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comment book review For those who
fought it out Home
girl comment Creating new narratives Cultures and traditions may be amenable to change, vulnerable to being created or destroyed, but there will always remain a dissenting voice to power that may not be co-opted and assimilated into venality By Samina Choonara From an investment in
promoting folk music and arifana kalaam, to the Sufic interpretation of
Islam, to now a So, a multinational soda pop company takes on the counter intuitive task of promoting “spiritual” music -- songs of material dispossession -- sifting through and defining who the fakirs are, who the musicians, and how they dance. Well-funded researchers from abroad have descended on this country to make a study of popular religion, the counter narrative within Islam, so that a man spends five days at what may be considered the most important shrine of a mast malamati poet-saint of the subcontinent, and comes back to make a film and write a book on its drug culture for an international publishing house. Even a much touted, recently released popular Urdu film, backed by international financiers, makes a garbled listing of the ills besetting this place because of mainstream Islam. And what is the message? While aiming to look at the lives of disenfranshised women, it ends up holding parricide as the option, the absurdist position of capitalism without patriarchy. But with its Midas touch gone awry, all the gold that Power touches turns to dust. So the shrines are now empty, close at 9:00 sharp, no dhammal or dance of ecstasy, no fakirs, because they can’t get past the scanners and the frisking put there for their purported protection. And the Sufi soda pop music is empty, made syrupy and so like a jingle advertising folk music. Researchers are busy proving what they wish to, meanwhile, Power has moved on to investigating alternate -- or parallel, if you will -- desire. The project on studying desire turns on its head when the partying in celebration of gay pride at a foreign consulate is later taken to the media, and results in the canons being rolled out into the streets. Canons of the Law, Religion, Text, Public Morality, Culture, Nature, Ideology, the entire repertoire. What could possibly be the intent and purpose of this? For all the scrutiny devoted to this place, how spurious is the understanding of Power about the cultural context? Although the partying has rankled people and there has been much debate over the issues in the news media and over the internet, the anger is confused and desultory. Is the anger over the country of mighty megabucks taking over moral authority like a bully, telling other people what constitutes civilized behaviour? Or is it about whether one has an opinion on homosexuality per se? It is no longer possible to dissociate the two, but the war of words that has ensued has certainly brought the many narratives of power together. To begin with, the first argument of those condemning homoeroticism is that it is against the law and therefore a criminal act. Historically, the law being evoked is the seventeenth century colonial Sodomy Law (Article 377) that criminalises homosexuality and says more about Victorian England than it does about India as a British colony. A law that most self-respecting neighbouring countries are now busy repealing, amending and negotiating with, inclusive of India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and even Bangladesh, to accommodate local realities where such practices have always co-existed. The other, more major, argument is of course made from religion, but how can one even begin to speak and to question when the doors to interpretation and ijtehad have been closed? How can anyone interrogate whether the injunction is against sodomy or against sexuality? Like politics and culture, it has been left to the media to tell us what the truth is and what falsehood, particularly so the raving telly evangelists of the most spurious erudition who seem to be sublimating their own ignorance and venom as the wrath of God. The more hysterical argumentation demonising western cultural values in general, instead of seeing it as the political machinations of global capitalism, cannot be taken seriously for this is played out against some puritanical ideology of Pakistan, an ideology that wasn’t as clear even to its founder. Although, to be fair, the historical concept of the individual, the citizen demanding rights of the State, and the entire dialogue on sexuality-as-identity is a product of western political cultures. Sexuality as identity has never gone down well in these parts where homoeroticism has existed and been accepted in complicit silence. It has existed as tribal culture, no doubt, but also as metropolitan reality. More publicly, it has also existed as the valorization of love between men of learning -- the poets and sages and musicians -- not as eroticism but as a part of reneging on worldly pursuits that the family system tethers most people to. And concerning women who lead even more private lives, we know almost nothing. But what is even worse in this debate is the lame neoliberals making a case for “tolerance” of “minorities” and those who are “different” in sexual orientation, genetically and biologically another “gender” and so on. Tolerance and minoritising others is a position of arrogance to begin with, for we are all of us, part of minorities and majorities in so many ways. Perhaps it is too demanding of neoliberals to accept the fluidity of sexuality that does not make for safe and distanced, genetically ordered difference. For all we know, sexuality may be experientially a wider rainbow than we understand it to be, perhaps even a disordering of the senses that is a path to the unknown. But from this, perhaps those in power may learn, those who think they direct the mega narrative and can change it at will -- first creating narratives of the marauding militants as those who represented Islam to now promoting its counter narrative in Sufic traditions. Cultures and traditions may be amenable to change, vulnerable to being created or destroyed, but there will always remain a dissenting voice to power that may not be co-opted and assimilated into venality, for that is its reason for being. The spiritual enclaves, the music and dance of the marginalised, and their desire, need be left alone, for they may just be the guardians howling in the night to delimit the territory of human depravity.
A commendable attempt to map the larger-than-life personality of Zahoor ul Akhlaq, one of the most significant artists of our age By Quddus Mirza Reading a book is like
meeting another person, but reading a text an author writes about someone
else is like Zahoor ul Akhlaq was a cordial person with a whole host of friends from across disciplines and generations. His loving personality attracted several students for whom the teaching part continued outside of the NCA studio and was not limited to art only. Literature, music and other branches of knowledge and creative expressions kept him engaged with his contemporaries; more than that it was the sheer pleasure of seeing him painting in his studio (a section of his house on the Upper Mall in Lahore) that attracted and fascinated younger artists. The Rest is Silence, published by Oxford University Press, is an attempt to map the larger-than-life personality of Zahoor ul Akhlaq through the words of an author who is recreating, bit by bit his portrait. In Connah’s words, “ …attempting to write what could only be called a series of ‘fragments’ “ almost like Rashid Rana’s imagery that is made of memories and accounts of people that formulate the big picture. His style of writing, blending factual data with personal details, adds more than just biographical material. This helps resurrect the artist who was brutally and senselessly murdered along with his daughter at his residence in Lahore on January 18, 1999. From that point on, the
book traces back the life of Zahoor ul Akhlaq -- his formative years at NCA,
his private A prominent aspect of the book is its personal tone. Although there are formal links to his art, such as Ad Reinhardt and miniature painting, the structure of the book, like a work of fiction, includes the writer’s monologues, his search for Zahoor, in the process finding a number of sources. These sources are as reliable as his friends and as rare as twenty documents from the Zahoor ul Akhlaq Archives, which comprise his writings in English and Urdu as well as his sketches. The book also provides selected extracts: quotes of Akhlaq on a variety of topics ranging from tradition to teaching, and from inspiration to infinity. Along with details of Zahoor’s biography, reproductions of his works and photographs of man and family, the book presents a section titled, On Zahoor ul Akhlaq: the painter’s painter – a definition that Akhlaq, according to Connah, “….accepted, albeit grudgingly”. This section consists of comments by critics, writers and artists printed in various magazines and newspapers. The title of this section has often been used for describing Zahoor ul Akhlaq. In his life, it was regarded a term of praise since it hinted at the exclusiveness of his pictorial concerns and the sophistication of his visual vocabulary, which could not be easily comprehended by most people. The fact that he was being reduced to a limited audience was perceived as something positive because it sounded like the triumph of taste over the banal business of popularity. Twelve years after his
death, one may need to reconsider the compliment which tends to isolate the
artist from This state of affairs would have appeared ideal during his times but today it poses a problem -- not only for Zahoor ul Akhlaq or his legacy but for a number of artists. It is the divide between the popular and the prestigious painters. In our art world, a number of artists have become well-known and famous among the masses, such as A. R. Chughtai, Sadequain and Gulgee (Saeed Akhtar being the latest addition to the list coming down to Mashkoor Raza and Rind). While some artists never manage to enter the public space and hence remain elusive and exclusive despite being important artists like Shakir Ali and Zubeida Agha. This conflict or contradiction between the mass appeal and select admiration is significant in some respects because one assumes that the popular painters (or other creative individuals of that ilk) will disappear with the passage of time and only the genuine artists, who are not understood today, will withstand the test of time. But the fact remains that the public arena is most of the time occupied by popular artists who leave their influence on the younger generation of artists and students. On the other hand, the exclusive artists also assert their influence but within a limited circle. Compared to those, Zahoor ul Akhlaq inspired a wide range of artists, especially those who studied at NCA. Yet he never boasted about his influence and rarely admitted to it. Once in an exhibition, someone pointed at a set of drawings and told Zahoor ul Akhlaq that one of his former students was making works just like him. Akhlaq looked surprised and said, “Oh these are by him. I thought these were mine.” The Rest is Silence is a commendable effort to bring that Zahoor ul Akhlaq back to life who was assassinated twelve years back but still survives in the works and minds of his contemporaries.
For
those who fought it out By Sarwat Ali Balochistan
Main Stage Drama Ki Riwayat Very little is known about the plays that have been staged in Balochistan. Now a book by one of the practitioners has been published that throws some light on the theatre as it developed in the cities of Balochistan, mainly Quetta, and to some extent Sibbi and Mach. It appears from Fazal ur Rehman Qazi’s account that there was hardly any theatrical tradition in Balochistan before the British colonialists founded Quetta as a garrison town in the 19th century to bolster their defence capability in the Great Game. Quetta was now expanding and its civilian population also increased and cultural activities picked up that helped along the way with the establishment of schools and colleges. Fazalur Rehman Qazi was an
active member of the Railway Dramatic Club from 1951 to 1964. Since his
account is He watched films and theatre in Quetta, usually of the touring theatre companies that pitched their tents in the area between the cantonment and the city close to now Jinnah Bridge. These makeshift theatres erected in tents by the travelling companies set the pattern for the local groups to follow. Another site for theatre was the Brown Gymkhana. The city apparently had a good number of cinema houses and that complemented the theatre. In the book he has drawn from Dr Inamul Haq Kausar’s ‘Balochistan Main Urdu’ especially the chapter on Urdu drama. Other than the Army, the other important department Railways not only looked after train operation but also provided a platform for various activities in the field of health, education and culture. It appears that it extended a very vibrant institutional cover for quite sometime before the burden was shared by the setting up of the Balochistan Arts Council. The author contests the account of Dr Inamul Haq that plays started being staged before the first world war in Quetta by Ghulam Haider Khan, Syed Aziz Shah and Taoos Khan -- but he says that these must have been held in the inter war period. At that time touring theatre companies from Calcutta, and Bombay staged plays in Quetta. Probably the first such play was staged in 1896. Apparently some theatrical activity also took place in Loralai where Maulvi Naqshbandi wrote good dialogues. Syed Aziz Shah, Ghulam Haider, Babu Dina Nath, Pandit Roshan Laal founded the Indian Dramatic Club which staged the usual Parsi theatre plays and it was renamed Quetta Dramatic Club but it did not do well in competition with the bigger and larger touring companies. There was no consistent indigenous dramatic activity in Quetta before partition but after the partition in 1948 the Quetta Dramatic Club was reactivated with the play of ‘Mujahid’ based on the Kashmir struggle. It was written by Rooman and directed by Idrees Khurshid. Lal Deen staged another play ‘Waqt Ki Pukaar’ on Kashmir with the help of employees of the Railways Khalsa High School. Till the early 1960s plays were staged at the colleges. The book primarily is a first-hand account on the way theatre was done in Quetta and is therefore full of anecdotes about the various actors, theatre personalities and the hurdles that they faced in establishing theatre in a town that was far away from the centres of power in the country. For it was like supplanting a tradition in foreign soil. Some of the problems have been shared by most theatre groups in the country like coaxing women to act, and then not finding one as a desperate measure resorting to dressing up men as women with some hilarious episode exposing the subterfuge, or the drive at raising funds for staging plays or the contents of the plays annoying or angering some group or those in authority. The local tradition in Balochistan, about which there is precious little in the book, must have revolved around the dramatic renditions of the various folk dastaans and romances that were usually sung to the accompaniment of a few instruments like the banjo, sehroz, bansari, naar and aiktara for providing the rhythmic accompaniment. It enlists the plays that have been staged in Quetta and the various personalities associated with theatre in Balochistan like Manzoor Bukhari, Aali Sayeedi, Ashfaq Ahmed, Aftab Khawaja, Ahmed Jameel, Hamid Raza, Khalil Siddiqui, Anwar Chaudry, Atrat Ali Khan, Fazal Kareem, Ishrat Jehan, Maqsood Alam, Jamil Malik, Rafiq Asar, A.D. Baloch, Khaleeq Ahmed Khaleeq. It carries a wealth of information about the theatre staged in Balochistan in the last fifty odd years. It also mentions the various organisations, some fly-by-night and the others more stable that promoted theatre in the province and then praises the role of those that have been more consistent like the Quetta Dramatic Club, Balochistan Arts Council and Radio Pakistan Quetta. Television when it was set up in Quetta too promoted the performing arts in the Balochistan. It is a valuable addition to the scant literature on theatre in the country and almost next to nothing when it comes to theatre in Balochistan. Home girl Dear All, More than half the year has gone, so I have already begun to dread the onset of the horrid London winter. Soon it will be all dark, rainy days and damp chill. Dark mornings, dark afternoons, dark moods... The last two winters here have been grim: unfriendly snow, icy streets, numb fingers and toes... Winter tends to make me
into even more of a homebody than I already am (and I am already fairly
boring!). And I know I shouldn’t complain after all it’s not as if I were in deepest, darkest Canada or Russia or even northern Pakistan. But I now realise that sunshine makes me happy whereas the cold just makes me pathetic. And, of course, add into this the vitamin D deficiency that my doctor informs me most desi women here are prone to -- and you get a gloomy picture. But these days, staying home is almost the same as going out because you can be so well linked up all the time. Which is perhaps not such a good thing: a cousin’s daughter is visiting here, and she spends 98 per cent of her time either texting or skyping with her friends in Pakistan. My question to her was: why are you even here? You should just have stayed home and done all this (would sure have saved them a lot of money!) But, alas, my offspring is just the same. My younger one always has her phone handy, and whether it is in the car, at the dining table or in the midst of anything else, one eye and one finger is always on that phone... Sigh. What should one do about all this? I don’t want to sound all Amish or new age, but one does feel slightly nostalgic for a time when the social interaction you engaged in was with the people who were actually in the same room as you... When you made conversation and engaged attention... because that was polite rather than because you needed to make this person into a useful social contact. Ah well! We are going on holiday soon. But instead of looking forward to the holiday, I am now really looking forward to the end of the holiday, to the very best part: coming home. Perverse, I know, but as I rather annoyingly keep repeating: east or west, home is best. Even in winter. Best wishes Umber Khairi |
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prurient interest in alternate sexual orientation, the markets of global
culture seem invested in pulling out the smaller voices at the margins to the
fore to paint a softer face of a country so ravaged and disfigured by
violence.
meeting two people – one seen through the eyes of the other. The Rest is
Silence by Roger Connah is one such endeavour where the life of Zahoor ul
Akhlaq is reconstructed through Connah’s vision and narrative. Connah is a
writer, independent scholar and researcher based in Berlin while Akhlaq was
one of the most important figures of modern art in Pakistan who taught for
thirty years at the National College of Arts Lahore, trained many students,
influenced a number of artists and contributed towards creating modern
vocabulary in our art.
life, his art that dealt with the major issues of our time and place and
signified how to imbibe tradition in modern times. This concern, manifested
in multiple versions and variations in his canvases, graphic prints and
sculptures, is related to the society at large, since our culture continues
to incorporate outside influences while seeking to preserve particular
practices from the past.
the audience by proclaiming that his work can not be comprehended or even
appreciated and enjoyed by the general public.
first hand as he participated in theatre during this period, personally
experiencing the ups and downs of stage plays in that period. From his
childhood, though, he was fascinated by stage shows that were held in Quetta
and one particular show he mentioned where Baby Nur Jehan sang in Prabhat
Theatre (which the people in the street called Barbaad Theatre), actually a
cinema house also used for stage shows and recounted the antics of the
audience wanting to attract the attention of the performer, especially the
female performers on stage.
