welcome to the art museum like you know that we've done in

Kandahar museum that houses 5000 years of our history and culture don't wait to

see the system this is a building which was built in 1894 and the people main
people involved

with it was with John Lockwood Kipling who was the curator of the museum and
principal of the MU School of Arts and

the father of Rudyard Kipling absolutely Kim and the Kim's gun we have just seen

outside his idea was to have an institution which combined a museum and

an art school so the students could come into the museum learn from their history

heritage their arts crafts culture and the famous art school and see a National

College of Arts is next door yes so there's a sort of long-standing relationship it's
we Pakistan's most

important museum yes and its premier art school what's incredibly striking is the

exterior the facade the entire structure and design of the building and the

layout of the grand halls it's actually very similar to the VNA and as touches of the
British Museum is that the legacy

of British architecture and British design absolutely John Rocker Kipling himself it
was architectural

decorator for the V&A before we came here, and he trained many people chief

among them by Ram Singh who we later took to England as well sort of you know
he made the India and India room or for

the Queen so this gallery houses our oldest

objects they belong to the Old Stone Age the Paleolithic Age so you can see tools
and implements papers choppers and now

we come to my head guard which was in veloce stance so the mayor this is

10,000 years this is 7,000 to 9,000 years old, so I mean that's amazing and

look at the fineness of the poetry and then they had figurines this is from honcho
Darrow and this city

was discovered with the 1920s para-power discovered first which is in Punjabi in
Lahore in that time they were

the entire city I mean there was no huge disparity like in Mesopotamia and in

Egypt that they were these priestly class and kings and hospitals still living in
institutions living and then
very poor peasantry so a lot of disparity there was none like that the house it was

connected to a dream a cupboard dreams a big dream and that took out the

the dirty water and the clean water from the house and that drain was

connected to terracotta pipes within the house the other thing was that most of
the house it has had washrooms bathrooms

as well as the first-known flush toilets so where is the dancing girl the dancing

girl is over there what they call the dancing girl this is fast no Jimmy told me the
story the dancing girl

this is huge because this shows

that performing arts were part of our culture of civilization our heritage

right from the beginning of the civilization

[Music] although this is a replica and the

original was taken away by the Indian and I in fact Pakistani government is

trying and negotiating to get the original Mangia taro dancing girl India

doesn't give us Kashmir maybe they give us our dancing girls this is Vitaly which
represents a

Hinduism gem and Buddhism this part of Pakistan Punjab is very important in

secret for through Hinduism because the great epic poems Mahabharata great
work composed here and originated from this

part of Pakistan and the Hajj Museum has a very beautiful collection of objects
that represent Hinduism they

were collected from mainly from different temples that belong to parts which are
now in Pakistan and then

they're also biggest bases which are now in India so as you can see, we have
deities representing poverty Shiv Radha

Krishna Durga and Lakshmi one of the oldest pieces in the museum is from the
8th century and it was discovered from

one a very famous graveyard here called me Ani sob of course was earlier right

and they had the way--the culture and from that you know that later what we know
is in tourism now actually developed over a long period of time you

know the piranhas they turn and all of that and then it sorts of took the shape of
what we similarly known as the caste
system in which there was this Brahmin class and then the Kshatriyas and creation
sutras and how the priestly

class controlled everything and how the shooters were marginalized and then with
the untouchables, so it became a very

rigid and system and which people kind of you know feel it people emulated and

it was not Clara sort of it all it was not something which was inclusive Buddhism
and Jainism kind of us

responses to that that thing so they are contemporary and so Jainism

Mohave this is a statue of Mohave from Haryana and Mohave was the spiritual

leader of Jainism and as we know the Buddha thought was the specialty of

Buddhism and they introduced sort of you know equality inclusiveness non-
violence

and like Buddhism we know it you introduce or if you don't like to be all kind of you
know of course that that did

away with the concept of God has such that the way we know it basically talk about
Nirvana and all of us making an

effort to reach that enlightenment through good deeds and you know personal
effort as well so now this

is the cantata gallery and this contains some very iconic pieces very

important pieces so this is the fasting Citta this has been absent art it left

his house and was seeking the answer to the suffering of the world so he tried
different methods and one of them

modification of the body in starving he thought maybe that through sort of you
know diminishing the body might get some

spiritual enlightenment this sort of statue brings out that this state in a

very dramatic way so this is the period mostly from the first to

the fifth century AD and so and this is most in the questions and the questions

came from what his parts of China now the Portland's of China and the kind of

you know anything also brought villainized Hellenistic influences but and they
when they came to this region

they the one of their most famous kings finished the Kanishka he became
Buddhist, and this is the region where they threw
this out for the first time without the human face of the Buddha was shown before
that it was all shown in symbols

so, the first human depiction of the Buddha took place in Gondor in Pakistan

yes, and what is that that is a stupa 2

pi is this structure that they made which housed initially the relics of

Buddha and his ashes but later in sort of you know the relics of any kind of you
know a person or deity this is a

monkey and he is offering this pot of honey to Buta and so what he does is after
offering

he's when he's leaving the place, he just doesn't want to take his eyes off Buddha,
so he turns his head and he's walking

out and he's still looking at Buddha and he's positive ditching tais so then in

his next life is born as a Brahmin this is called the miracle of service people

yeah, and here is service and this is a place I you know and then, but it's also not
interpreted as Sukhavati heaven so

they're to interpretation but see this is one piece of stone and look at the intricate
carving and what

they say there was a miracle that were I would have performed because in his but

what his teaching was challenged so he kind of you know levitated he sits

on a notice he levitated, and then little booth has come out actually and this is one
of my favorite bits, but this is the

Greeks who like most places am they turned up here didn't know so the is
Alexander's time probably it's what

followers and but this probably came from a Greek temple those are the dominant
forces in in Gandhara actually

then God mudras but later Buddhism kind of developed many more pauses but
over here did we have this port the

meditation the reassurance the preaching and the art of calling the earth to

witness Thailand's got a very famous obviously collection of borders and the

holy temples yeah where do he stand in contrast to that kind of period in that
collection what is a rich Thailand from

a Gandhara actor China and Tibet and Korea Japan all those regions you know and
who's this fine-looking man me
three are this is the future of water if you stand here yeah, you've got

the Greeks you've got the Hindus next door you've got Buddhists we're going to

Persian an Islamic yeah, I mean it's one of the most multicultural countries on the
planet it's absolutely Aslam made a

big impact on this region not only in terms of controlling the region or

being the rulers but also in the culture and art and even yes this is an

astrolabe and this were used to measure it was like an electronic inclinometer and
used to measure the position of

stars al-bruin came in with Mahmood has the v2 in the 11th century and he

was he writing a book of comparative religion at that time he's the person

who was credited with discovering specific gravity and then he also went to a place
called Nandina which is close

to Islamabad where he measured the circumference of the earth right which is

over which is deviates only by ten

point four miles from the modern measurements Shaheed Samira I'd like to

just go into a little bit of detail about the story of Muhammad bin Qasim and the
Umayyad caliphates I believe he was

arrived here hid and he was the first significant arrival of Islam well he was

the first major arrival but he was not a preacher and was trying to impose Islam he
represented

rising trading power of Arabs of those regions this is a Shikari what's

striking about this is the color the laser cobalt blue the iconography they

used to use cobalt for this blue and interestingly the brother the Chinese party the
writing to poetry they

attempted they launched it from here the use of the blue color in their poetry the
hues in shines and now in modern

architecture people are using it you can see different kinds of designs over Europe
floral as well as geometric and

also, it's a calligraphy over here writing poetry since in Islam the visual

representation of human figures is not encouraged or sometimes not allowed so

they focused on the motives and designs and calligraphy indicate miniature or

other geometrical designs so these are a very special contribution you can say of
Islam in India it seems to me there's some similarities with Christianity in

your Joe in response during medieval times where there was sensitivity about

iconography and portrayals of saints and there seems to be some similarity within

Islam and, I gather the sheer tradition are much more relaxed in Islam

it's a mixed kind of things like you said the Shia tradition is more relaxed about
portraiture then unlike it we are

talking about religious portraiture right yeah otherwise we will see and

we've seen that you do the miniature painting tradition is so rich over here so the
kings and queens and common

people all that no problem we have this music of musical instruments which

Muslims have a huge contribution sitar you know wasn't invented by them and

then we have Rabab and table so the musical lunacy of the

Muslims is immense in Amiracle was a great person to contribute poetry first like
will do

Hindi poetry and then instruments like sitar and then ragas he invented so

many ragas are this a legacy that Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan has inherited and built
solid Amir Khusro was one of the first

poets whose poetry was or is used by the

cabals like no Fratelli heart and others and the devotional element of

Cavalli music is a tradition which has made huge creative contribution to

Indian music and Indian culture these are peaceful as well these are

Samara so the different arts and crafts introduced by the Muslims they included
good work, so we have enameling we have

in green being chasing this is papier Mache from push me this is the three scenes
from Christ

then from nativity from Jesus Christ's birth actually and these are from Iran, and it
is needlework which

they've made and these Jesus and Mary and Zechariah in this so this is from when
the Muslims were here, but it shows

a kind of acceptance of Christianity as the indigenous faith as part of the

culture the soul the heritage of the region all a Brahmic religions including

Christianity and Jesus they are considered holy and a part of Islamic
beliefs also but that curtsey of course is not extended to Hinduism which is not

seen in a similar way to Islam as a kind of Abrahamic faith known is us not

really but Dara Shiko tried that write his book called a mingling of oceans

yeah, much more barren which the thesis of that book was that Hinduism is also
a

sacred religion and it in fact the Hindu texts are the hidden books which Koran

had predicted in fact he was tried for apostasy because of that and the famous

fighter he was the outsider who is made it in national as well I just won't say

we're not leave this room without hi hearing a little bit more about these
magnificent murals and what they are and

what they represent these are made by the Great's I became he was going to fly of
greatest painters these are different

verses from the Quran this is calligraphy is rough you know big EPE eat it a lot of
calligraphy also and he

did other kinds of work as well which we have all around all around interesting
thing about South can is

that this the calligraphy is not just calligraphy its painting also and the

way he composed the images, and he mixed them human forms and calligraphy
so it's a

good amalgamation of the Islamic art of calligraphy and modern painting what
was

his story when did he make his work was dodgy in the seventies and he was

kind of person very simple not at all materialistic totally consumed by

his creativity here art and so you know there's so many stories about him that he
would be just sitting with you and he

would just draw something I just leave it for you know he lived in the music yes in
fact and when he was

living in the museum I made a documentary on South can I stayed with him and
saw him work when he was

painting this huge mural and fascinating all he wanted was a bottle of nothing

else I know that in addition in several let's go a bit more about the moguls and
they're in concert

[Music]
how did the story the Moghuls and their arrival and their cultural imparts is

huge on this land so can you both just tell me a little bit about that they're like other
invaders from north

and northwest barber also came and basically escaping

from his enemies and his rivals in Afghanistan but then when he came to

India and conquered part of it and including Delhi he liked the weather for

seasons and like people the culture and decided to stay on and he is considered

as the founder of Mughal dynasty, he was followed by my own Hawaii

unfortunately

had a setback and he was defeated by another Muslim ruler shisha Sudi also

from Afghanistan the main figure in Mobile dynasty is Akbar Ahmed the great

the great emperor who ruled most part of India and after Ashoka his Indian Empire

was the biggest and he also recognized the importance of interaction and

mingling with the Indian population mostly Hindu or non-Muslim and he then

gradually he had his counsels like

council of advisors nine of them called Norodom and many of them were Hindu
and

they had very important position in Akbar scored he was followed by Jahangir

who is more famous or infamous for his

drunken habits his love for opium and his love for liquor but also known for

his great buildings which he built gardens and buildings his own mausoleum

is in Lahore called Macabre Zingier changes julienne which is the favorite picnic
spot for people of

Lahore and he was also admired for his

sense of justice and then comes Shah Jahan the great emperor who built Taj

Mahal in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal and it's regarded as a symbol or the

ultimate metaphor for love Shah Jahan is

remembered for his gardens and buildings and forts which he built and then comes

a very dramatic moment in Indian history and that is the war of succession

between Shah Jahan's sons the main fight

was between Aurangzeb the third son of Shah Jahan who was a fundamentalist

bigot in fact but a great commander a whiny commander quite Machiavellian in

his approach but also observant of Islamic rituals and saying prayers and

using Islam as a political weapon

on the other side was the Crown Prince the eldest son of shah Jahan Daraa

sheik that was the Sufi he was a poet he was a painter he was a scholar of

comparative religion popular among the people now the played our asset in
Mughal India is the tale of two heirs to the Muslim

empire fighting each other for succession the drama channels to virtual characters
new production of the

Pakistani play has now opened at the National Theatre as Fatima mangy reports I
am Shah Jahan's Crown Prince empowered

our brothers in battle Prince's vying for power Dhara is an epic tale based on

the real history of the memorial Empire the Mughals was a Muslim dynasty who
ran India for more than 300 years and

were eventually arrested by the British but in telling the story of a historical

struggle two versions of Islam through the two characters are also presented
Daraa is supposed to beasts of all sorts

of loyalties decisive fight with Aurangzeb was not just fight between two

contenders for power but also a conflict between two interpretations of Islam two

worldviews two ideologies so this in this battle for a more enlightened more

peaceful and more inclusive form of Islam and an exclusive and narrow-minded

and violent interpretation of Islam unfortunately that struggle still goes on yes
mentioned that he was he was a

person who a person who imposed of it a rigid version of Islam he discouraged art
particularly pictorial art which had

reached great heights during previous model rulers and so painting declined in

the local court however but something very interesting emerge from that because
a lot of those painters would

disperse and were taken up by the Rogers of Hill states when this is one

school that emerges from it there were other things as well why will this one school
which is very well represented in Lahore Museum is the
Punjab Hill State School of Art and it was a party that's called Pahadi school

so, you see these fantastic paintings it's so vibrant over the day these belong to
the Sikh 1879 if you know a

lot of them but the colors stand out what do the colors stand for they're very
striking colors yeah, it's very

beautiful and they're all natural colors so yellow is the color of springtime and blue
represents Krishna and red is the

color of passionate love this is a mixture of Hindu Muslim or even sick

sort of contribution to this school yeah, a sick came later and sick also had

their own miniature school which was also certainly influenced by the

naturists we start Sikhism from guru Nanak saying who was the founder of
Sikhism and he was a person who was

trying to probably not formulate a new religion but kind if you know it was a reform
if reforming and

bringing together he was talking to Muslims he was talking to Hindus he was born
in a Hindu family and they're

talking about again about sort of you know rigidities that had come into societies
the inequality that had come to society

how the priestly class was dominating so he was talking more about love and
about

a view of humanity and about people and simplicity and direct relationship with

God that was Guru Nanak saying and if the interesting story about him is that

when he died the Muslims were claiming him to be Muslim and the Hindus but
there's a legend about him and in fact

most of Guru Granth sub a lot of it is includes poetry by great Muslim

Punjabi poets yeah exactly absolutely in

1947 when Punjab was partitioned along with India then most of the famous and

sacred sites of six they remained in Pakistani Punjab and most of the six had

to move to the Indian side open job so now it's a very sort of unfair situation

where six must seek a visa and come and visit their sacred sites like Ranjit

Singh is buried here in Doha non-examples born in Peru Nani was born in Pakistan
we have Ranjit Singh who was

that the biggest name among the secret rulers right later it was in 1799 that
he rose to power, and he was a great Emperor yes and he said he went up to

the couple Peshawar and all of that and he / he P he was he was a

very interesting character, he had a French general walking with him Italian general
walking with him he was a man

full of curiosity he wanted to learn a lot in it so same time of course Muslim wives
also and she was a very strong

woman she was a Muslim and she exerted quite an influence, so these have been
mostly denoted by the fakir

Aziz Odeon family Pequeno's it's the court for a physician as well as a diplomat in
a foreign minister in

his court so is this period moving towards and the arrival of Britain yes Ranjit Singh
said

there it is that already sort of made inroads and by 18-49 Punjab was annexed

and you know some of his after and sheet saying that in this whole Sikh Empire

there was a lot of chaos killing within each other the British were involved in it and
so then one of his descendants

Dileep Singh he ah he was adopted by the British and sent to you UK and he
became very anglicized so the

so that is that then Punjab also came under British sway so now we are entering
this category and we will talk

about your arrival the British the subcontinent and I think this is a beautiful piece
that shows it's

showing the railway which is going to be symbolized with catalyze with the British
Railways to the

subcontinent they came in as merchants but then started like the typical thing

they started with a mixture of kind of you know making alliances critical

alliances strategic alliances and capturing certain people places as well because
we think that railways was big

gift to us also and of course it's a great thing so if you know it opens of
communication but however it was not

your something key that came out to the benevolence of the British they pioneered
railways they pioneered canals

and they're pioneered irrigation are not footprint and legacies all over sulfation
yeah, but it wasn't benevolent
it was a tool of empire yes also been Evelyn effect they they started were growing
the cash crops

over here they like tobacco like indigo and Bishop raised food crops which gave it

to famines also you see great advantage the British had was in their weaponry
their technology, so we have this

collection of guns ranging from sort of you know the from different periods of the
British, so these are the instruments

of colonization of colonization primarily yes and then we move on to win Victoria

who

was the symbol of empire yes, she stood you know a participant is

called Charing Cross in front of the Punjab Assembly for that is where the British
had raised her, she was removed

from the earth symbolically and sort of a Quran Sharif has been placed over there
so this is politically very

significant you can say the lid it was an assertion of an independent Muslim

country but also it gave way to Islamic fundamentalism in coming years the

difference between the mucosal British is that the mobile scheme and even before
then the sultanas they came and

they settled here they assimilated here they are kind of

contributed they brought in their own culture and civilization, and they took from
this culture and civilization they became part of the subcontinent the

British were here as colonists they establish, they're through the civil

service which has very few people controlling a huge population Mughals became
Indianized

yeah, while the British tried to anglicize India yeah, they introduced

English language as a main language that legacy is still there yeah there is an
anglicized elite class which prefers to

speak in English or follow the English education English fashion and while the

vast majority is carrying on with their red and traditional culture absolutely

that divide is persisted and it's a very dangerous divide and what we were talking
about you know the kind of

trains the kind of extremist trains coming here I mean a lot of people who
feel very disenfranchised feels marginalized you know is that a legacy of just Brits
in Orissa because Britain

left you know what a while ago is that also contemporary you see the thing is

that it continues from British times, but it also is a reflection on people who govern
this country that in all these

years they have not been able to bridge that divide they wanted to have because
they were Punjabis a buffoon say urban

roaches seen these people taking all kinds of languages and very rooted in their
language and culture so because a

new country was being created they wanted a language not English because now
we were kind of you know getting independence from

Britain but a language that would be a common trait among all of them you see
after Pakistan when Pakistan movement

was going on they needed some slogans to differentiate from the British as well

as from the Hindu majority and so they said one religion Islam and one language

which was all do so all do was regarded as a language of the Muslims yeah and
then this is what we inherited in

Pakistan although it was not the mother tongue and Punjabi is more spoken by

more people than any other language but all do remains as the national language
and the culture which was the dominant

culture euro has broadly spoken set so this language company where is here

language Anak which language in which region it's very live it's very real it was the

language movement which started the Bangladesh movement and Pakistan was
divided further in 1971 on the

language issue because Bengali was being denied they were language of the
majority these are plaques which are sort of you

know commemorating the 50 men nameless men who fought in the create what
they are grateful but from what knowledge and

so, there are lots and lots of people and so many people been from the Punjab in
our library in the museum's ivory we have rural registers which have

to sort of you know records of all the people who went from which village usually
why to the million

British Indians by for a colonizing power for a war in Europe what made them
do it do you part of the military initially and then of course I think they were enlisting
also going on they

were the dominant power the British you see there were some people who were
against it like a Sebastian the Boers

you know who said that Britain is a sort of ruler, and we are trying to get

independence on Britain's who will join the Germans in the European narrative and
particularly in the Hollywood

narrative where so much emphasis is put on Dunkirk and battle for Arnhem and D-
day

whereas the British Indian forces they 14 Hong Kong and Singapore

and Egypt and in the Mediterranean so this huge contribution that helped

the Allied forces yeah win World War two yeah has been won airbrushed quite

significantly out of history yes and the other thing that its dominant legacy it

seems to me is the Pakistani army on the Indian arm yeah still have the

regimental structures yeah on the if you like the order and planning of the

British Army mortally suckers yes that effect when Pakistan was created, they
divided the Indian army into Pakistani

and Indian army and they were from the same regiments and same divisions we're
standing in front of this huge painting

which shows the last battle between the East India Company and Tipu Sultan from
a sort he's gone into legends because he

gave a very tough resistance to the British and he kind of died fighting and put the
four the British also defeating

Tipu Sultan was like a big statement that they made so now we move into this
gallery which kind of you know depicts

the war of independence 1857 and the heroes of that war as we know that the

certificate was a Muslim as well as the Hindu soldiers rioted against the British in
this war and it was very

cruelly sort of quenched so that was when the British consolidated their rule and
then you know the British were there

they were ruling and the template of des started their own educational system the
English language became dominant because

the British were the Muslims at the last rulers before the formal rules before
the British came that's an interesting character yes, I'm a fan and he was the one
who started

this what is called a legal yes which urged Muslims of India non-English you must

join English to accept the add me or simple yes was a judge mm-hmm

and he has said that lay down the foundation of the later day Pakistan for

the Muslims to come into the mainstream he was more liberal, and he believed in

science he tried to interpret Islamic teachings yes in the context of modern

day of science and modern day some extremists don't like Muslims wanted

security and safety they did not know what was going to happen what was good
Independence going to bring to

them so because they were a minority now and then so like you could you

would say that these are these are pictures that are commemorating and bringing
out the Muslims right they're

at different stages we in this gallery we don't see narrow of course he was part of
her he was extremely important

very stayed back in India stayed back in India the Giants of a time Nehru Gandhi

and Gina and how them reflects it and obviously it's going to be biased towards
Jenner because this is the

Lahore Museum in Pakistan but a little bit about their story in fact Gandhi and

Jinnah they were not only leading to communities or to parties but personally

also, they were very different poles apart from each other Gandhi was wearing
hardly wearing

anything while Jinnah was suited booted gentlemen in the English style a

barrister and Pandit Nehru interestingly were a socialist and he was modern

politician who really represented the modern-day India and unfortunately both

leaders Jinnah and Gandhi died very soon after the partition samara what do you

think if Jenna was stood here to die what would he make of Pakistan today I know
that Gurkha Azam certainly would

not be happy with what is happening this is not what he envisioned yes, he would
be shocked, but I've been

similarly, if Vandy came into life he would be shocked receive Moody's India

where Muslims are being killed just because they eat cow meat and if for
example Abraham Lincoln came to life in trumps America I think he will want to

go back to the other world very quickly and maybe if Churchill was alive, he will be
shocked to his bits to see Britain

we're voting for Brexit I think the British rule must be emphasized because thither
would kind of need to

just dump this piece such a complex situation thing has come to our head that
these communities which

are vying for their rights as well as asking for independence centuries of colonial
rule which kind of hero keeps

sorry of the polarity kind of you know under a lid and then you suddenly you

decide that you want to leave without resolving these issues you know one asking
reactance will come and draw a line like as if what is the Cape or what

you know and he has no experience of these things and just you know across that
map and just that's it

basically, so and that's why all those terrible kinds of you know massacres
happened and that movement

went there when people move from here from that part in this part migration as
were in the Museum of Independence and

partition will you both to give me a very quick summary of the legacy of the

violence on the slaughter and the ethnic cleansing and the genocide the partition
and that legacy today

well, the violence of course had horrendous impact on the culture and the

psyche of people on both sides especially those who were directly affected with in
Punjab so that the

violence through the firsthand stories of the generation affected by partition

has been passed on to other to younger generations but as far as the people are

concerned especially the younger generation they don't have that kind of trauma,
so they want to overcome it they

have similar ambitions they have similar interest in becoming a modern member
of

a modern society and they are reaching out to each other through art through
music through film through theater young

people are not concerned with what happened and what didn't happen and who
they just want to move ahead they
want to forge sort of you know productive alliances with to ref you know within
their country outside their country they shared so much with India

in terms of the interest Bollywood, you know and the songs that sort of in every
wedding and parks that we have it's

fascinating what you're saying is the legacy is less raw with the greater part

of the population but the political and military establishment the legacy seems to
me everything in terms of the

hostility today so we're now sitting in the Contemporary Art Gallery of the Lahore
Museum and we're sitting in front

of three very important paintings these are the pioneers of modern art in Pakistan
so beta aha and djellaba Den

and being Sonia and over there again we have zein al-abided and amrita Cheryl she
could have a legendary figure

as you can see that Martin painted in Pakistan there's a lot of

presence of women in its Martin and it continues to the present day because the
contemporary paintings there

are lots of a prominent woman like cha-cha Jessica and they're in Ayesha Khalid
and so and they then they bring

their own it was their own kind of subject and then of course the National

College of Arts in Lahore is the main art institution it's dominated by many women
principles of the National School

of Arts and very prominent and women who contributed a lot like Mr. Lima Hashmi
herself is the paint term is

NASA's and POW lashes in artists and as vandal and this is interesting because

we've had exhibitions of contemporary Pakistani visual arts practices and

visual installations and video installations in you know galleries in New York in
London the Pakistani art

marking is with your tens of millions how that develops now we have a range of

artists like Imran Qureshi as well in Russia grana and they've been exploring

a lot of their own sort of you know place in the society they've been exploring if
violence in the society the

queen is exploring their own identity women have been sort of you know pursuing
feminist issues in their art so
a lot of contemporary issues that the artists deal with are showing up in their work
actually and a lot of them

have kind of you know made a mark in internationally and their work has been
shown in many places and it's in

kind of the auction houses Bonhams just recently had an auction that was only
slowly Pakistani

art some what's particularly fascinating for me is the role the Pakistani women in
culture and it's

often been said the Pakistanis best people are its women people are a Schmo

Jahangir Salima Hashmi Benazir Bhutto Malala Yousufzai bless her Sabine

Mahmood and Praveen Raman and it seems to me there's almost a power struggle
going on of women asserting themselves

both through visual arts through politics is that playing out in art collections

this museum is reflective of what the women of Pakistan have contributed to art
and culture outside the museum I

mean the fashion world women are leading and dominating in the media they are
playing a very important role as anchors

or as producers and then in theater and the filmmaking documentary filmmaker

mean about Genoa who won Oscar twice you're an institution a joke a theatre

have a very long-standing establishment institution a new Sameera represent a

very important visual arts heritage

unsexy collection in the greatest Museum perhaps and what is the relationship

between your institutions and the next generation and Koch Studios the artists

coming out of NCA and that generation or the future culture well interestingly I

mean coke studio or similar projects they have played an important role in

promoting popular culture producing folk artists folk musician

and this devotional culture is very strong in the masses of Pakistan if you

go and visit language Emrah culture yes, it is very contemporary in terms of the

fact that young people are there, and they are dancing and singing and relating to
their heritage so these

two things are going in parallel this museum that is a public sector museum
it's highly subsidized I mean that people are like I mentioned before people from
all walks of life strong

this museum actually right and in terms of sort of you know what and we've also
tried sort of two to kind of put up

exhibitions which kind of which bring out our culture our history because we have,
we have contemporary sections also

but we are kind of role is also to bring out and interpret and have a dialogue

sort of you know with people regarding sort of our legacy our heritage so we put
up an exhibition in collaboration

between us UNESCO which brought out the culture of the Indus Valley Civilization
which was hugely popular and in that

educational institutions were involved, and young people contributed to

that exhibition in India they made designs and the routes interesting so
contemporary with rich textiles or

designers or artists or you know Pakistan fashion week which is probably big run
now they have a relationship

with an institution like the whole Museum where modernity is being influenced by
heritage

yes, juxtapose the modern with the

traditional Ahed how does a contemporary world respond in terms of

praxis to a fast-changing world this Pakistan's changing yeah, the world is

changing faster, and Pakistan is changing

faster yeah problem is with Pakistan is that it is moving in opposite direction there
is an extremist way which wants to

think take things backward and there is a contemporary modern trend which wants

to take things forward is there a third way well there is a third way which is to keep
the balance

what we do in a joke a theater we try to use international experience our

expertise as in theatre and we then link it with our traditional themes our

folklore our contemporary issue and present a product which is acceptable to

all classes' people with the Western theatre taste and people with the folk theater
taste or people with no theatre

taste you see the thing is that instead of going back to the exhibition I mentioned
that it linked the practice of
a contemporary partition is a column right, but she carries on the legacy

of Harappa in her book that is shown she runs a school for little children who kind
of you know make poetry and so if

she teaches them about her applying how it is kind of you know has a meaning in
their lives right now actually this 5000

years of heritage of legacy it's quite a heavy burden I am trying to carry it I

want to just ask you two very cheeky questions to finish what Mr. John Locke
Kipling and his son would make of

you and how the museum is run today and what do you think the museum's

future role is there was an an exhibition recently in V&A which kind of you know

twisted Mr. Kipling's legacy and so I suppose he would want to

stress the educational aspect of the museum much more than it is being done at
present I think Kipling would be

happy to see the way museum is being run and the way national college of

arts the musical arts are being run well these are two islands of our heritage

and our culture and the link without a massive depository of knowledge what do

you think Samara the role of this vital cultural institution the museum yeah is

for the future of Pakistan, I think it is central to sort of you know total us

identity this museum it's a microcosm of who we are and what we've got in our
history, and I think this museum and its

wonderful collection and its diverse collection have each object has so much to
say and speak and the linkages but

you know among all of these so this museum it is an unending source of Education
of bringing communities

together of fostering dialogue and if you know understanding we and others this
institution is a microcosm

of what we were and what we should be and what we will be yeah that's a very

nice note to end on thank you both Shaheed the team and Samara's art for

guiding me around okay well thank you so much Samara what a wonderful show
let me treat you

and works Mara two sumptuous Lahari food and the food straight in Pirani
Anarkali
I don't think I noticed so this road which is the hearts of the whole yeah where is
built by the British

yeah, similarity with Charing Cross turn but it feels like it feels like the cold

Abul about some habits this goes to Charing Cross and it's the historic center of
Love oh-o-oh busier a century

the whole modern Lord