The Science of Elegance
The city is noise, chaos. Speeding cars, buses, motorbikes and rickshas weave through
any available gap, determined to be
faster than everyone else, until slowed down by double and triple parked
cars outside shops and schools. Pedestrians
navigate the city, avoiding open manholes and random rubbish heaps. And then
the absolute stillness of bored shop keepers sitting behind counters, fruit and
vegetable sellers waiting for customers as they flick flies off with a rag
nailed to a piece of wood. A roadside tyre shop advertises its presence by
slinging a couple of tyre tubes on a mangled branch of a mangled tree. Its all expediency – clothes are functional,
the city scape is functional, even parks are functional. There is not the slightest
effort to view the city as an aesthetic or pleasing experience.
Step outside the city into a remote village in a desert or
high up in the mountains and feel the harmony between people and nature. Houses
fit into the contours of mountains, or blend into the desert scape. A young
girl scrambling up and down the hills or across sand dunes, will grow into a
graceful young woman swaying under the
weight of matkas, or catching her dupatta between her teeth to half cover her
face when a stranger approaches. A sniffly nosed young boy will turn into an
elegant young man who wears his pagri with graceful ease and carries his
ancestry in his every movement.
Old family albums are
filled with pictures of elegantly dressed ancestors and gracious homes. People
made time to write letters with perfect penmanship and carefully thought out
sentences interspersed with verses or proverbs. Life was in balance.
Proportion and balance define all of nature’s forms. The underlying
mathematics and geometry of natural creation were uncovered in the 13th
C by Leonardo of Pisa’s Fibonacci series,
and in the 19th C, Carl Friedrich Gauss described
non-Euclidian geometry. The nautilus shell, the seeds of a sunflower or the
proportions of the human body reveal an underlying geometry in growth systems. While these concepts defy conventional
rational explanation, they underline the presence of a universal rhythm in
creation. Life is not the shortest route from point A to point B, but can
follow an unexpected asymmetry.
The creative arts have always been aware of hidden patterns
in nature. The Golden Ratio or phi – 1: 1.618 – derived from the Fibonacci
series, is a system of proportions that is found to be most pleasing to the
eye. Prehistoric axes, classical buildings, poster design, car design and even
fashion design, have followed this ratio to enhance visual appeal. The Japanese follow the silver ratio- 1:1.4 -
in the construction of their temples and even anime characters like Doraemon.
The great flowering of Islamic Art from the eight century
onwards, expressed divinity in geometrical and mathematical terms. Islamic
Calligraphy, measured by repetitions of the unit of the qat or rhombic dot, the breathtaking patterns of the najam or star, in two dimensional or
hyperbolic forms, perfectly convey the
unity and endless diversity of the Divine.
The impact of the arts is primarily felt by its ability to
achieve balance. Sometimes a harmonious balance, sometimes a knife edge balance
of seemingly discordant elements.
Proportion and balance is also encouraged in our style of
conversation, how we carry ourselves, and in all our interactions. We are disturbed
by lack of proportion and balance, whether in political action, dispensation of
justice, poor workmanship or sudden altercations. Ettiquette or adaab,
and thehrao, or pause, are
meant to be taught from childhood. The popularity of the late Mushtaq Yusufi’s gentle irony, and the love of poetry in
Pakistan, suggest that somewhere deep inside, we still appreciate the elegant
life of balance and proportion.
Durriya Kazi
July 27, 2020
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