Words

Do they matter?

A thing of Intrigue: The Jetta Report

The Jetta Report, its ad link claimed, was an eye-opening account on the owners of Jetta. I clicked the link believing it to the auto-industry's equivalent of The Constant Gardener - some spill-al account prepped by an NGO.

What the site really is, though, is... oh, check it out yourself! It's clever, smart, daring... and very funny. Oh, BTW, some of the "comparisons" on the site - and JR is big on them - make me seethe with amused fury!

Thing of Beauty: Visual Dhikr - contemporary Muslim art

Visual Dhikr is a prayer answered. Just when I was wondering if I could ever find a very decent graphic designer who hopefully was adept at Islamic calligraphy, along came Visual Dhikr.

Visual Dhikr features contemporary Islamic art by Ruh al-Alam, and was co-found by Ruh and Abu Ta-Ha.

Dhikr is a spiritual term meaning remembrance of God.... a continued, attentive, conscious remembrance. Visual Dhikr uses artwork as a medium to stimulate a continued remembrance of the Divine.

The artists do more than just Islamic artwork, but all work is within the very unique parameters that faith describes for artistic expression. Islamic art is often geometric and floral, representing concepts of infinity, Divine beauty, and peace.

Visual Dhikr awed me for several reasons:

1. It's so politically misplaced! In this day, one has to be daring to put the Islamic identity first unless one is on a preaching mission. For two artists to wear Islam on their sleeves is an amusing exception to the norm - where contemporary art in the Muslim world is pre-dominated by culture either local or imported. To wed digital media with art with Islam is a marriage of great un-convention.

2. It works. There are no error scripts, no wildly outdated links.

3. To create a visual tradition of remembrance amongst traditions of primarily auditory dhikr is an interesting experiment. It's always been done - after all Islam is submission to Allah and the constant remembrance of Hu - but I have rarely seen a modern Muslim artist in the West make this a declared mission.

4. The site has an astounding background musical that just about induces trance. So the art is not just visual, but also musical. It touches many senses. I must say that to have a uniquely modern, Muslim experience is a rarity that I have loved.

5. Visual Dhikr extends my identity as a Muslim in the cyber-space, and in the space of arts. You see, I believe every identity in the modern real world needs a platform, a place of reference, an authentication. Everyday, we see - though perhaps not notice with awareness - instances upon instances of people and nations who are perfectly correct in their belief, but without a reference group, a platform, a social contract that validates them.

Art has long been employed by humanity to create identities, to create culture, to create an image that one can refer to and declare: "I am something of that thing!"

Sadly, art has often imposed the identities of one or few onto many - the lone man or group projecting onto the world, a romanticized notion in all art. The art of this new age is one that reflects the global society, and its diversity. One that gives the members of humanity points of reference, which lets them say: "That thing is something of who we are!"

The only taboo in art today is its alienation and elitism... In the modern world, technology has begun to work for the disadvantaged. Today, an artist of any culture or background can use technology to perpetuate and make de facto through art their identity.

This is why I loved Visual Dhikr in all its simplicity. I like the promise this art makes.

BTW. Did I tell you that Visual Dhikr was commissioned to work for Sony PSP Exhibition launch? And the catalog is a must download!

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Silence

There is a certain kind of silence which is not silence at all, but the powerlessness to express the many many words one suddenly must say to express the many many ideas one has suddenly acquired... but knows not how with the limited way in which popular human language has developed.

Last month, I went trekking in the Northern Areas of Pakistan, in a valley called Haramosh, some 110 kms northeast of Gilgit. From our base camp in a village called Barshi, we were to trek up to the village of Kutwal, with only a rudimentary idea of the distance... the trekking trail has been unexplored since many years. It took no less than six hours to trek up, with mountain after mountain to traverse. I have no idea of miles and kilometers, so I reckon it was no less than 6-8 kilometers with at least a 1000 meters of height gained, in scorching daylight.

We passed many a small settlements on the way. We reached levelled grounds, we trekked up steep climbs, we walked down... and the trail wouldn't end, and Kutwal wouldn't come. We stopped. We ate. We took in the scenery. And then we moved. I passed by a tiny field which was barricaded off, and in that tiny field, golden king butterflies silently fluttered by... and then I moved on. Over a rock perched over the noisy Barshi River, I stopped to breathe deep and relax my feet. An hour from our destination, we were awed by the sight of a glacier visible through a gorge, at the foot of which many river-lets dropped into the main river, and in which the few visible birds of the areas soared, aloft on the wings of wind...

But we got up and moved on. For none of these were our destinations, though they enriched us tremendously with the knowledge of hunger and thirst, relaxation, peace, the flow of water, and the beauty of life.

We talked, we marvelled, we wondered all the way. We exchanged notes on the unexpectedly long trail, the unimagined hot weather, the unbelievable beauty of the golden-flowered fields, and the unforgettable hospitality of the villagers... yet when Kutwal came, there was silence.

The silence not just of exhaustion, but of exhilaration, and of suddenly walking onto a plateau hitherto non-visible to our eyes... yet it embraced us, took us in whole, as we stepped on to it. You have to step up to reach the plain of Kutwal, down from the hike below. And then there is a large plain patch of grassland to cross, after which, turning left, the whole expanse of Kutwal rises to the scene.

Its ancient-ness is breath-taking. Its quiet and peace has a sound of its own. And in that moment of just turning left, and letting the hidden scene meet the eye, one is suddenly enriched with the knowledge of an entire hidden village, a valley, an existence. The knowledge of a destination. And it brings an overwhelming silence... not for the lack of ideas, but the inexpressionability of a tremendous knowledge aspired for days, and acquired in an instance.

I took that trek as a symbol of my personal development, to test my mettle, and to see what feelings does climbing up a mountain - a classical symbolic act of achievement - brings me. I can say now, with cognizance comes silence. Metaphorically, in my life, in my stages of learning and personal development too, I am in just such a phase.... I am silent.

For I feel I have walked into a hidden valley where in an instant, a whole scene has risen to my view.... a new world, a different world. A world where many things become meaningless in an instance, and others become significant, for they truly are significant.

And nothing else matters.

As always: edited many times. Photos added.

Each beautiful, marvelous day

Each day, I open my eyes to the beauty of life. And each day, life reveals an instance of its marvels to me. Each day, my eyes take in a little more, see a little more, understand a little more. Each day, this quest for beauty is rewarded.

Prompted by a dream last year - that told me beauty is not to be created, but to realized - I have been keeping the senses alert. The treasures have come everyday.

I have been keeping the treasures found to me, enjoying in privacy... but by my philosophy, what is a thing that is not shared with all? For everything comes from All, and must return to All. I am but a medium.

I want to share the occasional bits of happiness that come my way. They come in the shape of good news, emotions of all variety, and the works of other humans. What I love above all is that I find what I had been looking for just moments ago.

If memory serves me right, Sophie in Sophie's World learns about the white crow that is always there, waiting to be seen. The white crow... I think this is what her teacher said to her.

And now. I want to share. A marvel. A tajalli. A beautiful find. A glimpse into the ever created beauty of this evolving life.

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