Ather Jamal is a quiet introspective person, who doesn’t believe in attracting the attention of art lovers or art critics. He feels that the work of an artist should do the talking. His forte is drawing. Jamal’s lines are perfect, whether he uses a pencil, crayon, charcoal or a paint brush.

Art lovers are particularly fascinated by his portraits of Thari women. “Your detractors accuse you of getting stuck in a groove. They say you only paint them. How would you defend yourself?”

He answers forcefully, “I don’t have to defend myself. Nobody asks Jameel Naqsh why has he continued to paint pigeons in all these decades? Likewise, for many many years M.F. Husain has painted horses …”

“But he has also painted Madhuri Dixit,” they argue. “Had Madhuri Dixit been in Pakistan, I would have painted her for years too,” he says and then adds on a serious note, “Look, I find the women from Thar highly ‘paint worthy’, if I may use the word. Their rugged features, their jewellery, the white bangles that they wear all over their arms and their colourful clothes embellished with attractive motifs, combine together to make them stand out in a crowd of people.”

He first saw them in a weekly bazaar on Karachi’s Kashmir Road. He then visited Tharparkar and saw them on their home ground. Their thatched huts with conical roofs also fascinated him. He last visited the desert when he went as a guide to a group of people carrying food items for the drought-stricken areas of Thar early this year. “Their lifestyle hasn’t changed in all these centuries,” he says.

When I was looking for someone to illustrate the articles for the weekend magazine of the evening paper Star in the late 1990s, Rabia Zuberi, the principal of the Karachi School of Art (KSA) where he was on the faculty, recommended him. Needless to mention, he did a fine job is to state the obvious.

In the earlier part of his career, Jamal also painted slums in Karachi. “There is unpredictable harmony in the slums. They are not monotonous like identical buildings,” claims the artist.

If you look at his still life, you will find them placed in their contexts. For instance, a chainak (a small teapot) will be placed with small cups in what would unmistakably be a Pathan tea joint. Likewise, when he paints matkas (water pitchers) he shows them cluttered on the ground where a potter sells his wares. Jamal’s remarkable control over his lines comes in handy when he occasionally does calligraphy.

The artist was born in Lahore in 1952, but he was merely a toddler when the family moved to Karachi, which was then the capital of the country and offered greener pastures to people living elsewhere in Pakistan.

He gave a big surprise to his father when he told him that he wanted to study art. “If you graduate in science like your elder brothers did then you will be in a better position to take a decision. Remember, whatever you decide then I shall support you to the hilt.” Young Jamal did what he was told and his father honoured his commitment.

While he was still in college he showed his drawings to some well-known artists, who invariably advised him to hone his talent by joining an art school, which is why he took admission in the KSA.

After graduation he joined the institution as a teacher. A few years later he shifted to the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, where he taught drawing until last year when he retired. He currently takes classes in his own Sketch Art Institute and his art gallery is on the same premises.

He is helped by his wife of 27 years. He met Amber in his days as a student. She is an artist in her own right and specialises in painting flowers of different shapes and hues.

They live by the sea but have no time to count the waves.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, July 27th, 2014