meethapani

  The Concept of Time in South Asia Fluid Time/Creating Futures / CoVA Seminar Series 2021 Centre of Visual Arts, University of Melbourne     The best indicator of the South Asian attitude to time lies is in the Urdu/ Hindi word “kal”   The word “kal” can be used for yesterday or tomorrow, as are its extensions, parson , tarson and narson words to describe up to three days before or after today ( aaj).   The context of the sentence in which the words are used indicate whether the past or the future is indicated.   This suggests time is not an objective truth but in fact is relative to perception, open to interpretation, variable, and places the narrator in control. The objective approach focuses on the “what” outside of self; while subjective focuses on the agency of the “who”.    South Asians live simultaneously, and with great ease, in many different time frames.   For daily business and civil matters, the international G...

  Blank Canvases of History Art has always created the most powerful images of historical events.   Delacroix’s painting ‘Liberty Leading the People’ became an icon of the French Revolution, the Roman sculpture of the Dying Gaul, symbolized the defeat of a worthy opponent, Benjamin West’s painting of the Mughal emperor Shah Alam handing over tax collecting rights to Robert Clive, marking the beginning of the British takeover of India. Kings engaged artists to enhance their status. In the reception hall of the Palace of the Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal, visitors would be suitably filled with awe by huge reliefs of the king killing lions almost barehanded.   Sometimes images altered history.   Sculptures in the Capitol Hill, Washington, depict Native Americans kneeling and offering gifts to the European conquerors. The image of Christ once depicted as dark haired, dark-eyed with a middle eastern complexion, changed into a blond and blue-eyed prophet of white natio...

    Rules and Laws Pakistan has a very baffling relationship with the Rule of Law.   Red traffic lights are a nuisance, double and triple parking is tolerated so long as a little bit of road is left for cars to wind through, its simpler and quicker to bribe one’s way out of any difficulty, to name only a few visible examples. Yet everyone has their eyes turned to the higher courts awaiting their judgements. Many Freedom Fighters who enabled the birth of Pakistan had a background in law: Allama Iqbal, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan, Abdur Rab Nishtar, Qazi Isa, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, Chaudhry Rahmat Ali, I.I. Chundrigar, Fazlul Huq, Khwaja Nazimuddin.   Even Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan had an honorary law degree and served as a judge. The failed 1857armed uprising against British Rule, transformed into a sustained strategy of resistance enabled by familiarity with British law acquired by an Oxbridge education, that also allowed a comparison between ...

  Imagined Futures Being able to predict the future has occupied humans forever it seems. Knowing what lies ahead is linked to survival – physical survival for farmers, hunters, and soldiers; political survival of those who rule; and economic survival for speculators. Ancient wisdom or modern algorithms, are harnessed to gauge weather patterns, the movement of animals, variations in the earth’s axis, revolutions brewing below the surface, where oil or gold is likely to be found or the trajectories of meteors in space. Villagers heeded shamans, kings consulted oracles and soothsayers.   The life of Hazrat Yusuf was spared by the Pharoah because of his visions and ability to interpret dreams. Ordinary people turn to astrology,   faals and istikharas (answers from spiritual texts) to guide their decisions. Today a large number of predictions are made by science.   The loudest voice warns of the impact of climate change generated by centuries of plundering the Eart...

  Unveiling the Veil Curtains are an architectural device that manage how much of the outside is allowed in. The Urdu word for curtain, purdah, is used interchangeably with privacy. We keep the dignity or purdah of those we wish to protect. The purdah became a convenient way to maintain privacy outside the house in the form of a curtained palki or sedan or as a covering or veil for women.   Ayesha Khalid portrays this association beautifully in her paintings of women in burqas blending in with wall curtains. While some men veil themselves such as the Tuareg of Morocco, or Jewish men of the Hasidic Bratslav sect, and South Asia men may wear a sehra or veil of flowers on their wedding day, the veil became associated with women across cultures and religions. The liberal 60s erased the memory of the veil from many societies, and it is now almost exclusively associated with Muslim women. The veil has many other meanings.   People place a veil between their public and pri...

  Fearless Gazelles of Islam Nusaybah bint Ka`b, seeing the Prophet ( PBUH) unprotected during the Battle of Uhud, ran to shield him with her sword alongside her husband and son. She received many wounds, and the Prophet himself (PBUH) said, wherever he turned, whether to the right or to the left, he saw her defending him. She was present at a number of battles, and at the age of 60 fought at Al-Yamamah, receiving 11 wounds, also losing her hand. When Khawla bint al-Azwar’s brother was taken captive by the Byzantines, she put on armour and charged into the Byzantine troops to rescue him. Taken captive at the Battle of Marj al Saffar, she fended off the Byzantines with a tentpole, killing seven. Muslim women were an important part of every battle rallying their men, or tending to the wounded, sometimes taking up arms or composing taunting poetry. Ghazala al-Haruriyya called out to the fleeing Umayyad General “You are a lion against me but were made into an ostrich which spread...

    Tending the Garden Religions would have us believe humans started their existence in a garden and a garden awaits them at the end of their life. Earth itself is cherished amongst all the planets of our solar system for its lush plant life, which is home to an estimated 8.7 million plant and animal species. The degradation of the earth’s environment is also gauged by its shrinking or damaged forests. For urban dwellers, liveability is determined to a large extent by public parks, trees and domestic gardens, as nature is pushed out by tarmac and concrete. As Singapore has shown, well maintained green spaces are a factor in attracting increased financial investment and the promise of prosperity. The garden is also a metaphor, a philosophical concept, and a spiritual, poetic and artistic symbol. Landscape painting and references to gardens in poetry are time-honoured traditions. The British philosopher John Wisdom called God the “Invisible Gardener”, who maintains all ...