STRANGE are the ways of rising to prominence in the world of art and literature. Each writer and artist claims to have a wonderful tale to tell about his creative journey, which, as told by him, appears to be a saga worthy of being recorded in letters of gold.
I have just read such a tale, a long, tortuous journey of a soul aspiring to be an artist in the true sense. He started as a signboard painter and is now known as a genuine artist engaged in calligraphy. He is Bashir Mujid, who has brought out a volume consisting of his achievements in what he calls, Musavvirana Khattati. The volume has been published under the title, Boltay Rang, Sochti Lakirein.
Mujid is not content to just present what he has produced. Here is also a tale told by him about his fifty years of struggle in life and in the field of art. It is indeed a tale of woe. The artist finds himself in a cruel world where everybody he comes in contact with is bent upon doing injustice to him. Even those who are kind to him in the beginning become unkind sooner or later. So his fifty years are, according to him, fifty years of injustice to him. He imagines himself living in a hostile world where his friends, his patrons, his mentors — all have selfish motives and have no qualms in harming him. It is indeed a strange situation. Though he has portrayed himself as an innocent soul doing no harm to anyone, but I have an inkling that there is something wrong with him too. Perhaps the hard life he has led has made him hyper-sensitive. He discovers grains of injustice even in the behaviour of his patrons.
However, he has made one big exception. He eventually succeeds in finding a perfectly kind soul in the person of the late Hakim Mohammad Nabi Khan. Well and good. This should give him a feeling that the world is not without good people.
Most of these fifty years were consumed in doing commercial work, in the painting of signboards and in designing posters and book covers. As pointed out by Dr Waheed Qureshi in his comments, it is now, that the artist in him has got the opportunity to find expression in his work.
Dr Waheed Qureshi is not the only man giving an opinion on his work. We see here artists and writers, well-known and not so well-known, in a long row paying compliments to him for what he has achieved. The long includes names like Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi, Soofi Khursheed Alam, Khursheed Raqam, Haneef Ramay and Ehsan Danish, whose comments in appreciation of his work and his personality add to the value of the volume. Hard work and enormous patience are, according to Dr Waheed Qureshi, the two qualities which have gone to make Mujid what he is today. In fact, these two qualities have helped him to rise from the position of a commercial artist to the status of a genuine calligraphist, whose work is considered worthy enough to be exhibited alongside artists like Sadequain.
Now let me refer to a writer who has claimed more than fifty years of writing to his credit. But to win this position he had to go back to his early years when he was still a child and was reading in the sixth class. He is Dr Saleem Akthar known to us as a critic. He is a prolific writer and has to his credit a long list of publications, which also includes a few collections of short stories. The latest we have from him is a travelogue on America titled, Ik Jahan sab se Alag.
Salim Akhtar made his appearance in the early sixties, winning recognition as a critic. He has written profusely during these decades. I wonder why he should need to stretch this writing period to his school days so as to include what he had written in those years? A serious writer is expected to forget all the rubbish he wrote during his student days. But I was amused to see Salim Akthar asserting that his writing career began with the story he had written while a student of sixth class. And on that basis, he has claimed to have crossed fifty in his career. This, I am quoting from an autobiographical writing of his published in the recent issue of Kitab, Islamabad.
I wonder what lies in the enigmatic number of fifty that artists and writers take pride in reaching it. Or are they thinking in terms of cricket? In cricket a half century is an achievement worth applause.
But in literature it is not the length of the innings or the number of runs that count. It is something else. What counts here is the worth of what the writer has produced. The number of years as well as of the extent of his work are immaterial.
STRANGE are the ways of rising to prominence in the world of art and literature. Each writer and artist claims to have a wonderful tale to tell about his creative journey, which, as told by him, appears to be a saga worthy of being recorded in letters of gold.
