Song Of Lahore: Pakistan’s Musicians Affirm Their Place In A Country That Threatens To Forget Them

By Akbar Shahid Ahmed

Asad Ali, the guitarist in the Sachal Jazz Ensemble, is one of the musicians featured in “Song of Lahore.” | Mobeen Ansari

The value of one’s soul is hard to measure, but Baqir Abbas, a musician in the Pakistani city of Lahore, has it worked out for himself. Abbas’ soul is slightly less precious to him than the delicately designed bamboo flutes he carves. “All the stories of the world will play from it, God willing,” he says, before kissing his latest instrument and touching it twice to its forehead.

Abbas explains his philosophy in “Song of Lahore,” a new documentary about an intergenerational community of musicians skilled in their own mix of traditional Pakistani music and the Western orchestral scores demanded by Lahore’s once-booming film industry. He and his fellow musicians “find God in music,” Abbas says.

Their critics do not, and the very act of practicing their craft now makes them targets in a more conservative Pakistan. Followers of the increasingly influential, hardline Deobandi school of thought in Sunni Islam consider music to be sinful and musicians to be apostates who have no place in an avowedly Muslim nation.

“Song of Lahore” is powerful because it shows these musicians do have a place in Pakistan.

Last week, the 82-minute documentary won multiple standing ovations and a joint second place in the Documentary Audience Award category at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival. But the feature’s greatest triumph is that it proves the Deobandis wrong: These musicians are quintessentially Pakistani and essential to the nation’s cultural identity, Islam and all.

Worshippers gather at Lahore’s historic Badshahi Mosque on April 25, 2015.

Progressive Pakistanis who value their country’s musical heritage have been making that case for decades.

لاہور: ایک مقناطیس – زاہدہ حنا

لاہور مجھے مقناطیس کی طرح کھینچتا ہے۔ اس کی قدیم تاریخ، اس کی گلیوں میں اڑتی ہوئی غزنوی، غوری اور تغلق لشکروں کی دھول، ان کی تلواروں سے قتل ہونے والوں کی کراہیں اور ان کے چنگل میں پھڑپھڑاتی ہوئی عورتوں کی آہیں۔ تمام مناظر آنکھوں میں زندہ ہوجاتے ہیں۔ مغل بھی فاتحوں کے انداز سے آئے تھے اور پھر لاہور کے ایسے اسیر ہوئے کہ اس کے در و بام پر اپنے نقش چھوڑ گئے جو آج بھی سانس لیتے ہیں۔
یہاں نورجہاں ایک معتوب اور معزول ملکہ ہونے کے باوجود اپنے محبوب جہانگیر کا شایانِ شان مقبرہ تعمیر کراتی ہے اور خود ایک ایسی قبر میں سوجاتی ہے جس پر خود اس کے کہنے کے مطابق یہ مصرعہ صادق آتا ہے کہ برمزار ما غریباں نے چراغے، نے گُلے، نے پر پروانہ سوزد، نے صدائے بلبلے۔ نادر شاہ درانی اور احمد شاہ ابدالی نے اس لاہور کو کس طرح نہیں روندا جس کی آبادی میں مسلمان بہت زیادہ تھے۔
مہاراجہ رنجیت سنگھ نے اسی لاہور میں اپنا دربار سجایا اور اسے لاہور کی تاریخ کا ایک یادگار باب بنادیا۔ اور پھر آج کا لاہور جہاں پھولوں نے سرخ، عنابی ،اودے اور نیلے پیرہن پہن رکھے ہیں، جہاں فوارے اچھلتے ہیں اور برابر سے گزرنے والوں کو اپنی پھوار میں بھگودیتے ہیں۔
یہاں کے تعلیمی اور تہذیبی ادارے صدیوں کی تاریخ رکھتے ہیں اور اسی لیے لاہور مجھے مقناطیس کی طرح کھینچتا ہے۔ وہاں سے کوئی دعوت آئے تو دل شاد ہوتا ہے اور دعوت بھی اگر ہماری طرح دار شاعرہ یاسمین حمید کی طرف سے ہو جن کی دل گداز شاعری اپنا ایک خاص اسلوب رکھتی ہے اور جنہوں نے کئی برس سے لمز کے گرمانی سینٹر برائے زبان و ادب کا انتظام و انصرام سنبھالا ہے اور اپنی ذمے داریاں بہ حسن وخوبی نباہ رہی ہیں۔

مضمون کا بقیہ حصہ پڑھیے

Lahore has shaped and moulded me says Iram Zia

Malik Omaid

“I have been in the field of design education for almost 23 years now. I was born, brought up, educated, and married in Lahore. I live here and eventually whenever that is, hope to die here too. I feel Lahore has shaped and moulded me into what I am today. Data Darbar, Mian Mir Sahab’s Mazaar, Bibi Pak Daman, Mela Chiraghaan, Masjid Wazir Khan’s tiled decoration, Maryam Zamani mosque’s frescoes, Taaveez Dhaagay on different mausoleums around Lahore, hence my thread and Taweez collection of various motif and design all speak profoundly of the cultural and the socio-political concerns that are owned and celebrated in my works. Shahi Qila’s Haathi darwaza, the old city with all its enclosed gardens and alleys, colonial buildings on the mall, Shalamar Bagh’s picture wall, Alhamra by Nayyar Ali Dada, Lahore Museum, National College of Arts, popular Punjabi food, the cinema hoardings that I experienced when going to school on a Tonga, the trucks and the colorful imagery ….these are all part of my being. This imagery constantly informs my work. The basant that we have lost, how we no longer can accept and appreciate diversity is an ongoing tragedy for me, I am constantly incorporating these in my works through metal, stones and cloth.”

See complete article here.

Shazia Sikandar Late 90’s

Iqbal Hussain: The agony and the ecstasy

Iqbal Hussain’s new work reveals a darkly poignant preoccupation with death, an artistic crisis born of the violence in our midst. But this work may yet survive the changing cultural topography of Pakistan, says Raza Rumi

Being stuck in an awful traffic jam on Lahore’s Mall Road is an everlasting nightmare. This was the road which once housed the tempestuous and famously poly-amorous painter Amrita Shergil, as well as the grand old man of Indian writing in English, the legendary Khushwant Sigh, among other lost symbols of our bygone past. But mine was not a fruitless journey: I was heading to the Zahoor ul Akhlaq Gallery at the National College of Arts (NCA), where Iqbal Hussain’s new work was being displayed. I would not hav e gone to see this exhibition had I not heard about the significance of the show from the proficient curator of the gallery Qudsia Raheem. I liked to meet Iqbal Hussain in the throes of the walled city where he has reinvented a space for himself among his own people — entertainers, artists, traders, sex workers and a multitude of local and global visitors. Iqbal Hussain has been successful through his personal endeavors to put Lahore’s old city and its infamous red light district on the world map. He has achieved this primarily through his stupendous paintings and sublime rooftop views of Mughal monuments from the Cooco’s Den Café he owns and manages.

Iqbal Hussain’s work over the decades has brought to life the shades and aspects of sex workers from Heera Mandi around whom Hussain grew up. Most importantly, he is proud of his heritage and origins and, unlike the hypocritical and self-denying society in which he lives, he has publicly claimed ownership of this background. His work has obsessively captured the many narratives about the women who are central to Heera Mandi. In doing this, Hussain has humanized the portraits of the “dancing girl”, the aging prostitute and the honorable livelihood earner. Contrary to the religious decrees on such women, or the excessive romanticization of dancing girls in our culture, Hussain’s subjects are nothing but human. They are real and vulnerable while blessed with the ability to sing, dance and celebrate life and sex. In our socially conservative culture, made even more so since the advent of Victorian values in what was then British India, such characters have been the recipients of much derision. Hussain, through his momentous collection of paintings, has countered every stereotype and cliché that comes to mind about such women.

‘Saddened Mona Lisa’ and other paintings – experimental art from Lahore

(left) SELF=PORTRAIT  WON  [l972-2000]:  ‘SADDENED  MONA LISA SWEATING  ( PASEENA-PASEENA) IN THE SHALIMAR GARDENS ON HER RECENT LAHORE YATRA – – (she is not  a young debutante, anymore) – – , AND NOTHING TO BE HAPPY ABOUT GEOFFREY’S  MOTHERLAND being drained per  LAW OFF RULERS AND THEIR CUTLERY: OIL AND MIXED MEDIA,  3-D+ RELIEF; (SCULPTURAL ARTWORK MADE WITH FIBREGLASS ON PLEXIGLASS).  SIZE 25 inches X 20 ½ inches.

Art of, and for, Syyed Iqbal Geoffrey – – he being a genuine mussawere (artist) and a prominent vakil ( facilitator of justice-with-love) acclaimed by Sir Herbert Read as an “Astonishing Phenomenon” and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has graciously described him as “The Arts Counsel of Great Britain   – –  is not a born-again outlet or some glittering outage chamaking (shinning on a Cash ‘N  Carry basis)  in Neverneverland. (References : Zoha Noor-Fatima A. Haider (London)* & Suellen W. Liker (Phoenix)**

(above: SELF=PORTRAIT TOO [1962-2012] : “HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN WITNESSING THE FIRST DROP OF DEW FALLING ON INDIGENOUS MAN’GO!!” oil and mixed media on cardboard-canvas; size 47 inches x 27 inches .. current token price PRs 78600.92P. (may not be acquired at this important stage of its creation by any foreigner). Subject to increases with notice.)

Lahore: the motif of art and culture

Hazoori Bagh: A place where people would gather to listen to the best of literature.

By Sher Ali Khan

During the time of the British rule in India, Lahore was known as the “Paris of India”. The reasons are quite clear. To begin with, romance in the east can be defined as the individualistic struggle of the heart. Romantics provide inspiration to a society in their daily lives. The romance of ones city is judged by the general ambience created within the realm of that society. A romantic culture is sustained through literature and arts. Writers, poets, and artists would frequent teahouses where they would orate and document the experiences of the city.

To start out, the Mughals instilled a romantic quality into Lahore by developing monuments such as the elegant Badshahi Masjid and the Lahore Fort and then the British gave to the city one of the most beautiful green spaces known as Lawrence Gardens. Furthermore, the Mughals created a proud and close people culture that would inspire literature and art for many years.

One of the stories from the Mughal era is regarding the wealthy emperor Shah Jahan who constructed a palace in the imposing confines of the Lahore Fort to honour his wife Mumtaz Mahal. As the mother of his sixteen children, Mumtaz Mahal was the love of his life. The general assumption is that she passed without ever seeing the Shish Mahal.

What’s Not in This Portrait

By MELIK KAYLAN

The overriding question you will likely take into the Asia Society’s show of Pakistani artists is, “What do they think of what’s happening to their country?” How do artists address the Islamist violence in their midst—and if they don’t address it, why not? How freely can they treat such issues without fear of reprisal? What kind of art flourishes in such surroundings?

Merchant collection nets £653,000, necklace at £55,200

Oct. 8: Indian-born producer-director Ismail Merchant’s personal art collection sold for £653,000 at an auction by Christie’s in London.

The highest price was paid for the painting by Hungarian artist August Theodor Schoefft, entitled The Thugs of India halt at the shrine of Ganesh, which was sold for £91,250 to a private British collector. The unusually large painting was estimated to sell for £70,000-100,000.

First Gurmukhi course concludes

By Ali Usman

LAHORE: The graduates of the first Gurmukhi Certificate Course were awarded certificates on Wednesday after the completion of the course at the Punjab Institute of Language, Art and Culture (PILAAC).

The Gurmukhi Learning Certificate Course – the first course of its kind in Pakistan to teach the Gurmukhi script of Punjabi commenced at the institute last month. Some 35 students were registered for the course, of which 21 qualified the final examination. Gurmukhi is the universal script used for writing Punjabi, and is quite close to the Hindi script. In Pakistan, the Shahmukhi script (also called the Persian script by some) is used for writing Punjabi.

Faiz Ghar activities

Schedule for Faiz Ghar activities.

April /May/June 2009.

Urdu Baithak/Sing along sessions

‘Story hour’ for children 5 years and above.

Time: Every Sunday from 5.00 to 6.00 pm

Storytellers: conducted alternatively by Mr. Shoaib Hashmi, Dr. Arfa Syeda, Mr. Naveed Riaz, Mrs. Salima Hashmi, Mrs. Moneeza Hashmi and others

This will be followed by a sing along session with Ms. Zara David on keyboard.

Fees: No registration or fees. Come one, come all.

Treading carefully in Lahore

M Ilyas Khan of BBC News writes on Lahore’s famous puppet shows are among arts programmes hit by militancy

They are laying the scene for the weekend party at an outhouse across the back lawns of a sprawling villa in the Gulberg locality of Lahore, Pakistan’s cultural capital.

But the hosts are increasingly nervous.

“These days you have to be very careful about who to invite and who to pass over, because the word goes around and there are people who don’t like such get-togethers,” says one of the hosts, requesting not to be named.

Lahore’s party scene has been unlike any other in Pakistan, bringing together aspiring artists, their potential promoters, business magnates, media dons, bureaucrats and politicians.

But the growing influence of armed religious groups now threatens the late night revelries of the city’s whisky-drinking professionals and topless dancers.

Remembering Zahoor ul Akhlaq (1941-1999) in Lahore

Raza Rumi

It is not easy to write about Zahoor ul Akhlaq (1941-1999), an artist whose life and work in so many ways encapsulates the troubled soul of Pakistan. Ten years ago, on a grey, brutal January day, the great artist Akhlaq and his gifted daughter, Jahanara, were shot dead. This was not a run-of-the-mill incident. The innate humanism of Akhlaq and his family was shattered to bits, much like the splintered state of Pakistan, where art and life are either marginalised, silenced or blown to pieces.On this January afternoon, Shahbaz Butt, an acquaintance of Pappu Sain, shot Jahanara and her fiancé, Al-Noor. Jahanara, 24 years old at the time, fell on the ground, to die. The noise, alarming Akhlaq and his fellow artist Anwar Saeed, sent them rushing in to see what had happened. Anwar Saeed was injured by Shahbaz, who shot Akhlaq. He died on the spot..Shahbaz now languishes in jail, while Pakistan is deprived of two inimitable souls. It is unclear what prompted Shahbaz to wreak this senseless violence: drugs, inability to cope with life or an extreme sense of inadequacy that could only be corrected through violence.

read more here

Exhibition – A tribute to old Lahore

Pakistan to lend Gandhara exhibit to Germany

Fifty art pieces donated by Lahore Museum
Exhibition intended to promote Pakistan as an art-loving country

By Ali Usman

LAHORE : An exhibition of sculptures and artwork from the Gandhara Civilization, made up of exhibits from Pakistan museums, will be held in Germany in November to promote the country’s rich civilization and encourage tourists to visit it.

Fifty art pieces have been donated by the Lahore Museum, which boasts one of the richest art collections of the Gandhara Civilization. The exhibits are scheduled for display in the cities of Berlin, Bonn and Zurich. Earlier, the exhibition was scheduled was only Berlin and Bonn, but German authorities have requested the Pakistan government that they be displayed in Zurich also. The exhibition also includes art pieces from the Taxila Museum, the National Museum of Pakistan, Karachi and others. Information, Culture and Youth Affairs Secretary Orya Jan Maqbool, Lahore Museum Director Ashgar Nadeedm Syed, and Lahore Museum Gandhara Section head will travel to Germany with the exhibit for its inauguration. The inaugural ceremony is expected for November 22 and the exhibit will span a period of two months.

World Performing Arts Festival: attracting large crowds

By Ali Usman

LAHORE: The World Performing Arts Festival received its largest crowd of the year on Sunday, as many families availed the holiday to visit the fair and observe the performances on offer.

However, most families seemed to differ on which performances they should attend and several people were seen choosing different exhibitions and plays to watch on their own, while their family members attended different performances.

Iqbal Ahmed, one such viewer at the festival, said that he and his family had arrived at the festival together but upon reaching it had differed on what they should watch. He said that they had decided to go their separate ways and watch the shows that interested them individually instead of watching the same things. Ahmed, who was watching the classical dance performance, said that his wife and daughter had decided to attend the puppetry show, while his son had preferred to watch drama.

Bashir Mirza’s paintings on display

* Work receives great appreciation n Visitor says young artists could use such exhibitions to improve artistic skills

Daily Times Report

LAHORE: The last of the bohemian paintings by the late Bashir Mirza were put on display at the Ejaz Art Gallery to highlight the noted artist’s work and life on Saturday. The paintings were not the original ones, instead, they were the digital prints of the original paintings.

Financial troubles plague the arts: Croweaters closes its doors

* By Afnan Khan

LAHORE: Croweaters, the art gallery situated in a 150-year-old building in Anarkali, may soon be closing its doors as the owners have decided, in principle, to shut it down due to a perceived lack of appreciation of the liberal arts.

The gallery’s fate appears to have been directly tied to that of its owner, MP Bhandara, who died in a road accident in June 2008, during his visit to China. Bhandara and his family have owned the site for more than 150 years and his ancestors used to both live in the current art gallery and run several businesses, including a restaurant, a café, a liquor shop and finally an art gallery.

The gallery was officially launched under the name of Croweaters in 1999 — a name Bhandara chose to depict his affection for his sister, Bapsi Sidhwa, who has earned world renown for her books, including The Crow Eaters, The Bride and An American Brat. From the time it started until now, the gallery has hosted dozens of art exhibitions, including works by Tasaduq Suhail, Changaiz Sultan, Mashkoor Raza and Naheed Raza. The gallery also contains a collection of 200 rare paintings created by famous painters such as Gulgee, Sadqain and Ahmad Khan. Speaking to Daily Times, one of the gallery workers said that the people working in the place were true art lovers and had developed an emotional relationship to the gallery due to both its artistic background and their affiliation with MP Bhandara.

minorities artwork finds esteem in Lahore

Rashmi Talwar writes on how the minorities artwork finds esteem in Lahore

Ancient artwork finds a semblance of esteem at Cooco’s Den in Lahore

Nothing surprises you more than finding a rich repository of Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Christian ancient artifacts in the heart of Lahore, Pakistan.

‘Lahore — My Love’

‘Lahore — My Love’

* Farida Batool’s hard-hitting socio-political commentary on display at Rohtas 2

Daily Times Staff Report

LAHORE: Farida Batool’s Lahore – My Love opened at Rohtas 2 on Wednesday.
The work marks a strong political and social note dealing with the current situation prevailing in the country. The artist has expressed herself through clear images and elaborate names. A painting, titled Qaum, Mulk, Sultanat (Nation, country, empire), has a satirical tone. The painting portrays a building on The Mall burnt during the February 2006 protests. The painting comments on how mobs destroy the country’s assets.

Another painting, Thandi Sarak, comments on the large number of protests the country had witnessed last year. Thandi Sarak (The Mall) was the favourite rendezvous of the protestors.