Germinating seeds
EVERY country is a continuum — even one as comparatively young as Pakistan. In 1947, Pandit Nehru cannily chose India, leaving the Quaid to grapple with an acronym. Seventy-seven years have passed. Our country’s seeds, buried beneath the tundra of history, are breaking through the surface.
One seed has germinated in a new museum The Haveli in Karachi, privately funded by Dr Nasreen and Mr Hasan Askari. On display is their collection of ethnic textiles, particularly from rural communities in Sindh and Balochistan. Such textiles, Nehru said in 1949 when inaugurating the Calico Museum of Textiles in Ahmedabad, form the leitmotif of every nation. Founded by the Sarabhai family in their old family home The Retreat, textiles of different kinds — woven, embroidered, or manufactured — cover every wall. A huge Mughal tent serves as a ceiling over the family’s disused swimming pool.
The Hasans’ Haveli is comparatively modest but no less significant. Objects that once adorned rustic women, short-frocked children, rural bridegrooms, even colourful trappings hung on camels have been displayed with ineffable taste. Dr Nasreen Askari has made a career curating such exhibitions here and abroad. In the Haveli, her extensive collection of textiles has found a home, in their home.
Such philanthropy is rare in Pakistan. Abroad, it is taken for granted. Museums in Britain, America, and Europe survive on donations and bequests. Examples of private endowments are the Wallace Collection in London, the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
One seed has germinated in a new museum.
The Hasan Haveli therefore is more than an inspiration. Hopefully, it will be an incentive for others who possess examples of our rich heritage to convert that wealth into philanthropy, to share private possessions with the public.
The cupboards of our elite, for example, are stuffed with wedding dresses which in their overpriced opulence would have shamed the Romanovs. These objects need to be displayed, not as reminders of one night’s extravagance, but as a tribute to the crafts-persons whose diligence, design and dedication created these miniature masterpieces. Their talent deserves more permanent recognition.
The seeds of our future germinate in our educational institutions. Once, Lahore held a monopoly on art and museology. Now, other cities are challenging that supremacy. Noticeable among them, Karachi, where the Mohatta Palace Museum, the new Haveli Museum of textiles, and the Indus Valley School of Art & Architecture (IVS) command attention.
The IVS was established 34 years ago by a group whose vision and ambition exceeded their resources. Luck came to their rescue. They were offered the old stone Nusserwanjee building in Kharadar for free, provided they could dismantle and remove it.
The challenge proved irresistible. An IVS team emulated the precedent of the relocation of the Ancient Egyptian temple of Abu Simbel in the 1960s, when block by block the temple was raised and re-erected 200 metres above its original site.
The Nusserwanjee building was similarly disassembled, its 26,000 stones carefully removed and then transported across Karachi to the IVS site in Clifton for reassembly. History had been repurposed to inspire future generations of artists, architects and designers.
The IVS’s first batch of graduates in 1994 numbered 18; this year, 184. (Interestingly, 80 per cent of them were women.) Their theses reflected individual endeavour as each strove to give form to their distinctive ideas.
One presentation raised its head above the crowd. Titled ‘A Country without a Post Office’, it dared to cover ‘Missing Persons’. Bravely, it sought to be “a spatial protest using Baloch poetry to understand the province’s cultural predicament”. A collage contained young, once hopeful faces and also poignant messages of despair. At its end, two arresting images: ‘Undelivered Letters’ and ‘Left Luggage’.
‘Undelivered Letters’ showed a floor strewn with envelopes addressed to missing persons but lying unopened, waiting for their return. Left Luggage — titled Bemanzil safr (a journey without destination) — consisted of the image of an airport conveyor belt, loaded with suitcases and boxes, waiting to be claimed by their owners, if and when they are released. Their absence is marked by stark black silhouettes.
This graduate, forced to mature prematurely, decided to use poetry and design to make a statement of conscience in support of her compatriots. The American poet Maya Angelou used poetry similarly to express her ethical indignation: “But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams/ his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream/ his wings are clipped and his feet are tied/ so he opens his throat to sing.” Angelou and that single graduate give voice to every silent Missing Person.
The writer is an author.
Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2024