Whispering Images

Text: Dr. Akbar Naqvi
Photography: Aqeel Solangi

The whispers or surgoshi of images concerns, to use an expression from Carl Jung, immemorial memories of mankind, its civilizations and cultures. They make us aware of the past in the present and present in the past. From this dialectics comes the future as an archetypal flow of currents and undercurrents of time. The last line of Nasir Kazmi’s couplet above reminds us of the ney or flute of Maulana Rumi which lamented its separation from a swamp where it was a reed, to become a finished product as a flute. It could do this only through its sad but joyful music. In the Masnavi, the nostalgic remembrance of its birth, journey from one state to another as hijrat for perfection, the adventure of khub se khubter ki talash, journey from good to the best, also applies to life and art. The musical instrument is also a potent mnemonic image which sounds plaintive not because it is sad, but because it remembers the meaning of life, departure from home in search of its melodies. In the context of Maulana Rumi and Carl Gustav Jung, we are reminded by Nasir Kazmi that his heart is full of deep secrets because of the holes like the flute in his heart---of memories of generations upon generations of mankind. Every individual has this creative lode in him/ her from what is preserved of the tunes and its discourses.

The flute of Maulana Rumi and the bansri or flute played by Lord Krishna, represented in the eighteenth century Pahari miniatures, connect in the culture of al-Hind, named after the river Sapt Sindhu of the Aryans, Indica of the Greeks and Hidus of ancient Persians. It may be an exaggeration to say that the river also called Mehran now flows through and in Solangi’s paintings. This preamble was necessary in order to make sense of Nasir Kazmi’s quotation in the context of Aqeel Solangi’s new exhibition in Koel Gallery in Karachi in April, 2011. The images of the paintings are like mnemonic musical notes on the song of being human.