Pakistan’s truck art inspires catwalk fashion range

The bright expressive colours used by long-distance truck drivers across Pakistan have inspired a new fashion range.

Courtesy: BBC

Past present: Why Sufism? By Mubarak Ali

To counter the emergence of fundamentalism in Pakistan, the ruling classes as well as intellectuals are advocating the revival of sufism. However, it is evident that ideas and the system cannot be revived because fundamentalism is a product of a certain time and space and fulfills the needs of that age.

Secondly, the very idea of revivalism indicates intellectual bankruptcy and lethargy of our intellectuals who are either not ready or do not have the capacity to understand the very phenomenon of religious extremism and its advent as a result of social, economic and political changes in society. A number of myths are associated with sufis. One of the arguments being that they converted non-Muslims and are responsible for the spread of Islam through the subcontinent. To portray them as missionaries discredits them as an impartial community. To convert someone means that they initially did not believe in the truthfulness of other religions. If this view is correct, it does not explain how they could create goodwill among people belonging to different religions.

Welcome to PaKistan: Assaulted for wearing a sleeveless shirt!

by Amir Qureshi

It was only a matter of time anyway. A few days ago, a police officer along with his squad burst into the Nairang Art Gallery and beat up the female curator for wearing a sleeveless dress and interacting with men. The police officer, a SHO, was perturbed by the ‘fahash’ ambience of the place.

After being assaulted the woman and her colleagues who came to her rescue were taken to the police station and booked under an obsolete ordinance.

Nairang Art Gallery is a work of devotion to art, literature, music and design by the iconic architect Nayyer Ali Dada. Some say it’s the modern day’s equivalent of the Pak Tea House – where left-leaning intellectuals come to spend their time. They have a small cafeteria which pays for part of the operating expenses of the art gallery; the rest of the funds are put up by Nayyer Ali Dada. ….

Read more →THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE BLOG

Delhi – Shabnam Virmani

Shabnam Virmani is a filmmaker and artist in residence at the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology in Bangalore, India. 7 years ago she started travelling with folk singers in Malwa, Rajasthan and Pakistan in a quest for the spiritual and socio-political resonances of the 15th century mystic poet Kabir in our contemporary worlds. Among the tangible outcomes of these journeys were a series of 4 musical documentary films, several music CDs and books of the poetry in translation (www.kabirproject.org). Inspired by the inclusive spirit of folk music, she has begun to play the tambura and sing folk songs of Kabir herself. Currently she is working on co-creating a web-museum of Kabir poetry & music with folk singer communities in India and developing ideas for taking mystic poetry and folk music to school classrooms. She continues to journey to new areas such as Kutch, Gujarat and draw inspiration not only from Kabir, but also other mystic poets of the sub-continent [such as Shah Abdul Latif] and the oral folk traditions that carry them to us. Her earlier work consisted of several video and radio programs created in close partnership with grassroots women’s groups in India.

– You Tube

Are we hypocrite society!

Guests Attaul-Haq Qasmi, Chairman Alhamra Arts Council, Deedar Dancer and Naseem Vicky Stage Drama Actor. The language of the program is urdu/ Hindi.

Courtesy: Geo TV (Hasan Nisar – Choraha – 19 February 2011,  ) – You Tube

Literature and Revolution

Leon Trotsky’s Literature and Revolution

“Trotsky was perhaps the greatest representative in history of the Marxist school of literary criticism, which itself incorporated what was most farsighted in the aesthetic criticism produced by the bourgeois-democratic revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.”

This extraordinary work of Marxist literary criticism, first published in 1924, is a further illustration of the author’s multifaceted genius. Leon Trotsky, co-leader of the Russian Revolution and its leading orator, Soviet foreign minister and founder and leader of the Red Army, was also one of the leading Marxist critics of this period.

Trotsky subjects the leading trends in literature and art in the early years of the revolution to criticism that is sharp but never tendentious. He illuminates and develops the Marxist method of historical materialism, rejecting “art for art’s sake” conceptions as well as their apparent opposite, the theories of “proletarian culture” and “proletarian art,” then becoming fashionable in certain left circles. …

Mehring Books is pleased to make Literature and Revolution by Leon Trotsky available to readers of the World Socialist Web Site. Click here to order

Enhancing Peace through Art and Literature

by Jamil Hussain Junejo

Peace has been remaining most desired and higher value of human society throughout the Human history. All the humanist Religious leaders, philosophers, writers, Artists have been laboriously striving hard for establishing societies where the value of peace reigns supreme. Peace holds such high esteem and concern because it is prerequisite for establishing developed and advanced societies aswel states which could be marked with social and economic justice, equality, freedom and rule of law.

Grand Sindhi Drama Festival : AAYO NAO ZAMANO TODAY!

NIROO & NU SINDHU ART ACADEMY ANNOUNCING ONCE AGAIN! 12th GRAND SINDHI DRAMA FESTIVAL IN MUMBAI! THREE SUPER HIT SINDHI PLAYS – 20TH, 21ST & 22ND NOV. NATIONAL COLLEGE, BANDRA – DAILY 7.30 PM Aju ji peshkash – 20 Nov 2009, Aayo Nao Zamano – World renowned record breaking family drama! BE THERE, FOR SINDHYAT, FOR SINDHI AND FOR ASLI SINDHI DHAMAAL – NU SINDHU ART ACADEMY

Amazing artist: Touching work – Must watch

Sand Animation by Ksenia Simonowa from Ukraine. Really touching.

A documentary on Sindh and Sindhi Life

A Sindhi attorney in Los Angeles is currently working on a small documentary through the Sindhi Association of Southern California which is to be presented at a Sindhi Sammelan/ conference this July in Los Angeles, and potentially posted online. She is interested in using pictures of Sindhi singers, Sindhi art, and Sindhi historical monuments.

The documentary will be an interview of 5-10 elder Sindhis who left Sindh as refugees during the 1947 partition. The idea is to document their journey and recognize their ability to re build their lives and retain their culture. This movie will be made only to document their lives for younger generations to have a glimpse of how Sindhi culture survives in their lives. (this is strictly a non profit- educational and cultural video).

April 10, 2009