KARACHI: On Dec 24, the recently renovated building of the Karachi Press Club (KPC) was handed over to its governing body by the Endowment Fund Trust (EFT), which successfully carried out the all important conservation work. In a rather elaborate ceremony, many aspects of the repair job were discussed, including the restoration of some of the invaluable paintings made by iconic artists for the club.

While the architecture of the building harkens back to the times when the British held sway in the subcontinent (and it would be nice to know its date of construction), there’s something in it which is relatively modern but no less valuable. It is a mural painted by none other than the path-breaking Indian artist, the late M. F. Hussain, on one of the walls of Ibrahim Jalees Hall.

Hussain stepped into the club, barefoot, on Sept 10, 1992. It was a former editor of Dawn, Saleem Asmi, who had requested him to pay a visit to this historic stone-made club whose members had always been at the forefront of the struggle for democracy in the country. The artist did not just oblige, he also painted a portion of a big wall.

The artwork is done in blue and grey, a delectable combination. Ostensibly, it is marked by equine symbolism. The only aspect of it that makes even the person with no interest in art understand the drift of the painting is the phrase in Urdu ‘Hum parwarish-i-loh-o-qalam kerte rahein ge’, the inimitable line of a couplet penned by Faiz Ahmed Faiz. The line has the words qalam (pen) and loh (paper), a clear reference to journalistic pursuits.

‘Then there was the issue of filling up the cracks that had emerged in the wall’

So it was of the utmost importance that the mural was restored with precision, without soiling or compromising its grace and beauty. Thankfully, young artist Khalid Soomro of the Mohatta Palace Museum has done that beautifully.

Soomro says: “Apart from the Hussain piece, I’ve restored Mansur Aye’s portraits of Habib Jalib and Faiz, and two of Shakil Ismail’s pieces. As far as the mural goes, the main thing that I needed to keep in mind, as I was told by Hamid Akhund [of EFT], was to ‘carefully’ restore it to its original form. It was a risky thing. The first step that we took was to clean and dust it. Then there was the issue of filling up the cracks that had emerged in the wall. Once that was done, we needed to match the background colour.

“The thing that needs to be understood is that it’s a kind of a drawing, and Hussain has used broad strokes in it. While restoring an artwork, you can’t do that. We need to work in a miniature-like manner. Then over the years, the [colour] tones [of the painting] had also changed. We’ve worked really hard to get all of that right,” says Soomro.

Indeed, what we get is an art exhibit that looks glorious and awe-inspiring as if it’s freshly made. It’s now up to those who run the club to take good care of the painting(s) created especially for the KPC. After all, art reflects life, and journalists have always had a profound interest in life.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2018