On each Thursday, prior to sunset, the innocent kids, with gloomy eyes sit together in a circular form and kindle clay diyaas at the threshold of the ancient shrine of the female saint, Mai Jee they hope that they will not be ejected from their ancestral abode called Saidpur, a village understood to be the treasure house of the centuries old, cultural heritage of the capital.
In the wake of free market economy, the local authorities visualise the spot, situated in the depression of Margalla hills, as the most attractive to get the maximum number of tourists, resulting in big revenue collections. So the fate of about 7000 local inhabitants, who have been maintaining the continuity of indigenous cultural traditions, has been hanging in doldrums.
It is known that one Sultan Said Khan was the first inhabitant of the village in the first quarter to the 16th century. Since then, the posterity work hard and excelled in pottery, tapestry, ceramics and other handicrafts. For a long time, a clay-train, the symbol of indigenous genius, remained the most attractive showpiece of the village.
'Now every thing is vanishing,' lamented a local villager "they are just dislodging us from our ancestral roots with the verbal promises of alternate abode, it is just unfair." It is learnt that the CDA has undertaken a project worth Rs 390 million to convert the spot as the modern tourist village of Saidpur.
It is said that a few high ups of the department have already made a leisure visit to France and other countries for enlightening themselves with the skills of converting a village into an attractive tourist spot. A French expert had already visited Saidpur to ascertain the ground reality, so that he could safeguard the old heritage and build a new infrastructure. It may be recalled that the primary school of the village has already been converted into a museum, with the promise that an alternative structure would be built for the school, at the cost of Rs 30 million, at the entrance of the village.
One should be happy about it. "No sir jee. Once the village is inaugurated as a tourist spot, the school would definitely be converted into a tikka kabab shop or a café" the deserted local replied, while gazing at the small kids around him. I could easily observe the agony reflected in gloomy eyes of the kids, still engaged in the clay diyaas they had just kindled, with the hope that was fast vanishing into the deep darkness of the night.
"I" AND THE "OTHER" THROUGH MINIATURE PAINTINGS:
Farheen Maqsood, a young artist of revolutionary intellectual resolution and a graduate from the National College of Art, Lahore in 2003, has come up with a unique exhibition of her miniature works at Khas gallery here. The exhibition, inaugurated on May 30 continue during current month, offers a great leap forward in content, technique and style in the traditional genre of miniature painting.
As the title of the exhibition suggests, the artist has explored new dimensions between herself and the outer world. She has deeply studied the reality of self existence and the co-relationship of a person with his/her outer world. Farheen explains her perception about herself and the environment she lives in. "We lives with two entities ie "I" and the "other". Both the entities nurture separately as well as collectively.
It is of utmost importance that an artist must maintain his/her individualistic, as well as the collective "other". Farheen acknowledges the contribution of the "other" entity in the development of one's "I", but still maintains one should not be lost in the crowd. That is why an artist should have to endeavour hard to contribute in the development of the society.
Farheen, while in her days at National College of Art, developed her special taste for the genre of miniature. She, however, did not pursue blindly, its traditional and technical norms. That is why the overall texture of her paintings reflects traditional miniature beauty, but with a difference and offers a substance of abstraction as well. The artist used ivory card, instead of the traditional vasli. One more distinctive aspect of her work is that contrary to the traditional realistic pattern of content, she adopted symbolism to express her imagery.
For example in her paintings, "heart" stands for the artist's inner self, while the "grid" symbolises the way one moves into outer life and the 'dart board', to the wishes of life. Farheen attaches special emphasis to color and their effect to her theme. In her miniatures, red reflects life, blue for death and grey stands for uncertainty. The success of the exhibition of Farheen Maqsood's unique miniature exhibition rests on reality, that it offers a visual sublimation, a thought provoking invitation to the viewer to travel into his own inner self and redefine his relationship with the outer world.
WE AND THE WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY:
The World Environment Day was celebrated on June 5 all over the globe including Pakistan. To us it seems a routine matter to observe such an occasion with casual behaviour. Governmental and semi-governmental departments express certain rhetoric on the day on the subject and go back the deep sleep of oblivion, till the next year.
What a pathetic and contradictory state of affairs, that we were simultaneously sharing the world is environmental concerns while also engaged in the unbridled uprooting of thousands of trees, on one pretext or the other, in the capital.
The most vulnerable are the allergy oriented paper mulberry trees. The CDA has announced the cutting down of 80,000 such trees in future. It may be recalled that, according to the official data, the department had already uprooted 92,000 such trees since 1992. Have they undertaken an alternative plantation on an equal footing to maintain the ecological balance in the capital? That is a big question mark.
The capital has constantly been loosing its tree heritage. One cannot find a substantial quantity of traditional trees like the peepal, chinar, kiker, banyan, amaltas and tahli. On the other hand, one can find annual rhetoric about afforestation, at each spring season. In 2004, the Ministry of Environment assigned a target of over 58 million saplings all over the country. The twin cities were given the target of 7 lac saplings.
During the following years, the target constantly increased in number. What is the result. Can we see millions upon millions new trees around us? Again we find a big question mark confronting us.
Could the environment pundits, sitting in the white palaces of the federal secretariat in the capital, rethink their present outlook towards their duties for which they have been paid lucratively. The poor people, who pay them, deserve a decent environment with their traditional heritage of beautiful trees.
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