after victory in the 1988 election. However, she nominated
her able daughter Throughout the tumultuous
times of mid-nineties (1993 to 1996), Begum Nusrat Bhutto never spoke against
Benazir Bhutto even once. She always remained a selfless soul who never cared
for protocol. She was very warm to poor workers and kept It is an irony of fate that
Begum Nusrat Bhutto’s sworn enemy Mumtaz Bhutto is claiming to be her
patron though he never accepted her as the PPP chief and contested each and
every election against her. Similarly Ghinwa Bhutto now lamenting that her
mother-in-law was forcibly taken away by Benazir Bhutto in December 1996 has
perhaps forgotten that it was she who contested the 1997 election against
Nusrat Bhutto on a National Assembly seat but was defeated. The public
memory, it Urs Muhammad, a servant of
the Bhutto family for 40 years, once told me that Begum Sahiba never let her
grievance known to anybody and would weep only after locking the doors. Once
Urs wept before Begum Sahiba on the death of Bhutto Sahib on which Begum
Sahiba told him not to weep and asked if he had ever seen her crying. Urs
then pointed towards a lot of wet tissues Begum Sahiba had discarded off in
the dustbin. She kept silent, as she always did. Since Begum Bhutto is no
more, it must be admitted that she was not treated well by all of us. She
always sacrificed but never mentioned. She was truly a selfless soul.
There’s nothing the
Philadelphians enjoy more than sports — baseball one of them. In the first few days of
October, the game plagued them in every sense possible. The local baseball
team players, passionately called the Phillies, were on the run and the fans
couldn’t wait for the Major League baseball playoff. Sports channels
flickered with the red and white Philli team colours; TV channels and radio
boomed out promos of the game; and bus stop shelters looked like dugouts.
Baseball was the thing, man! The end was dismal though.
Phillies lost to Cardinals in the playoffs. The excitement died out
overnight. Lull prevailed. Sports fever rises and
falls, as sports seasons routinely begin and end. Nothing unusual. But what
the local baseball fans plan to keep with them for good as an outcome of this
frenzy is a massive new mural celebrating the history of baseball in
Philadelphia. Eight-storey high, covering
3,750 square-foot, the ‘Philly Mural’ is located on a 24th and Walnut
Street building. It will feature more than 30 prominent players depicting
moments from the team’s long history. Expected to be complete
next summer, 2012, this mural project will include many community paint days,
giving the baseball fans an opportunity to pick up a paintbrush and make a
mark on the wall – and paint the city red in the proverbial sense. The Philly Mural is a
venture between the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program (MAP) and local
citizens to decorate their neighbourhoods, associate with communities and
fight graffiti and crime. MAP that was launched in 1984 has engaged over 100
communities and adult offenders in prisons and rehabilitation centres to
beautify their areas and fight crime and violence through the mural-making
process. The MAP effort has made the
city of Philadelphia, or Philly, the world’s largest outdoor art museum. It
showcases no less than 3,500 murals painted by locals, and some by artists,
as snippets from history of community life and class struggle. Every morning as I walked
down the Broad Street in downtown Philadelphia I couldn’t escape the
barrage of brightly painted outdoor walls of mostly parking lots that could
otherwise have been smeared with ugly and destructive wall writings. So, intrigued by the
enormity of the murals both in terms of number and size, I treaded on the
self-guided one-mile walking tour of the City Centre and saw 17 of the
biggest and most professionally-executed murals. I glared in awe at some of
the best snapshots from stories behind the city’s history — as I
negotiated the streets, lined with fashionable (at times not-so-fashionable)
cafes, general stores, quaint galleries and old residential neighbourhoods. Mural titled ‘Tree of
Knowledge’, it translates Dwight Eisenhower’s words into imagery: “Only
justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the
dawn of eternal peace” — to foster leadership, progress and international
understanding. Another one, ‘Finding
Home’, illustrates peoples’ progression towards equality. It explores the
legacy of Abraham Lincoln and the abolition of slavery. Then there was the seasons
series: ‘Crystal Snowscape’, a winter scene in blues and silver, and
‘Autumn’, trees in oranges and browns. Both by artist David Guinn. The list goes on… But, “Not all of them are
good,” says art critic Edward J. Sozanski. He adds, “I tend to see them
less as art than as social work. The programme has done a lot of good in that
regard, but beautifying the city isn’t one of its accomplishments.” Sozanski believes the
murals beautify the landscape up to a point, after that they become an
eyesore and, worse, a kind of urban camouflage that disfigures buildings and
that they serve as “a blight locator — the more murals in a given
location, the more blight. Well-off neighbourhoods tend not to have murals,
they’re more common in less prosperous areas.” He thinks there are far too
many murals, placed indiscriminately. “They can be effective if sited
judiciously, but because they are usually deployed as community
‘feel-good’ projects, they tend to saturate certain neighbourhoods.” This ‘community
feel-good’ projects led by Jane Golden, ‘the mother of murals’ and
director MAP, is widely viewed as an opportunity for the at-risk children to
gain confidence, a scholarship and a way to help the community. The entire
exercise — from the selection of the wall, to the recruiting of the artist,
to the selection of the theme to be painted on the wall — speaks of
community participation. First step, selection of the wall; second,
distribute flyers in the neighbourhood to announce the project; third, a
brainstorming session about what the image on the wall should convey and how
the artist will translate it into a design… But the going is not always
smooth. “MAP requires compromise and consensus,” she said to Melisa
Dribben of The Philadelphia Inquirer some time ago. “Once or twice a year
they get tangled up in debate.” And when that happens, MAP becomes the
target of frustration.” Interestingly, because the
surrounding neighbourhoods take ownership and pride in that piece of public
art, fewer than a dozen of them have ever had graffiti on them. However,
renovation or restoration of the murals is an ongoing activity. MAP works on
at least 50 of them every year. “As a form of art and
culture I love murals. As a sport I love baseball,” says Gary Miles, a
Philadelphian sports journalist. So will the Philly Mural
become his favourite? “ABSOLUTELY!”
“The body is the most
imaginary of all imaginary objects”. Roland Barthes It is difficult to maintain
a balance between two loves, whether it’s a case of a married man with two
wives or a man with one wife and a mistress on the side and equally so for a
number of other individuals. Often, one is neglected in favour of the other
or the man ends up totally, utterly, confused. In many instances, this brings
disaster; unless the person has learnt to pay equal attention to both (which
can lead to a bigger catastrophe because, sometimes, in his attempt to be
equitable and just, he may start mixing them up, calling one with the
other’s name). Iqbal Hussain is also
caught between his two loves: women and landscape. Women (to some his sole
commitment) have occupied his life and his art to such an extent that today
his identity as artist cannot be separated from the identity of his subjects.
Representing females from his surroundings, who are normally invited to
perform at wedding functions (mujra) but not acknowledged in the cultural
scenario of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, may have been his longstanding
commitment but it has stayed a loner’s activity. And understandably so
because of the huge censorship — both internal and external — in matters
of art and culture. Although Saadat Hassan
Manto wrote a number of short stories with prostitutes as their central
characters, those were penned in the middle of the twentieth century when the
area today called Pakistan was still a tolerant and diverse society. It is
not that the institution of prostitution is banished forever from this land,
yet not many creative individuals have cared to focus on prostitutes or make
them immortal the way Manto did. In the realm of visual
arts, Iqbal Hussain is the only painter who has been painting them in
different situations, states and stories. Despite his peculiar theme (or may
be because of it), he is popular among the liberal classes of society as well
as some foreigners (diplomats as well as journalists). For many years,
Hussain had courageously continued creating his chosen characters; making
formal variations in his canvases, which were more or less the image of a
prostitute that he was depicting — deliberately. For the viewer, this aspect
of his art was both a liberating element and a limiting device. His work,
read only on one level, is a situation that may suit several artists. For
others it may seem like a suffocating scenario because, theoretically, an
artist is not engaged with one idea or dimension in his aesthetics/art. So,
apart from the peculiarities of Hussain’s imagery which scarcely survived
the barriers of acceptability among the state-owned art institutions and
middle class public’s ethics, there were a number of formal subtleties
which were neglected beneath the burden of his subject. Those pictorial
elements comprise his capability in creating interesting compositions and
rendering human figures, and his ability to capture facial expressions. Due to this, his other
love, the landscape, has been appreciated less than his figurative work. For
an ordinary visitor, the landscape may be a good reproduction of the outside
world, but it does not offer a narrative, which he could understand, enjoy
and take home. Thus for many viewers, critics and collectors, the figurative
paintings were more important than landscapes. Yet for a painter, the
disparity between the two sides of his pictorial expressions must have posed
a problem, even if not on the surface. This issue seemed to be addressed and
tackled in his recent exhibition at Ejaz Galleries (held from Oct 20-28,
2011) in Lahore. Here for the first time, the baggage of content seems to be
fading away. Now the women, either draped in simple and ordinary dresses or
without clothes, appear mere examples of womanhood, rather than having a link
with their profession. Hence, Iqbal Hussain has now taken a turn in
neutralising his subjects — an act that on another level can be understood
as an attempt to present them as normal part of society. The women portrayed
on his canvases were like those on the streets and markets, who dress like
everyone else, and one is not aware of their background or businesses. Nor is
one interested in such details. In fact, more than the
artist’s urge to domesticate his models — through shunning particular
symbols, items and settings — it is his formal approach that liberates them
from being just prostitutes and treats them as women. In the exhibition,
majority of women were drawn in a different scheme, with quick brush strokes
and a hasty application of paint. This method for a single model or their
group appears unnecessarily sketchy especially with reference to denoting the
detail of the body, but if seen next to his landscapes — a comparison that
never was in practice/fashion — the hurried rendering of figures are in
harmony with his landscape painting; especially of sunsets at the beaches or
on the riverbanks. Actually, artists when
facing scenes of fast-spreading light, swiftly-changing colour and
quickly-approaching shadows have to move their brush in a speedy way without
losing the totality and truth of continuously shifting reality in nature. But
in front of a naked woman or a group of ordinarily-clad females, they do not
have such urgency or necessity. But when Iqbal Hussain treats his women with
the same sensibility as fleeting views of a landscape, one is aware that the
two loves of his life and art are merging into one. At the same time, women
from his chosen area are losing not only their features, contours and
distinct attire but their identity, too — for the sake of his art.
The participating groups in
the just-concluded 11-day festival, Alhamra Theatre Festival 2011, held in
Lahore, comprised well-known, not so well-known and debut making artists.
Though some of the plays selected were not that well-known, it nevertheless
augured well for theatre — because it made the repertoire bigger and
increased the number of players associated with the mounting of a production. The plays staged were
‘Permeshar Singh’ by Mass Foundation, ‘Anarkali’ by Sara, ‘Aisa
Kiyon Hota Hai’ by Dream International, ‘Social Paghal’ by T.P
Productions, ‘Global Village’ by Jaag Pakistan, ‘Aaj Aakhan Waris Shah
Noo’ by Soofi Tabassum Art Academy, ‘Manto Sey Miliay’ by Aks
Productions, ‘Upar Wali Manzil’ by University of Punjab and ‘Dara’ by
Ajoka. Furthermore ‘Paigham’
was produced by Wasim Hasan, ‘Khota Sikka’ by Zohaib Haider Sheikh,
‘Shanakht’ by Ali Nadir and ‘Mai Ni Main Keno Aakhan’ by Shahid
Pasha. It is not necessary that
plays staged in a festival are new productions. Usually in festivals, plays
that have been staged once and staged well form part of the programme. Ajoka
has been staging plays in festivals that they have already staged and this
seems to be the right decision. It is important that the
plays should be staged frequently in Pakistan as the legitimacy of theatre is
allied to its sustainability and continuity. ‘Dara’ has been staged many
times by Ajoka in the country and abroad. The play is one of the many in the
group’s repertoire. It is seen as the viability
of the group that it can muster a number of productions as and when required.
Similarly, ‘Aj Aakhan
Waris Shah Noo’ written by Sufi Nisar when first produced decades ago was
well-received and formed the benchmark of popular theatre at that time. Since
then its productions have not dimmed its relevance or theatrical potency. It appears that our theatre
groups find Manto, of all the writers, to have greater potential for being
converted into theatre. In this festival there was a play based on the life
and writings of Manto by Aks Productions. Mass Foundation and University of
Punjab too have been staging plays with some regularity in the past and it is
good that they readily express their willingness to be part of such thespian
get togethers. In Pakistan, it is
difficult to categorise theatre. A few professional outfits usually staging
plays, and the earnings at the box office, ensure their financial viability.
Then there are groups that hardly make any money at the box office. They rely
on raising funds either by getting financial assistance from some source or
by raising money for a specific production. This is usually done by
publishing a brochure or seeking sponsorship of a company, an industrial or
commercial outfit. Then there are groups that just appear and disappear,
their entire activity is quite sporadic and life span is hinged on moving
from one production to another. If the groups that
successfully raise money at the box office are categorised as professional
then this festival was for amateur outfits — as professionals were not
participating in it. In terms of consistency some of these so-called amateur
groups have been active and are run almost on professional lines. The third category of
occasional players needs to be more regular and organised to put in a
concentrated effort to realise the gains of their accumulated effort. Most of
the theatre activity centres round this third category — usually students
or those freshly out of universities and colleges having a fling or two
before settling down to making a living in earnest. It is rare that they turn
their baby steps into firmer footing as they settle down in life. The end
result of this activity is a zero sum game. The current Lahore Arts
Council born out of the cleft of the Pakistan Arts Council, popularly known
as Alhamra, can in many ways be called the home of theatre in the country.
Since the days of Imtiaz Ali Taj, when it initially took its first unsure
steps and became an adult during the days of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, when it could
not only use its growing muscular strength by the end of the decade of the
1960s, theatre in Alhamra had learnt to stand on its own two feet
independently. It therefore owes a special responsibility towards the
development and nourishment of theatre in the country. Being a public sector
organisation, it can take the initiatives which private producer cannot —
and they have being doing that. Plays from the districts can be asked to
perform. The folk theatre, which is also dying, can make this as the place of
their rebirth and then they can invite groups from the other cities of the
country. The theatre exchange between Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad is not as
much as it should be. But this depends on
funding. One wonders how the Alhamra financial chart reads. It appears from
the general level of maintenance that there is some kind of a crunch. The
seats of the halls are falling apart; the carpets and curtains are shabby,
worn and stained, needing replacement. Similarly the air conditioning too is
not consistently available, perhaps tied to the organisation’s own capacity
to generate electricity. Load shedding and increasing electricity rates have
not eased the difficulties either. |
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jiyalas
led by Hafiz Ghulam Mohy ud Din took Begum Sahiba in their arms. Veteran
photographer Jalalud Din captured this moment of Zia’s brutalism for
history on camera. Benazir Bhutto told me in an interview that it was the
Qaddafi Stadium beating which exacerbated Begum Sahiba’s partial and later
complete memory loss.
Benazir Bhutto as Prime Minister and quite selflessly accepted the post of
senior minister without any portfolio. She had differences with Benazir
Bhutto on the issue of her son Murtaza Bhutto and she stood by him till
Murtaza’s last breath in 1996.
close
contact with likes of Aziz Begum and Pathani Begum for whom nobody cared.
Nusrat Bhutto, unlike her daughter, symbolized the idealism of 1960s which
consisted of leftist and socialist ideas. Market Economy and New World Order
were never her favourites. She held an anti-US public meeting at Mochi Gate
Lahore during the Iraq war of 1990. She spoke against imperialism while
Benazir did not come to this meeting where there was a lot of American
bashing.
appears, is being taunted at for being blissfully short when it actually is
not. 
