ART ACROSS BORDERS

Naazish Ata Ullah reminisces on her Hyderabad connection and feels artists of India and Pakistan address similar issues.

HYDERABAD: Naazish Ata Ullah, now based in Pakistan, has a strong bond with Hyderabad. Her grandparents and mother hail from here. She has visited the city on several occasions but this is her first professional visit. This Sunday, she will be doing a presentation titled Guns and Roses on contemporary art in Pakistan at Patodia auditorium
, L.V. Prasad Eye Institute, as part of Krishnakriti festival of arts and culture.



The artist and art educator who is now associated with the Beaconhouse National University, Lahore, after retiring from her position as principal, National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore, gets emotional when she talks about Hyderabad. “My grandfather Ahsan Yar Jung was an engineer and designed many roads in the State and developed Banjara Hills. It’s tough to not get emotional when I drive through this area and see the place where my father’s house, Ahsar Manzil, and my uncle’s house, Vikhar Manzil, stood,” she says.

Naazish calls it a tragedy of history that took her family away from Hyderabad. “My mother was supposed to be married to my father, who was in Karachi, in 1949. The family was there for the wedding and the change of political situation at that point declared them evacuees. My mother had to stay on in Pakistan,” she says.

Years later, in 1991, Naazish had a sort of homecoming when she showcased her work along with two other women artists in New Delhi. Naazish specialises in painting and print making and taught studio art at NCA, Lahore. The NCA was earlier called the Mayo School of Arts and established by Lockwood Kipling, father of Rudyard Kipling. “Lockwood Kipling also established the JJ School of Arts and Government College of Arts, Madras. The Mayo School has had a long history of association with arts,” says Naazish. She served as the principal of NCA and retired in 2010.

Exchange of ideas between artists in India and Pakistan, she says, has been taking place and galleries in Mumbai and Delhi have showcased works from Pakistan. She feels artists of both the countries address similar concerns through art. “The political situation in Pakistan is different from that of India, which prompts artists to focus more on issues pertaining to women, ethnicity and human rights or the lack of it. Women artists have been extremely proactive,” she says, talking about the early 80s, when Women’s Action Forum came into being in Lahore and Karachi among other cities. “A manifesto was drawn and women artists pledged to fight for their rights. By and large, women artists have been doing meaningful work, not essentially in a propagandist way.”

Naazish is also an elected member of Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission and its president for Punjab province. Over the years, her academic and social commitments haven’t allowed her much time to pursue art. “In my position, one needs to be pushed to engage with art. Once, my former students insisted I do three box prints for an exhibition and I got around to doing it.”

She hopes this visit to Hyderabad opens up possibilities of more interaction with artists from Pakistan. And if things go as planned, she might exhibit her work here in future. “That would be a true homecoming,” she beams.

SANGEETHA DEVI DUNDOO

Courtesy:Indian Express