december 27

Modernity and history has taught mankind a commonplace wisdom that no one is irreplaceable. Yet there is no doubt now in anyone’s mind, including those that bayed for her blood while she lived, that in Benazir Bhutto’s tragic death, Pakistan has lost a leader that it can never replace.

December 27 brings back a flood of memories for all of us who were associated with Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. She died as she lived, courageous until the end, like her father, with her gaze fixed on how history will judge her.

Contrary to the life she could have led, of cushioned privilege and personal priorities, Benazir Bhutto paid a heavy price for her commitment to the people of Pakistan. She could have easily taken the road more travelled, found ways to disengage from politics that brought her so much grief, but she never once wavered from what she believed was both her task and her manifest destiny. She hardly talked about it, but recounting her own life was an exercise in pain and fortitude. Since childhood, she saw her family rocked with trauma, both personal and political. She lost her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was the first democratically elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, and two brothers, in brutal and tragic episodes. Her husband was imprisoned in ghastly conditions for eleven and a half years without a sentence. She brought up her children as a single parent in years of exile, praying in the local Dubai mosque every Friday, persevering despite the obstacles.

But before all her years in exile, Benazir had earned her political stripes at a young age, the daughter of a father who refused to seek mercy from his death row jail-cell. After her father’s judicial murder, she spent six years in incarceration during which she almost lost hearing in one ear. This happened the year she suffered quietly, without the necessary medical treatment, in one of the worst prisons of Pakistan. Since that year, her ear never stopped going click, click, click, as she would describe. Yet all these experiences strengthened her resolve to remain in public life, soldiering on to try to save Pakistan.

I recount only a fraction of her sufferings, but I do it with a reason. This was a woman whom Pakistan not only needs to honour, but also needs to emulate. She wanted to contest a free and fair election, right to the end, not to install herself in Prime Minister House in Islamabad, but to make a difference. And she understood the power of politics, of activism and public dialogue. She wanted the new generation of Pakistan to come forth and save Pakistan from the ashes of the fire we see it engulfed in today. Terrorism, poverty, ignorance, disease and injustice haunted her more and more as she grew older. The longer she lived away, the longer she idealised Pakistan as the only project worth saving, even if it meant giving up her life.

The year she came back to Pakistan, we worked non-stop on policy alternatives that would ease our country’s growing, inimical pain. I have recounted this many times, but it is important to remember that we had a leader who would stay up late into the night, planning, reading, writing to her policy planners in the PPP, that she needs so much done to translate her vision into reality. At endless meetings at her home in Dubai, which were preceded by a year of planning and work by committees she closely monitored by internet interventions through approving minutes of meetings, we would make charts, juggle goals, scale up ambitions. We would think up ways to educate children from communities that cannot afford to feed or board them, and that is reflected today in the pilot boarding school schemes that the fourth PPP government is striving to launch. She would spend hours poring over proposals to provide health cover to all, grilling us how we would prevent the models from sliding into poor governance. There was no chimerical planning, as independent economists who volunteered time were asked to rationalise all social spending and major reform programmes within a national budget once the PPP came into government.

I recall how one day we sent her a detailed paper on how we would try to provide social nets as well as rural employment, where land degradation and spiralling inflation had brought on structural destitution. After thinking it through, she called up late at night from Dubai, as was her habit, to fine-tune the programme. After many conversations and meetings we ended with our planning for either a public works programme for providing guaranteed employment to the lowest income-poor families or guaranteed income support to the socially vulnerable. She knew our state provided no social services worth its size. She wanted Pakistan to be a welfare state on the lines of the Scandinavian social democracy model, with social nets for the poor and a strong market economy that provided jobs and raised a middle class. This vision was taken up by the fourth PPP government in driving initiatives such as the Benazir Income Support Programme, among others.

Her sense of timing was both acute and often prescient. It was almost as if she knew that her destiny was calling her to fulfil her legacy. She was a woman in a great hurry, as I always repeat, on a mission to transform Pakistan. She made us build a 100 days action programme for her next cabinet so the PPP could deliver more on her promises before the axe fell on us. She worked non-stop to ensure that her vision was translated into our laptops and mental hard drives, almost as if there was no time left. Until her last day, she worked over 18 hours a day. But apart from planning policies, she worked very hard to stay in touch with all her beloved party workers on mail, phone call and long, arduous rounds of internet communication.

Benazir Bhutto was a leader whose vision went farther than others. Why? Because she was ahead of her times, and because she had extraordinary courage. She was the only leader who saw that if we don’t step in the way, the fires of extremism will engulf Pakistan. This was the challenge that kept her awake at nights as much as dictatorship did, as much as mass hunger did.

She dabbled in the waters of realpolitik, but remained clear-eyed about legitimacy. Any dialogue with any government was always for ensuring a level playing field. That was all she asked for: an open contest and a fair election. This was the PPP’s strength, which she had turned into a clear brand for the party. Her father had given his life for it, and she always said that one day she too would have to as well. Her fear was not that she would be snuffed out in the prime of her life. It was that she would not be able to make Pakistan safe again for its children.

Bhutto was the only leader who owned the battle against religious orthodoxy and militancy as Pakistan’s internal challenge. And she was the only one willing to mark clear red lines for it. There was to be no compromise with women’s freedoms, no compromises with those who hijacked army boys and blew up children’s buses. She was going to fix it by a reform package and tough security measures. She was bent on giving habeas corpus to the tribal areas and she had moved court to give them the right to adult franchise. To her this was never another country’s war. It was Pakistan’s battle for survival. And this is what we must do with Pakistan today. This is what her government is battling ahead with, despite all odds.

Her story is a mirror of the story of her supporters who have sacrificed and suffered so much to give the people of Pakistan freedom, equality, respect and emancipation from poverty, hunger and backwardness. No amount of demonisation by small-minded opponents, using the resources of the state for political purposes, has diminished her standing as the massive reception of three million people at Karachi on October 18, 2007 demonstrated at her homecoming after eight years of exile.

She came home with tears of joy on the tarmac at Karachi. We would have done our duty as citizens of Pakistan if we just lived a fraction of her ideals out in our lives.

Sherry Rehman is former Information Secretary for the PPP, and former Information Minister, Pakistan.

The News on Sunday: Have you always been an artist?

Saeed Akhtar: I had this appetence for art, just like everyone else has that for one thing or the other. However, before that, I was interested in automotive mechanics, especially motorbikes. I would disassemble the parts and join them again, marvelling at their beauty and the capacity of human brain.

TNS: Which aspect of art is more consequential for our times in this part of the world?

SA: Art encompasses all aspects of life through architecture, textiles, ceramics, and other such disciplines. A molvi once said to me that I’ll burn in hell for teaching drawing. I replied that it is for Him to decide, but what can I say about you, the core of ignorance. He works as an electrician, and has learned his trade with a lot of beating from his ustad, instead of learning it in an appropriate institute, where he could have learned proper drawing. The absence of quality art education at school level has turned this society into the mess it is now, where all one see is entangled cables hanging in front of ugly facades. I can not imagine a single moment of life without art.

TNS: Do you believe that this attitude has anything to do with the shifting interest from realism to abstraction?

SA: In our days, art was believed to be a means of earning money, and for that one needed proper training in seven-eight skills to achieve the required level of understanding. These days words are stressed upon more than any other skill; this does not solve the problem. When an artist is not well equipped with the required set of skills it will breed frustration. But who knows, the artists of today can be more successful than those of our times, as each period has its own requisite set of skills. And I believe the young artists are well aware of that.

TNS: As we are talking about changing times, how is Saeed Akhtar of today different from the one of 1960s?

SA: Learning, is what distinguishes them. Our teachers could see one eighth of an inch error in perspective in a glance. I once asked my teacher, "Ustad jee ay inni inni ghaltiyan tohano nazar aa jandian ney?" He said, "Hann puttar, sari umar lang gai ay wekdey." I would not have much consciousness then, regarding my errors; the teachers were there to identify them. Now I can depend only on my own judgement.

My canvas offers me new challenges everyday, it annoys me, it hurts me, and it makes me feel like crying. But the joy that follows a finished work is unthinkable for anyone else. This is what my struggle is all about, since coming from the age that was all about learning the fundamental skills.

TNS: What interests you the most when deciding a subject?

SA: Anything that comes out nicely in the end. Beauty is not the only standard; beyond that, it’s the expression that matters. The thought of painting eyes kept bothering me for a long time; I would paint and wash repeatedly. The eyes that I painted on a 4’x4’ canvas remained untouched for quite a while; one day I started drawing lines around them that turned out to be my own image, from the time spent in Quetta.

TNS: How do you choose your hues and tones, some of them being imaginary for you?

SA: I am not familiar with the look of blush, or a suggestion of greenish tint on some freshly shaven face. But I can not deny their existence. I see tones and then blend them according to my imagination. However, I am not too cautious with colour application; and sometimes my misjudgements fascinate viewers.

TNS: How do you see the nude in the broader scheme of existence?

SA: I believe this whole existence is for the human body. If you pay attention, all the activities that you see around you are linked to the human body, the dress, the building, and almost all of the innovations related to such products. God says that He has created the human body in His own image, which is the most beautiful. In other words, the more beautiful a human, the closest she/he will be to the Divine. God is beautiful and loves beauty. Though we can not imagine His beauty, we can still idealize the glimpse of it in the human form. The Romans and the Greeks have done the same. The seven nuktas that make an alif follow the human proportions with which the whole Quran is written. Sharing beauty and joy is not a sin.

TNS: You believe you are looking for the Divine in such manifestations of beauty?

SA: In this regard, human face attracts me the most. I saw a face, when I went for haj, and thought that the artist who painted Mary must have seen a beauty like this. Such beauty leads to beautiful thoughts where we find our own ideals.

TNS: The figures on display in your recent exhibition portray such beauty?

SA: Beauty is somewhat personal. I like high-bridged noses, some people don’t. Some like narrow eyes, while I like big eyes. You have to see the beauty in its context, because different regions have different perceptions of it. The bright coloured attire and ornaments used in our deserts in the South can not be appreciated through some other culture’s perspective due to the difference in sensibilities. The working women with Gandhi, had just fabric wrapped around their shoulders, and were not wearing any blouses. In our childhood the women would wear tehband with kurtas, and there was no concept of bra. Why do we want to see the female in stiff and straight posture anyway? Similarly, since I have lived in Quetta, I really like the graceful turbans wore by the men there.

In my recent exhibition, only five paintings are a bit exposed, and they were the first to get the sold tag. And the apparently unusual postures are nothing but images from daily life that is not tied with ropes, and which can be extraordinary on its own. One of my paintings — showing a female figure in motion on a swing, her hair swaying in the wind and the bust visible through the drapery — was bought by a lady. I enquired where she had it hung; it was in their living room. Art is all about our lives, why hide it?

TNS: What is the story of buraq?

SA: It is all about emotions and has little to do with the tangible. Our prophet’s journey through heavens — and his description of the ride, which was much faster than light — brings to mind such visuals that guide us to the path of breaking free. Look at the fascinating colours of feathers on this planet; buraq, for me, is the culmination of all flights.

TNS: How do you feel about art appreciation and art criticism in Pakistan?

SA: Artists have colours and art critics have words to play with. But mostly the critics here use the same old vocabulary, and you feel like reading the same thing over and over. Our art institutes mainly focus on the Western Art and art history as the art. And in comparison, there is not much of the published material available on the local arts and artists. Do art students know about the local artists as much as they do about the Western artists? How many art students actively visit art galleries and exhibitions, or know about Shakir Ali Museum, Chughtai Museum, or the Alhamra Permanent Art Gallery?

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Self portrait 2009.

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The Ultimate Journey, In progress.

Almost every miniature artist in recent times has started to adapt an animal, bird or beast as his recurring motif in painting. So, after Mohammad Zeeshan’s rats, Asif Ahmed’s elephants, Wasim Ahmed’s hyenas and Tazeen Qayyom’s cockroaches, now Ahsan Jamal captures goats to construct his creative outputs. His choice is not accidental, since the schedule of his solo show — from December 9 to 29, 2009 at Rohtas 2, Lahore — coincided with Eid ul Azha.

The exhibition affirms the painter’s immaculate level of skill. He has drawn goats in various sizes and sections, paying attention to the details of their fleece, eyes, muzzle and hooves, in extremely realistic manner. In a photo-realistic scheme, each and every hair on the goat is rendered with a fine brush. They are composed in groups of two or shown singularly either in a round frame or against a variety of backgrounds. Some of the backdrops consist of soot of candle flame, clouds or reminds of traditional Indian miniature paintings.

Despite the diversity in backgrounds, all the goats have a common element: each has a rosary or string of beads around the neck. The creature is presented as if it is posing to get itself photographed. The emphasis on the goat’s posture suggests the way Jamal manipulates his imagery to denote subtle yet complex ideas. They describe an inhuman situation. Cruel in more than one way. The animal is perceived, not as a living being, but a creature to be captured, slaughtered and then consumed.

In meat-lovers’ society, Jamal hints at the animal’s predicament by illustrating its expression of helplessness, surprise and fear — so much so that the animal is used as a substitute for a human. The work trespasses from beastly status to the realm of mankind. Goats standing or craning their neck into dark spots signifying fire seem to replicate human fear of being killed in a terrorist attack.

The painter conveys his goat theme with the help of certain formal and pictorial devices: for instance hair on the muzzle that resembles a beard and strings of beads carry religious connotations. The irony of this link becomes obvious because one associates a sense of sacredness with the creature that has been reared and then sold for the sole purpose of sacrifice — like people trained to sacrifice their lives in the way of God.

Also, Jamal’s converts his ‘holy’ goats into characters from the classical miniature paintings. A couple of goats are shown lying in the setting borrowed from historical miniatures. He tries to introduce contemporary content by converting clouds from a typical miniature imagery into a body of smoke erupting from behind a peaceful scenery.

With these interventions into ordinary representation of animal and imagery of miniature painting, Ahsan Jamal has managed to construct his narrative in a convincing tone. The effect of his content is enhanced with the skill in rendering his visual material as well. However one feels that these paintings, executed in a series of imagery/meanings, remain as one work in different versions. The change of scale, shift in the backdrop, and replacement of different goats indicate a particular frame of mind (often shared by a number of other artists). The trend to approach an exhibition as a project and to prepare a body of works that is basically one imagery/subject repeated in small variations is seen in many exhibitions, particularly of miniature paintings, no matter if the maker is an internationally established artist or a novice in the field of art. Tendency to select one kind of visual/subject and revising it several times is not actually akin to working on a series, because in a series, each art work reflects some sort of development in the idea, technique and craft, rather than a cleverly repetition of the formal elements.

In this sense, the body of work being shown at Rohtas 2 by Ahsan Jamal is probably one work in its various versions. One hopes that he and some of his contemporary miniaturists may move out of this mould of repeating one set of imagery and produce something that is new in its appearance, essence and significance.

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Last Morning.

M.A Sheikh had shifted to London after serving at the Classical Music Research Cell (CMRC) for more than 20 years, but the change of venue did not change his interests as he got busy in writing about music and musicians. The manuscript is in the process of being published. Unfortunately by the time it is finally out he will not be there to share the pleasure with readers and lovers of music.

On the whole he lived a full life, indulging in his first love, music, which took precedence over all else. CMRC was conceived by none other than Faiz Ahmed Faiz and set up in 1976 with the idea of focusing on the immense contribution of the Muslim musicians to the evolution of music — particularly the more serious classical forms in the subcontinent. This resource centre was to serve as a nucleus for research and scholarship.

M.A Sheikh who was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Cell, fortunately stuck it out with the organisation despite conditions being far from ideal because of his commitment to the cause of music. Brought up in the culture of the walled city, as it thrived during the first half of the 20th century, M. A Sheikh was too keen to revive the glory of a tradition that he was once a witness to. Working on a puny stipend for more than 20 years, he earned his job satisfaction by not letting the collection from being squandered. On the contrary he built painstakingly whatever he could within those meagre resources.

At the best of times the resources were meager, none other than the piddling salary bill of the staff. As the plans of the Cells were ambitious but not backed by material resources performances, publication, recordings, concerts, research, seminars, lectures and discussions rarely saw the light of the day. The publications have been few though many manuscripts had been readied, and the performances even fewer though memorable. The basement where the Cell is housed gave the appearance of a picture gallery with the photographs of the ustads from the times when the camera was invented. The sketches of musical giants of the pre-camera age had been commissioned too. There are vocalists and instrumentalists, kheyaliaas, dhurpadiaas, thumri exponents — so much so that the outstanding film singers and composers too did find a prominent place in the galaxy of immortals.

The other important treasure — the collection of written material comprising about a thousand books in English, Persian, Arabic, Hindi and Sanskrit — done under the watchful eye of M.A Sheikh, needs to be translated and published to clear a great many shadows lurking in the historical development of our music. If all these books are made available it will immensely help further research, scholarship and will be a source of educating the average listener as the translation and publication of ‘Musalam Aur Bar e Sagheer Ki Mausiqi’ by Achariya Bharaspatis, a noted musicologist did.

Despite resource constraint in the 1980s and 1990s, programmes were regularly held on a specific raag, where in the first part of the programme recordings of the famous ustads were played and in the second a famous ustad sang or played the same raag. It was extremely educative in terms of stylistic variations — the comparison brought into a dramatic focus the creative abilities of various musicians in performing the same raag. Several lectures were also held on the artistic and technical problems of our music.

The Cell has conducted research on the who’s who of music in Pakistan, eminent Muslim musicians, The famous musicians of Kasur, and the famous gharanas. It has also compiled a catalogue of 700 books including rare manuscripts, out of print books, magazines and journals.

The other research material lined up for publication include ‘Hikayat e Mausiqaraan’ by Vilayat Hussain Khan of the Agra Gharana, ‘Raag Sagar’ on 200 raags according to their classifications, ‘The Punjab Gharana of Pakhawaj and Tabla, Rabaabi Khandan of the Punjab, ‘Collection of Rare Compositions’, ‘Famous Female Singers and Their Teachers’, and ‘The Musical Contribution of Sultan Hussain Sharqi’.

But most of all it has 500 hours of recorded music, qualifying to be the largest collection of classical music in the country. The recordings are from the very times when the technology was introduced in the 78 RPMs. It improved to 45, then 33 to Long Play, tape and the analogue and digital cassette. Its recordings of dhurpad, kheyal, thumri dadra, kafi, ghazal, chaiti, kajri, tappa and many other folk forms by great exponents is actually the real asset of the Cell.

The best homage to M.A Sheikh could be to reactivate the Cell, fund it sufficiently for it to again become the nucleus of musical activity in the country.