Being YBQ

Photographer, designer, artist...who is the real Yousuf Bashir Qureshi?


Photo Haseeb Asif/saadia Qamar November 25, 2012

Before I could get into Yousuf Bashir Qureshi’s head, I had to first get to, and into, the Commune Artist Colony. Neither task was easy.

I really didn’t know much about Yousuf Bashir Qureshi, except that he’s quite a colourful character who is usually referred to as YBQ. I had just seen him thrice before: once last year at a fashion week, some years back at one of the Lux Style Awards Red Carpet, where he was walking around with Mathira, and then a couple of months back at the Asian Institute of Fashion Design, giving a lecture to students on how to be good person, rather than (as you may have expected) a good fashion designer.

So, in the interest of not seeming foolish, I decided to ask a true fashion industry ‘insider’ the all-important question: Who is YBQ?

“YBQ is so many things, a fashion designer, a photographer, a painter, the owner of the Commune. Basically, he’s a very, very artsy character. Another fashionista defined him as the one person who “keeps fashion, photography and music very much alive here in Pakistan. And he does all this from the Commune.”

So one sweltering Friday afternoon, notes in hand, I ended up visiting the Commune to see what he is really all about. After navigating narrow alleys in a rickshaw, I finally ended up at a gate designed to look like a huge Pakistan flag. This was the ‘jhanday waala gate’ (gate with the flag) the locals had told me to head towards.

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Finding myself surrounded by warehouse-like structures I initially wondered if I had been misled, but then I saw designer Sanam Chaudhri conducting a shoot with model Hira Tareen and I knew I was in the right place.

By now, at least one thing was clear about this man whom I hadn’t yet met: that he is deeply inspired by Pakistan. It’s not just the flag-themed gate that made me reach this conclusion, but also the décor of the room I was seated in. Next to me was a beautiful jhoola, and close to it a takht, both covered with a colourful Sindhi Rilli. In one corner of the room was a poster of Zeba Bakhtiyar’s film Henna, and in another, a painting of the Beatles. Before I could take in any more details, YBQ entered the room dressed in a black dhoti and a brown kurti.

“The best teacher is one who is himself a student for life,” he says almost immediately. “I am not a trained artist, and I don’t come from an art institute. Yeh aik kami rah gayi hay (This is one shortfall). But I learn from others; we all need to learn from others.”

Talking to YBQ, it immediately becomes clear that the malang getup isn’t just for show. Here is a man with the soul of an artist, with more than a dash of Sufi thrown in.

“I believe we all have been given one quality of that great Supreme Power,” he says. How we use that power, of course, is up to us. “When we use this strength to help others, it makes us superheroes.  It’s a wasted life when you don’t do an honest job in doing the nicer stuff in life.”

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It’s an attitude like this that makes people think that he’s some kind of faqir who’s not serious about life. That’s an accusation he vehemently rebuffs. “I want people to know that I’m actually very serious about life. It’s my last vacation, after all! Honestly though, we have so much to thank God for, from fruits, trees and landscapes to beautiful people we look at!”

Just being alive and living in this world is a luxury, he says, and that alone is enough to be thankful for.

So what then does YBQ really want, if worldly goods mean so little to him?

“Love and respect,” he answers immediately. “It’s what every human desires for himself and from others around him.”

And then, just when I think I’ve figured out how he thinks, he says to me, “I don’t think much. I just feel. I believe there is a conflict within every human, that’s what’s called living. I, for one, really want to understand myself. Hence I disconnect myself, dissect, break away from it, and then re-connect only to understand myself better.”

Right about that time, two steaming cups of lemon grass tea arrive, and as he passes me my cup, he continues talking, “I have never really been impressed by people. Or actually, I’m only impressed by those who work hard or are humble in their approach. For some odd reason I don’t get along with arrogant people and racist types. After all, burai kyun hai zamaanay mein? Achhay admi ki khamoshi ki waja say (Why is there evil in these times? Because of the silence of the good people!)!”

That’s one of the reasons, he says, he set up the Commune Artist Colony. It was an attempt to create a spot of light where everyone, from local musicians to unknown artists, could get together; a place where people can come together in a city tearing itself apart.

“We, as a people, don’t tend to mix with people of other castes, creeds and backgrounds,” he says. “That’s our mentality. But here I have had the splendid opportunity of meeting Sardars of Balochistan, Nawabs of Kalat and so many others!”

And here we find the one thing that YBQ truly hates: division.

“There is no inter-faith harmony amongst us,” he says. “Look at God, He is pure love and all He teaches us humans is to love another. Islam is all about freeing humans, creating equality and having us love one another. It’s all about one single life breath.”

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Dismissive of the rat race and the simple measuring out of life in proverbial ‘coffee spoons’, he complains that we never actually stop to reflect on what we have. Instead we keep chasing mirages of success that we never actually reach.

“Why is it that the number of years [we live] are important, while it’s not important to cherish these moments while we’re still alive?” he asks.

As he pauses to reflect, I take the opportunity to ask him to show me around the Commune. YBQ has effectively compartmentalised his life. In one corner he paints, in another he has a collection of cameras, elsewhere some outfits hang from a shelf and in yet another corner he has a bed, a small dining area and kitchen. A different corner for every incarnation, I think to myself.

From the main area of the Commune, we go to another section to meet his darzis, karigaars, and barhai (tailors, craftsmen and carpenters). After introducing them to me one by one, he takes me to meet the head of his PR team. As I say hello, YBQ remarks in an off-hand way, “This guy sells me, he is basically my pimp.”

And with that, my little sojourn to the haven that is the Commune is over. I say my ‘thank you’s’ and emerge from this den of creativity to re-enter the dirty streets of Karachi.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, November 25th, 2012.

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COMMENTS (1)

Nizam | 11 years ago | Reply

Nice throw at Ashraf; Yousuf :)

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