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expression memory lane The colour of
blood Silent
night Rumour
mills
expression Make an early art From the moment children are able to hold a pencil, they should be encouraged to play randomly and to explore their skills with line and colour, texture and perspective By Rumana Husain Many parents as well as
teachers (of other subjects) feel that art is a non-essential subject and
children/students should therefore not be made to “waste” their
valuable time indulging in art-related activities. There seems little use
for the subject in their minds, and it is looked upon much as music, drama
and dance are seen (as extra-curricular pursuits offered in a handful of
schools). The magic and mystique
of the awareness and appreciation of art is snatched away from our
children’s lives at an early age and, in its place, a highly regulated
process of reproduction of drawings is usually taught in the name of art.
Similarly, it has been proved that colouring books tend to diminish
children’s own creativity, originality and curiosity as they are not
required to observe, imagine and draw but only to “fill in the
blanks.” Education comes alive
when students are encouraged to reach beyond their books. Also, fostering
positive ideas and encouraging the visual and performing arts can do away
with many inhibitions and prejudices. Over the last three
decades, I have had personal experience of teaching art as well as of
conducting workshops for art teachers who may not have had any formal
education in art. In recent years I have noticed that there are always
some participants who refuse to draw human figures, and even if they
concede to work, say on a self-portrait, they resist drawing recognisable
details such as eyes, often “quoting” from religious texts for my
benefit: those who indulge in
such activities will surely burn in hell. The majority of schools
in the country are government-run schools in which the prescribed syllabus
set by the National Curriculum Board is generally followed. Art education
is of the least priority in these schools.
Whereas, from the moment a child is able to hold a pencil, a piece
of chalk, crayon or even a piece of coal, she should be encouraged to play
randomly and to explore her skills with line and colour, texture and
perspective. Instead, an artificial and formal drawing regime, devoid of
creative vitality, is forced upon children at the most receptive period of
their lives — the primary school level.
The opportunity to
discover the artist within each child is therefore wasted, and nurturing
of the arts is promoted only in a lukewarm manner. This, in effect,
discourages and inhibits the growth of individual talent. Also, a
systematic approach towards confidence building in children, using the
visual and performing arts as vehicles, is therefore lacking. Moreover,
schools revel in promoting only those students who are naturally confident
and have an edge over their peers. This is sheer discrimination. The artist Paul Klee
once said, “Make your pupils acquainted with nature, let them see how a
butterfly becomes a butterfly, so that they may learn to be as rich and
versatile and original as nature itself.” Let us ask ourselves if
we ever encourage students to observe the dramatic climatic swings, the
gentle pitter-patter of raindrops in the school yard, the mystical colours
of a rainbow, a dancing beam of sunlight, the chirping of birds or the
noise of crows announcing a catastrophe. In most cases the answer is in
the negative, and while all these wonderful occurrences are taking place
right outside the classroom, chances are that our children are devoid of
appreciating these deep spiritual experiences. Moral-building and
character-building remain high on the list of vital teachings in most
schools, and children rote-learn the prescriptive attributes that are
supposed to make them into good “Muslims.” Moreover, the education
departments of all the four provinces have shut their eyes towards the
presence of non-Muslim pupils in schools, which itself is another tragedy
of the education system. Schools need to develop
an approach that provides support for the implementation of the various
experiences of life by incorporating the visual arts into the core
curriculum for all students. A sort of multi-media and all-inclusive
approach is required, whereby the arts programme in every school is not
only comprehensive and sequential, but also thematically integrated with
other courses being taught at each stage. Students thus become more
diligent and sensitive, exploring and understanding the world through
observation and activity. It is common practice in
many schools to organise art and drama activities on special occasions
such as the Parents’ Day or the Annual Concert. On such occasions they
showcase their “liberal” outlook by holding an art exhibition and/or a
theatrical extravaganza which is also useful for the school’s image.
However, these should form an ongoing and regular component of the school
curriculum rather than once or twice a year activities only.
My first exposure to the
music performed at Bhit Shah was in the early 1980s. Bhit Shah was a very
small settlement around the mound that housed the shrine of Abdul Lateef
alongside a large pond, which had mythological association with him. Every
Thursday the hamlet would come to life with thousands of devotees
thronging to the shrine to pay homage to the sufi. It was a different
matter on the occasion of the Urs as hundred of thousands of pilgrims
visited the shrine for three days. A whole bazaar sprang up for the
visitors and the place buzzed with activity of all kinds as people slept,
ate and loitered around the shrine and its environment — living the true
spirit of an annual Urs of the subcontinent. But the focus of the
rites every Thursday as indeed on the occasion of the Urs is music sung at
the shrine of the saint. When I first heard the music in the outer
courtyard of the shrine, which was in the form of a chant I could not
determine my reaction to the seemingly unmusical quality of vocal music. There were three strains
that were sung, one that alternated between the second and the third
octave, the second who was in either the fourth or the fifth octave, so
high that its pitch sounded more like a desperate shriek, and the choral
chant in the middle octave along with rhythmic accompaniment of the
dhambora. As time passed, the
alternation of the first two strands began to grow on me and its pull
became gradually irresistible. The music was very moving and effective, it
had all the qualities to captivate and it was not the ordinary sound that
one associated with music or with singing. Despite my exposure to the
various forms and styles of music its intonation was unique in its
production and impact. The tone of the voice needed immense practice to be
produced through a constricted throat. I knew that Shah Lateef
had selected 36 raginis. Thirty earmarked for the exclusive singing of his
own poetry while six were used for singing other compositions. The raags
of classical music mentioned in his works are Kalyan, Khambhat, Siri,
Suhni, Sarang, Kedara, Desi, Baruva Hindi, Sorath, Baruva Sindhi, Ramkali,
Bilawal, Asa, Dhanasari, Purbi, Kamod, Yaman, Husaini and Basant. He
retained Kalyan, Khambhat and Bilawal in their shudh (original) state
because these constituted the three basic thaats to which belong some
other melodies of the group. 14 other melodies of the classical tradition
were retained in the form in which they were sung by the people, as the
functional compositions of each of these melodies do not necessarily
conform exactly to their classical prototypes. The following seventeen
were selected from Sindhi folk music Samundi, Abri, Madhoor, Kohiyaree,
Rana, Khahoree, Rip, Lilan, Dahar, Kapaitee, Pirbhati, Ghatu, Seenh Kadaro,
Marui, Dhol Maru, Hir and Karayal. As I went to the shrine
before midnight in search of the source of the sound I was even more
intrigued. Those days the shrine was not lit up with the vulgarity of full
flashing lights as it is done these days. As the night fell, the light and
sound played hide and seek adding to the mystery of the occasion. With the
night deepening, the shadows started to lengthen and a kind of eeriness
descended on the place with the sound of this very disturbing music heard
with varying intensities. In front of the main shrine, I saw four
musicians sitting with instruments, the dhamboris upright in their hands,
dressed in black, had matted hair wearing dozens of bead necklaces and
rings of all kinds and shapes. The air was thick with smoke and by the
door of the shrine which was bolted, an elderly woman lay on the floor
tied to the handle of the door. These musicians chanted
endlessly throughout the night as other sets of musicians similarly
dressed and carrying the same aura replaced them on a regular basis. The
wai was in the form of a chant where seemingly one chant by a vocalist was
reciprocated by the other to the strumming of the dhambori. After about
half an hour the group broke into a choral rendition again to the playing
of the dhombori time with the regularity of a rhythmic cycle. It was a strange sight
and as the night became deeper it really became very moving and there was
hardly any chance of escaping the effect of music and the impact of the
entire environment. There was something very terrifying in that scene but
it so riveted me to the spot that even if I wanted to move out due to the
intensity of the happening it was not possible to do so. It was strangely
captivating. I have visited the shrine many times since to listen to music
and imbibe the scene and inhale the ethos. It has a magical quality about
it. These musicians have
been made to sing outside the environs of the shrine and have since been
also taken to international festivals of so called mystic music. Gradually
these musicians also have made regular appearance of television programmes
and other shows. The performance is much changed, pruned and made
palatable. The length of the performance is also regulated and the
intonation too is directed and controlled. The appearance of the musicians
have become respectable, the hair and the necklaces and the rings all
cleverly made up. Their performance has become a concert item. But the impact and the
effectiveness of the performance on the shrine in the early hours of the
morning with darkness all over, some elderly women tied to the door of the
shrine and the alternating chant with the thumping on the dhambori is
perhaps lost forever. Its strange other worldly quality has gone missing.
It has been uprooted from its soil and environment and has lost the flush
of its peculiarity.
This year I received an
unusual message from an artist wishing me a happy new year on the first of
Muharam. The imagery of the first month of the Islamic year is that of
blood. Devotees observe their period of mourning by replicating — in a
symbolic way — what happened to Imam Hussain, the grandson of Holy
Prophet (pbuh). However the Muslim
communities, which do not follow the Shiite faith, also experience scenes
of blood and gore. Each year, exactly a month before the Ashura, the day
of martyrs at Karbala, the entire Muslim population offers sacrifice;
goats, cows and camels are slaughtered in the name of God. The ritual of
sacrifice demands witnessing the slaughter, hearing animal’s last cries,
and watching how the blood oozes out of the freshly sliced throat. Each year we see these
scenes which have a religious and ritualistic significance in our belief
system. So if our artists are obsessed with images of violence, it should
not come as a surprise. The fascination with blood and violent acts may be
rooted in our experience of looking at these from close-hand. This first
hand encounter with slaughter of animals or self-flogging to the extent of
bleeding has no parallel in other societies. So, naturally, our artists
are more inclined to take violence as their favourite subject. With these
demonstrations of violence embedded in our cultural experience, the modern
day violence has added another dimension. Long time before the
society’s actual brush with terrorism, bomb blasts and mass killings,
violence became a favourite topic for our film makers. Punjabi movie,
Maula Jutt, was the first such depiction of brutality, which led to a
number of other attempts in presenting barbarity in a glorious guise. The
audience would admire and identify with the hero — or villain — who
instead of relying on a legal procedure prefers to take matters in his
hand and resolves disputes and conflicts through his gun, knife or
machete. In the present times,
the society is faced with the reality of violence — incidents like
explosions, bomb blasts, suicide attacks reported in the media are an
everyday occurrence. During the same time, we have witnessed a new
phenomenon: of public justice (which must not be confused with
‘popular’ justice). Mobs in the streets of Karachi, Gujranwala and
Sialkot hunted down criminals and lynched them before any court
proceedings sometimes in front of the police. Due to these shows of
public ferocity, when a security guard decides to assassinate the very
same person he is supposed to save from enemies, he is glorified by
millions for his great deed. We seem to have forgotten that if each
individual takes the roles of accuser, judge and executioner, the society
may not survive as a civilized setup. But, like Maula Jutt, the act of a
murderer is exalted by a large section of the population — not only on
some sentimental or religious grounds, but due to that instinct which
celebrates the ritualistic annihilation of animals, or the hunt of beasts
and burdens for the simple pleasure of human beings. Arguably, the killing of
animals cannot be equated with the assassination of human beings, since
one is ordained by God and the other is prohibited by Him. Artists in this
situation face a dilemma. They are unable to avoid the scene of death
around them. The creative person who is trying to communicate with his
audience has to communicate with himself first; he is thus bound to pick
these subjects. However there are various aspects of the theme, because
the issue of violence can easily be understood as a sensational subject,
both by the local spectators and international viewers. Thus the immediate
concerns for a creative person is — how to deviate from the
‘news-item-ness’ of the subject and transform it into an artwork of
sustainable and substantial quality. This is a difficult task
but has been achieved by a number of contemporary artists here, including
Rashid Rana (Red Carpet) and Imran Qureshi (You Who are my Love and
Life’s Enemy Too), where the immediate is translated into a language
that draws its understanding/source from the images and practices rooted
in the past. Hence the present is comprehended through investigating and
exposing the tradition in art, but in life also (because apart from our
culture or faith, in our physiognomy, too, the past breathes in the
present.) So the remembrance of martyrs of fourteen hundred years ago, or
following the custom of Abraham’s sacrificing lamb (in the place of his
son) is not about history, but is a way of responding to ourselves, both
as part of a society with a certain system of beliefs and as an individual
who just loves the colour of blood.
Silent
night In a strange twist of
fate, barely 36 hours before the greatest moment of painter Francis
Bacon’s life —the opening of his retrospective exhibition at the Grand
Palais in Paris— his companion of many ears, George Dyer, committed
suicide in the hotel room they were sharing. They say Bacon showed rare
powers of self control. He took care of the medical formalities; he later
showed up at the exhibition on time, never once showing anyone that it was
perhaps the unhappiest day of his life, but he lived and we live. There is a small crowd
gathered in the cold outside Drawing Room Art Gallery. The mood is quiet,
except for a few scrapings of boot soles, some hushed undertones of
conversations melting away in the cold night. And as Najam Sethi speaks
into a mic about his very last conversations with Taseer, the gathered
crowd, the silent night take notice that his voice neither cracks nor
changes intonation, it may have been somber, but never weak and one would
think of Francis Bacon in Paris that night, because he lived and we must
as well. The show inside,
strangely is also somber, subdued. There are no blood stains, no traces of
violence in any of the pieces, —except perhaps Quddus Mirza and Faiza
Butt— yet because these art works are themselves “letters” to a man
brutally killed; they carry a charged air, a heavy air, bigger than their
parts. Noor Ali Chagani’s
Frozen and Silence structures made mostly out of Terracotta bricks and
cement display almost a didactic simplicity, both show brick walls but one
has some space to peak through, as to start a conversation, or to get
something, someone across. The other completely closed off, almost
bitterly. But while Chagani might
be making a simpler statement, Mohammad Ali Talpur is speaking in tongues.
Mashq, ink on paper, in a replication of squares and patterns that look
like water bubbles (read tears) Talpur spins out optical illusions,
formalism and a bewildering sense of sadness, what you see from afar is
not what you see from a close distance, what you may feel now, you may not
feel that later. Thankfully Quddus Mirza
and Faiza Butt delve into the cluttered, painful ambiguous parts of letter
writing. Butt’s lightbox Zaever Zangeer is a messy white monolith, prose
poems in both English and Urdu scribbled angrily on either side, covered
with cigarette butts, bones, plastic bags, old thrown away letters, Zaever
Zangeer seems to be both angry F—— off and Voodoo exorcism. Mirza’s
In praise of red is a swamp of reds and yellows, broken bits of languages,
picture of burials and muscled skeletons. But if anyone really captures death, the madness of it, the bare bones of the fact that after ashes to ashes it’s finished then it has to be Saba Khan’s installation called Going Home. There seems nothing much to write here except that Nylon meshes and cotton threads might not make anyone aware of the always present feeling of death, but the dust would. It would make one shed a tear.
Dear All, So there I was sitting
in yet another Karachi drawing room listening to yet another diatribe
against the ‘corruption’ of the government and the sad state of
affairs in the country... Blah, blah, blah. The
refrain in these instances is, roughly, always the same: that “things
have never been so bad”, that the “government is corrupt”, that the
root of all evil in this world is called Asif Zardari. The hysteria goes on and
on. Politicians with no party and no elected office (eg Sheikh Rasheed
Ahmed) are given ample airtime on various television channels where they
repeat this narrative self-righteously while at the same time extolling
the virtues of the defenders of our Borders and our Faith; wanna-bes from
wannabe parties (eg Tehreek-i-Insaf) are also given ample airtime where
they are disparaging about government officials in the most offensive of
tones... People like the retired
general Hameed Gul, who dreams of establishing a ‘khilafat’ in
Pakistan, and who likes people to forget that not just was he head of a
jehadi linked ISI but also a Zia-ite, is given lots of airtime to propound
his valuable analysis — which of course is neither linked to his ISI
experience or his Zia links but which casts him as some sort of
‘political analyst’. Meanwhile, Kamran Khan
in his TV show would have us believe that it’s almost the end of days
for Pakistan: his apocalyptic monologue assures us that this is a serious,
worrying, critical, terrible, crucial, devastating, horrific time for the
country, and we are in a state of crisis from which we must be saved... And, yes, back to those
Karachi drawing rooms where I spent so much time last week, those,
breeding grounds for the usual rumours...The sad thing is that all this
feels like déjà vu. Flashback to the 1990s: the disinformation then was
so effective that most journalists did not even understand how they had
been manipulated; but now many of us who witnessed that can see a similar
pattern emerge... The usual clumsy process is that a prolonged defamation
campaign against the elected incumbents is followed by the country being
‘saved’ by people aligned to right wing, military elements. The
democratic process is thus subverted and distorted. But what people in
drawing rooms don’t really seem to realise is how they are being
manipulated and how they rarely reflect on the facts before them. They
just continue to repeat hearsay and think it is perfectly normal that
senior government functionaries should spend all day in courts being
scolded by learned judges instead of getting on with their work (policing,
administration, legislation etc). They don’t think it’s odd that
non-issues are whipped into matters of ‘national security’ and taken
into the realm of courts and commissions and and hysterical tv shows.
Everybody is convinced there was never a more terrible period in
Pakistan’s history and so nobody bothers to recall the not-so-long-ago
days of Musharraf’s emergency, the civil war in the north, the Lal
masjid siege or the suicide-blast-a-day era. We all have short
memories, and we all love the idea of a “saviour” we are easy prey to
this sort of propaganda but the truth of the matter is that we should be
able to see beyond it and we should insist that this government be able to
complete its term. But then what would we talk about in our drawing rooms?
Progressive legislation? The need for an effective Family Planning
programme? Taxation? Egalitarianism? Education? Oh dear, they all sound so
boring, the rumours are so much more fun — aren’t they? Best wishes, Umber Khairi |
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