Kirman Carpet

It is elating sometime to discover in arcane brickaback things you discover in seeming disbelief as your own constructs. It brings with it a reassurance amidst the creeping sense of worthlessness. Some old notes on a volume revisited, approximate the type.

The past is a part of man’s existential living self. In the preface to my poem, ‘Mohallah Sangher’ (‘The Dragonfly & Other Poems’, 2019) I mention Intezar Hussain from his inimitable novel, “Basti”, where he speaks of the “ceaseless spirituality and relevance and pervasiveness of the past in man’s life”. “Even when cities are left behind, they don’t stay behind. They seize you even more. When the earth slips from under your feet, that’s when it really surrounds you.”

‘A Tapestries of Medicine and Life’ by Dr Syed Amjad Hussain (2021) has an unmistakable message in similar shades and contours. A multi-layered, deeply human tour de force, it covers snippets and snapshots from the panorama of life, from childhood through education up to becoming a leading world-renowned cardio-thoracic surgeon, and, on the way, becoming part of a loving family, pursuing varied passions of exploration, history, arts and literature.

The compendium portrays a life of unique symbiosis, of all that is best in two different human cultures, the eastern, or more specifically, the Indo-Pak, Iranian-Pashtoon and the occidental, in deep esteem for their various strands, culminating in a grand coalescence of humanity and shared values of love, compassion, gentleness and pursuit of truth and virtue.

But it is not nostalgic grovelling in the past; rather a resuscitation from a past of an enrichment of the present, and with a chin held high up in the life-giving, bracing winds of the remaining future, evincing a never-ending passion for a fulfilled and enriched life, that in the home run, one can proudly look upon with deserving and well-earned satisfaction.

One is struck by the rather rare, but ennobling communion, found in rarity among persons of humanities as well as those taking to the sciences, of the exalting spectacle of the arts and sciences, of technique and beauty of philosophy and literature, complimenting and in certain ways making up for, perhaps, the deficiencies of either, in allowing for a holistic and complete appreciation of human achievements and excellence in terms of contributions to various civilisations and cultures.

If ever there was a case to be made out for reducing the tribalisation and bigotry current among nations and countries; of removal of various prejudices and fears afflicting the world, of a need to collaboratively banish the banes of dehumanising poverty, pelf and disease and ignorance, examples such as those so valuably displayed by the author, who take, in a tolerant manner, to various perceptions and beliefs, to two different zeitgeists, can be a beacon-light for bringing a change for the better in a torn and divided world.

The story starts in Bhakar, in some similarity to the pattern and temper of Nilab, Indus or Sindhu, emanating from Lake Senge Khobe, the source travelled to, in the manner it traverses its whole length. It had its relatively simple and staid beginnings, then turning to the tremulous and thunderous passage through the Hunza gorge, there were sudden changes of routes as in the Chilas bend. On the way, other tributaries joined to make life more enriching and fuller, like discovering a life partner and becoming enriched by a loving family.

There were twists and turns, ups and downs, successes and disappointments and setbacks, emotional and interpersonal, but like the mighty river life entered, in a figurative sense, in serene grandeur, its deltaic stage, contemporaneous with advanced age, in grand, equanimous union and calm peace with nature and love.

Somerset Maugham likens life to a panoply, in the words of the book, a tapestry, made up of various unknowns and chances. One of the predicaments of life is its unpredictability, of forces governing one’s fate and destiny beyond one’s apparent comprehension and thus control. Life seems to be less an orderly logarithm or seven constants of quantum physics about the universe and more like a game of serendipity, alternating between ephemeral happiness and abundant, pervasive pain.

That is one reason why man, religion and philosophy have put to eternal question and attempted answers to riddles of matters such as the purpose of life, free will and determinism. Be that as it may, Maugham, having lived a rich and fulfilling life, says when he cast a look back at his life, he was hard-pressed to assert that much of what he did or achieved was by virtue of his purposive design. Rather, life in all its variety and unknowns, its moments of happiness and relative sorrows, in the end, consummates like the glorious pattern, made by an unknown hand, on a Kirman sickle-leaf scroll Persian carpet or the paintings on Sistine Chapel. While it is being woven or lived, the carpet of life seems meaningless, without sense or essence, to gain a semblance of meaning, an enriching pattern, but only in hindsight.

In the end, it may be apt to quote a passage from Will Durant’s ‘The Falling Leaves’ which perhaps explains and may be taken as a comment on life and travails portrayed in the book:

“Three thousand years ago a man thought that man may fly, and so built himself wings, and Icarus...his son.. trusting them and trying to fly, fell into the sea. Undaunted life carried on his dream. Three generations passed and Leonardo da Vinci.. scratched across his drawings plans and calculations for a flying machine and left in his notes a little phrase, that once heard, rings like a bell in the memory— ‘There shall be wings’. Leonardo failed and died, but life carried on the dream...generations passed and men said flying was against the will of God. And then man flew, and the age-long challenge of the bird was answered. Life is that which can hold a purpose for three thousand years and never yield. The individual fails, but life succeeds. The individual dies, but life, tireless and undiscouraged, goes on, wondering, trying, mounting and longing.”

Published in The Express Tribune, July 5^th, 2023.

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