KARACHI: “When I was flying to Karachi from Lahore with all my flowers and other Sogetsu ikebana stuff such as the wood and metal containers, plastic and metal pipes, sticks and what not that was also making me pay more for carrying extra baggage, my luggage became a reason for further checks. The airport staff wanted to open it as they said it contained strange things that were showing up on the scanners. I said well okay, as long as they were willing to pack it all again.”

There was an amused smile on visiting Sogetsu teacher from Lahore Shaista Khawer’s face as she narrated the funny incident during the demonstration organised by the Indus Sogetsu Study Group at the Japanese Culture Centre on Tuesday.

The lady likes working with modern ikebana material as could be seen by her arrangements. She had promised to do some 10 arrangements during the demonstration but ended up doing several more that her audience simply fell in love with.

Expert from Lahore puts on a display of the art at the Japanese Culture Centre

“Ikebana is an art of flower arrangement that is so soothing. You can express your inner feelings as you go about arranging the flowers and leaves. It gives you peace,” she said.

There was a sweet fragrance lingering of freshly cut flowers along with soothing flute music playing in the main hall of the Japanese Culture Centre. And the pretty sunflowers, lilies, pompoms, hydrangeas, chrysanthemums, hydrilla flowers, heliconia flowers, etc, added to the ambiance.

She would pick up a container or a frame created by her from metal boxes, wires or other materials and proudly ask her audience to feel it and guess what it had been made from.

There were blue strips of carpet that she had picked up from some waste material lying at an exhibition, leftover cloth from a dress, wrapping paper to cover metal wires that she had twisted into frames, pipes, sticks, wooden blocks, even fruit in the shape of ripe peaches hanging from one huge arrangement and cable-ties; yes, Ms Khawer called cable-ties a blessing for flower arrangements.

“I like to experiment with unconventional material,” she said. There was a palm leaf that she had weaved to create a beautiful background. And what an effect they had mixing the unconventional with nature. The tubes and pipes had the capacity for carrying water that helped in keeping the flowers fresh.

Most of the flowers used by her in her arrangements happened to be bright yellow or orange in colour with a few reds and pinks thrown in here and there. “Yellow is such a vibrant colour,” she remarked later.

The Consul General of Japan Mr Toshikazu Isomura was the chief guest on the occasion. He was so excited about the arrangements that he arrived on the scene much before time.

Published in Dawn, June 30th, 2021