Remembering Professor Zahoor ul Akhlaq and Jahan Ara

I still remember it was 5th December, 2009;  on that day I was disturbed.and very depressed due to the firing at Ludhiana but I reached Amritsar to meet her.  It was my first meet with Sherezade Alam a female potter artist from Pakistan. She was looking very confident and smiling. She told about her visit, her art and her experiences. I was surprised that she was very happy and fresh even after a long journey from New Delhi. But then my cousin  Kanwal Sethi  who is a film director also, told me about the heaviest burden on her mind which was covered under her magic of smile. In fact it was a tragedy. not only for her.It was a tragedy with whole art world also which is devoted to create a better society. Her husband was murdered along with a daughter on January 18, 1999. Life chapter of a great artist was closed on Jan 18 in an inhuman violent act. Perhaps he was also a Prisoner of Conscience who established new ways of arts and raised his voice with his art.  Zhoor-ul-Akhlaq born in Delhi but shifted to Lahore during  the communal violence of 1947. He was a pioneering artist with a global approach and expanding his message for the betterment of society. Ardeshir Cowasjee quotes a family member that She has married an artist, Zahoor-ul-Akhlaq by name...it adds another 'character' to the family.

        Despite the appalling and senseless murders of Professor Zahoor ul Akhlaq and his daughter Jahan Ara, which took place at the Alam residence in Lahore, Pakistan, ....April 3rd saw the compound resound to a joyous wedding. The ceremony was conducted by Asma Jehangir, a leading feminist lawyer and chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. The couple were Natasha Alam and Qasim Shafi, children of two well known Lahore families.

      In his studio, which houses art treasures from around the world, a drawing (circa 1960) is reclaimed from fragments found in the artist's studio after his untimely death says Niilofur Farrukh in Tribute to a Master.
Remembering the great artist Zahoor another writer Raza Rumi says that it is not easy to write about Zahoor ul Akhlaq , an artist whose life and work in so many ways encapsulates the troubled soul of Pakistan. Ten years ago, on a grey, brutal January day, the great artist Akhlaq and his gifted daughter, Jahanara, were shot dead. Ali Adil Khan also wrote about the passion of Zahoor. Noorjahan  Akhlaq says it was a Death in the Garden of  Paradise . A well-known Pakistani commentator & human rights campaigner I.A.Rehman also linked the incident with another murder story. Rehman said, " "A brutal killing," "senseless" "cold-blooded murder," shouted women activists, human rights defenders, media personnel, et al. Certainly not for the first time. Were they crying out in vain?

         They had cried out when Kanwar Ahsan was shot and critically wounded on the premises of a court in Karachi-targeted because he and an adult women had decided to live together in marriage.
        They had cried out when the country's most outstanding painter, Zahoorul Akhlaq, and his talented daughter, Jahanara, were mercilessly gunned down in Lahore. And they cried out each time a women fell victim to the evil custom of karo kari. Samia's murder demonstrates only too graphically how each time their cries were in vain.
        Is there a link between Samia's murder, the killing of Zahoorul Akhlaq and Jahanara, the murderous attack on Ahsan and the increasing incidence of karo kari killings?"

       After this brutal murder The Tribune India said that Violence stuns Pakistan’s arts world . whole story also covered by other sections of media. The Shelley family also said that it was a senseless murder.

      Someone told me that where there is great love there are always miracles and it is a matter of new hope that the love and art spirit of Professor Zahoor is still active in Sherezade Alam, Noorjahan and his followers like Niilofur. So miracles are inevitable.                           --Rector Kathuria