Window into Pakistan: Writer discusses subversive nature of art, literature

Inclusion of Khalique in “Windows on the World — 50 writers, 50 views” celebrated

ISLAMABAD: Art, in its truest form, is both subversive and therapeutic.

It subverts political power and social custom, established identities and categories of analyses. It heals wounds that history inflicts. Literature has the power and the ability to make Muslim tragedy a human tragedy and see Hindu suffering as human suffering.

These ideas were expressed by poet Harris Khalique at a literary gathering organised by the Asian Study Group (ASG) at Kuch Khaas on Monday. Moderated by Michele Galopin of the ASG, the evening honoured Khalique for being named in a recent international publication “Windows on the World — 50 writers, 50 views”, which also features other eminent writers such as Orhan Pamuk, Nadine Gordimer, Richard Flanagan and Emma Larkin.

“It is definitely gratifying and rewarding to be representing a window from Pakistan and be the only writer from the country to appear on that list,” Khalique said, before reading his 250-word submission to the publication.

Explaining the process of the creative endeavour, he said that the Italian artist, Matteo Pericoli and the editors at The Paris Review selected 50 writers from across the world and asked them to [literally] take and send a picture of their windows and contribute a write-up about what they saw through their [proverbial] windows.

Following these impressionistic pieces, Pericoli sketched drawings which later appeared in The New York Times and The Paris Review.

About his own piece illustrating the view from his window in Islamabad, Khalique said that there was a clear undertone of subverting power, woven into a definite optimism for the wretched and the condemned. “The two are knitted together — subversion and then hope or optimism, by a thread of romantic imagination,” he said, adding that aesthetically, this knit had to be an intricate work of a tailor, not the stitching of a cobbler, whether the tone was subtle or obvious.

Talking about the treatment of his work and the view of his understanding of art and literature, Khalique said that his understanding was rooted in his own experiences of life, suffering and creativity. “This is a view from a Pakistani writer, there is a certain historic, ideological and existential underpinning, and therefore these ideas are thoroughly debatable as any other ideas, so there is no claim to a universal understanding of art and literature.”

Interconnecting the various genres of artistic expression, Khalique said that value of any work of art — a poem or a painting, was determined by its aesthetic appeal. “However, for myself, I find the creative process most gratifying when the chaos outside the deeply-political world dissolves into the chaos within, crafted by personal suffering, love and longing.”

He attributed mystic poets and writers for humanising social outcasts and elevating them to a certain level of existence, consciousness and sensitivity, where others cannot tread.

“Sufis and poets transformed faith in God, into love of humanity. They did not confront the established custodians of the regimented orthodox, organised religion. They circumvented that and subverted that in a very different way,” Khalique said, citing examples of writers such as Amrita Preetam and Saadat Hasan Manto and poets, Mirza Ghalib, Khalil Gibran, Maulana Rumi and Hermann Hesse, who humanised tabooed characters in their writings, thus creating a way of social acceptance.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 21^st, 2015.