Transcript of an audio interview with Professor Salima Hashmi (SH) conducted by AAA project researcher Samina Iqbal (SI) on 23 May 2017 at Hashmi’s residence in Lahore, Pakistan.

23 May 2017, Part 1

SI: Mrs Hashmi, we'll start part 2 for this interview. The last interview we finished where you were talking about Faiz Ahmad Faiz in the jail for first four years from 1951 to 1955. And then he was again arrested in 1958 and spent five years—five months, sorry—in the jail. And then he came out and so we are close to 1959.

SH: 1959…haan (yes). That's when he joined the Arts Council.

SI: Okay. So if you can tell us about his joining of the Arts Council and what did you see at that time. You were probably then…

SH: By that time I was in my second year of college, Lahore College, and then I went to NCA. So it was that period. Sponenberg was the principal of NCA. I had done Fine Arts for two years at Lahore College. My parents were very keen that I go to NCA which was a new place; newly organised; not very many students—certainly not any girls. I was only the second batch that had girls and there were just four of us. And there were two girls in the previous year.

SI: It was still not college at that time?

SH: Yes it was. It had become the National College of Arts in 1960.

SI: 1960, okay.

SH: Or was it earlier?

SI: I think it was…

SH: 1958 or 1959…yes, probably 1958.

SI: Okay.

SH: Because when I joined in 1960 there were two classes ahead of me.

SI: Okay, so you were in the third batch.

SH: Yes. I was in the third batch. And my father joined Lahore Arts Council, as it was called, at Alhamra.

SI: As the director?

SH: He was known as the Secretary of the Arts Council. It was a small building. And he turned what was the drawing —dining room, sort of thing—into a small auditorium with about 120 or 140 seats, and built a stage. And the upstairs—one part became an art gallery and the other, there were classes; music classes. Feroz Nizami was teaching music, the great composer. And they had Ustad Sharif Khan teaching sitar. And slowly it started becoming the hub of cultural activities in Lahore.

SI: It was the same place where the current Alhamra Arts Council is?

SH: Yes, but it was not the current building, of course. It was a very small building. It was a private house actually that had been…because they formed an association of six to eight people. Chughtai was a founding member; my father was a founding…

SI: Abdul Rehman Chughtai?

SH: Yes. And Dr M.D. Taseer, Agha Abdul Hameed, Madam Noor Jehan, Imtiaz Ali Taj— these were the founding members. It was an association. And so by law actually they owned the building and the grounds.

SI: The association you mean?

SH: Yes.

SI: What was the association called?

SH: It was called the Arts Council. It was sort of similar to what you would call an NGO today. A society actually, it was. So immediately he started activities. The first play my father had insisted that it must be Rafi Peer. Because for years Rafi Peer had moaned and groaned about how there was no theatre. So my father challenged him and said ‘okay so’…and I still remember it was Uqba ke Mezbaan, which was a play that he had written. And Safdar Mir acted in it and Ruqaiya Hassan acted in it, and Rafi Peer sahib himself was acting in it. And I still remember that the play was yet to be completely written before it had started to be staged and so Peer sahib tried to get out of the opening, on the date that was announced, because he was still writing the play. But I remember my father read him the riot act and said no, it will open on the day that we have announced. So literally it was, he was writing the last scene and the actors were kind of going on to the stage—it was that situation. But it gave Peer sahib the kind of confidence he had lost because for years he had not staged a play. He was, of course, heard on radio a lot. But not seen on the stage. So this was a great moment actually. And then after a succession of plays started with—there was Gas Light, the translation of Gas Light with Khursheed Shahid and Yasmin Imtiaz, Enwar Sajjad. These people started…Khalid Saeed Butt and Nudrat Altaf… these were the people who started appearing in plays. So there were very lively plays.

Art classes started and there was no place where…they could only do it outside. So my father built what was known as 'the Hut' which was in one of the lawns and it became a gallery space as well as a teaching studio. So you had Khalid Iqbal, Anna Molka Ahmed…you had Colin David, who was still actually a student but he started teaching.

SI: Moin Najmi?

SH: Moin Najmi. These were all teachers there, and then came Murtaza Bashir. He came from London. My father had persuaded him to come back to Pakistan. So he joined and the place in the evenings was absolutely alive. Then the music concerts started. We heard Roshan Ara Begum, Amanat Ali, Fateh Ali, Nazakat Ali, Salamat Ali. Mehdi Hassan was heard for the first time in a concert there; Haji Sharif with his vichitra veena—not on sitar, he was first known as a veena player. And then my father got people from the other parts of the country. So that is where we first heard Khamiso Khan. Nobody had heard the alghoza in Lahore. And it was soon realised the potential of the place because of Queen Sirikit of Thailand, when she came to Pakistan. When Jackie Kennedy came to Pakistan—they all came to Alhamra and they all heard music and they saw pageants—you know, the story of our dress was put up for them. And I also as a student at NCA—you know wore the Lahore Museum's collection of Swat clothes and jewellery.

SI: This is the time when you were actively getting involved as a teenager?

SH: Yes as a teenager. And my mother decided to start the puppet theatre there for children. So my father wrote plays. We recorded the plays. And the puppeteers were myself, my sister, my cousin Salma. We had among the people who lent their voices, Ruqaiya Hassan, Sikandar Shaheen, some other well-known actors also gave their voices to these plays. And they were done on Sundays. First, we did them outside, then we did them in the hall and they were always packed. Today people like Seema Iftikhar remember coming to see the plays. And Bunny Saeed remembers—Nighat Saeed Khan remembers coming to see the plays.

SI: So this is all in the early 1960s?

SH: Yes.

SI: Because the Hut was inaugurated in 1960.

SH: So 1960 to 1962—it was those years—and then in 1962 when my father became ill. By that time Amir Mohammad Khan was the governor of Punjab, the Nawab of Kalabagh, and by that time my father was very much out of favour. So he started being, you know, there was CID around. My father got very tired of that. It so happened that at the same time he was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize and he was ill so he decided that he wanted to move away for a while. I had gotten admission at the Bath Academy of Art so it was a good moment for my parents to decide to leave Pakistan.

SI: And move to England.

SH: This was the summer of 1962. Myself and my father we left to go to Moscow. And my mother stayed on to pack up the house, to sell the things and vacated the house that we'd lived in since 1947.

SI: If I can just take you back for a minute; your years at the National College of Arts while you were a student, can you talk a little bit about it? Who were your class fellows, who were teaching you, and what was the time like?

SH: Well, the switch from Lahore College which was very sheltered, very conservative way of studying art because they had people like Jamila Zafar, who became Jamila Zaidi later; Naseem Qazi, Jalees Nagi—they were our teachers. And I remember that there was a nude model, not that we had access to the nude model, but part of the studio was partitioned off. And I think it was Naseem Qazi who was making a relief with a nude model because we would peep in and have a look at this woman standing there.

SI: So the seniors would have access to…

SH: I think it was only the teachers who were doing this at that time.

23 May 2017, Part 2

SI: So Mrs Hashmi, correct me if I'm wrong, your teachers like Jalees Nagi and Naseem Qazi, they were the first graduates of Punjab University, right?

SH: That's right.

SI: So this is a fact that graduates of Punjab University were actually teaching at National College of Arts.

SH: No, no this is not National College, this is Lahore College for Women.

SI: Oh! Lahore College, I'm sorry.

SH: This was my F.A. period and for our Art History classes we used to go to Punjab University and Anna Molka Ahmed used to teach us Art History. And I still remember she used to teach us through the Banister Fletcher, you know the book, which was A History of Architecture. I still remember and she'd written a smaller book which was a sort of khulaasa—a summary—of lots of books. So that there was a sort of very simple introduction to—it was Western Art History obviously. And Jalees Nagi and Naseem Qazi taught History of Mohenjo-Daro—a sort of concise version—they taught Mughal and they taught Indus Valley Civilisation.

SI: So South Asia was the focus?

SH: Yes. And then when I came to the National College of Arts it was a totally different experience. Sponenburgh was the principal. It was run along extremely modern lines, with a very modernist Bauhaus approach that was very clear-cut because there was a studio component and there was a workshop component. There was a metal workshop, and there was a wood workshop, and students were all expected to work in wood, metal and also in stone. In the sculpture studio, we did terracotta. Our works were fired in Shahdara, the pottery. And our teachers were, because at that time the Colombo Plan, which was post-Second World War, was in effect, which meant that, there was assistance from certain countries that the U.S. was supporting. So our Head of Department who taught design was Professor James Warren, who was one of the most brilliant teachers I think I've ever come across.

SI: From England?

SH: No, he was Canadian. There was from Canada, the sculptor Mary Louise. But she'd already left by the time I came, but she'd taught there for two years. So she taught people like Zahoor and so on. Sponenburgh had brought over Abbasi—Abbasi Akhtar, as she was known then—from Packages where she was working as the Head of Design. She was brought in to teach Textiles. There was Takata who was Japanese. He was in charge of the ceramic studio. Jamila—by that time she was Jamila Zaidi, she'd got married—she came over to teach painting and drawing. So these were very highly qualified people. They had all travelled abroad. Jamila had been to the Slade; Abbasi had been to Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. There was James Warren; there was Baldinger who was History of Art and Architecture; there was Professor Boggs who was teaching architecture—he was American. Baldinger and he were American, as was Sponenburgh. But Sponenburgh had come from Alexandria where he'd been teaching at the School of Art. This was a time of these sorts of foreign teachers, really. They were almost like training the local teachers, some of whom were not very well qualified. Like there was Shah Sahib who was design, who was an old Mayo School diploma holder.

So under James Warren, he was looking at how the curriculum was being implemented, what sorts of projects were put there for students. There was new furniture. Everything was extremely structured which was not the way it was in Lahore College when we were learning Fine Arts. This was a Foundation Curriculum which was divided between learning materials and processes; about understanding the way we were seeing. We were encouraged to work from the museum. I mean something that disappeared later. But this was very much in place at that time. There was a lot of stress on going to lectures. Sponenburgh was very keen that we discover our own music, so there was a music society in which I brought records of Ravi Shankar for everybody to listen to.

23 May 2017, Part 3

SH: We were encouraged to listen to classical music. There were concerts. Roshan Ara Begum was the guest of honour at the Annual Banquet. So the idea always was for students to listen to the highest…to witness and experience the highest quality.

SI: Regional?

SH: Yes, local. Because before I joined the students had gone on an extended tour of Swat. This class in which Zahoor and Nayyar Dada and so on were in. And they had done measured drawings in Swat of the wooden mosque in Madyan—or was it in Bahrain—I'm not very sure. They had done measured drawings of mosques, of houses. They had done an extensive collection of carvings, brought artefacts; all the things that later ended up in the museum because the whole collection was then presented to the museum eventually, where it is now in the ethnographic gallery.

SI: Ahmed Khan was also part of the trip and Shakir Ali was also teaching there, right? He taught you?

SH: Yes. He didn't teach me because I didn't choose Fine Arts. I was a student of the Design Department.

SI: So can you talk about how the division was…what was the curriculum? You know, how we have it now.

SH: Yes, everybody was in the Foundation together. So, people who did Architecture, Design or Fine Arts, that was shared by everybody in the first year. And after that, because you see at that time the entry for Fine Arts was matric, but for Design and Architecture it was F.A. or F.Sc. So people who went into Fine Arts, who were ahead of us—that was the class of Zahoor who was in second year when I came. First year people there was…I can't remember who was…he was in third year, sorry. I can't remember who was a year below him. But in his class there was…Zahoor is the only person who stands out prominently. Maybe this chap who is in the Coopera Gallery now—Javaid—he may have been there. In our class there was Salim-ur-Rehman, there was Saeed Akhtar. There were two or three others who went into Fine Arts. These were people who joined after matric.

SI: But you were in the Design Department.

SH: But I went to the Design Department, yes. In my second year, I wanted to switch to Fine Arts but we were not allowed to switch, though I did take a few classes. And Jamila Zaidi was very keen that I come to Fine Arts but I wasn't allowed.

SI: So you took classes in drawing or painting?

SH: Drawing tau sab ki thee (we all had drawing).

SI: Nahi, second year main? (No, in the second year?)

SH: In the second year I did painting.

SI: With Jamila Qazi?

SH: Yes, with Jamila…Zaidi. And I remember it was a portrait that I'd done. And she said ‘you've done a very good job, it's lovely and you should be given the chance to switch.’ But I was not given the chance to switch. In my class were Saeed Akhtar, Masood Khan, Javed Najam, Jamila Hayat, Tanveer—at that time she was Tanveer Khan, now she's Tanveer Masood because they got married to one another. Who else was there? There was somebody who we used to call Scandinavian; I don't remember his actual name at all. But don't forget that the total number of students in the college was seventy-five.

SI: Total? For all three departments?

SH: Total. The whole college consisted of seventy-five students.

SI: All four years?

SH: Yes, all four years. So there were very few. I think our class had like, fifteen students. You know this was a little-known place. It had become totally deserted after 1947, really. So it was only when Sponenburgh came that the place started being rejuvenated. But even then it was known as the mistrion ka college (college for craftsmen/tradesmen). And everybody went to…the talent went to the Fine Arts department because you got a degree and here you just got a diploma.

SI: So Fine Arts offered a degree, but then in Design and Architecture…

SH: Fine Arts department across the road.

SI: Oh! You're talking about Punjab University!

SH: Yes, Punjab University. So anybody with talent went there and this was the mistrion ka college. But my parents were very clear that this was the place, primarily because of their friendship with Sponenburgh, and because they really got excited by his vision. And of course, they were great friends with Shakir Ali. So they just felt that this is the place that is truly modern. And my father sneakily felt that Anna Molka Ahmed didn't have a clue as what she was doing and she was very dictatorial, which he said ‘you won't learn anything there.’ So this was the reason why he, you know…and of course, Haji Shareef was there because Sponenburgh brought him over from Punjab University. He used to teach there also.

SI: So he was in Punjab University?

SH: Yes, yes, he used to teach there. He was retired from there. And so Sponenburgh brought him here. Sponenburgh had great faith and a great passion for history and tradition.

23 May 2017, Part 4

SH: Very, very keen that the students should actually be made aware of what was good. He was not a worshipper of the past by any means. But he believed in research and he believed in the discovery of what was worthy. And because he was a great proponent of looking at the crafts, the living craft, so every chance he got he'd draw attention to that legacy. And that's how the first of the exhibitions, which were called…the first exhibition that I saw at NCA was ‘Five Thousand Years of Horse and Rider’ which was done at the time of the Horse and Cattle Show.

SI: So was the exhibition of photographs?

SH: No. These were all kinds of artefacts, which involved the horse and rider—rubbings, photographs also. Drawings taken from actual objects and things like seals. You name it, wherever there was in history, the horse and rider in the visual arts in this region, it was an exhibition of that. At that time I had not joined NCA. I was still a student. And then the other big exhibition was, of course, the Swat exhibition which was done.

SI: So just to clarify, when you say that at that time you didn't join NCA, you were a student at Lahore College?

SH: Yes, I did my F.A.

SI: You just came to the exhibition to see it?

SH: Yes, I came to the exhibition. It was after I did my F.A. that I became eligible… Mathematics was taught in Foundation Year. English was taught in foundation year. Introduction to the Visual Arts was taught. And I still remember that the first lecture was given by Sponenburgh himself. And he was a very mesmerising speaker—very, very mesmerising. You really got inspired listening to him as he drew the threads together from all of the visual arts to show they were totally interconnected. And that was the basic vision of NCA.

SI: So, I'm just curious, his lecture must be in English and so, what is like about your other class fellows? I mean, just given the way things were. Even today, not many people speak English.

SH: Well I often think that that class in which there was Zahoor and so on…because in our class there were I think apart from a few people, there was Salim-ur-Rehman, there was Saeed, there was Steven Almas—he was a Christian boy who went and eventually settled down in Canada and he died some years ago—and there was one other person. These were the four people who were in Fine Arts. Everybody else was in Design and Architecture and everybody had done F.A. and F.Sc. So people knew English, they could certainly understand and follow what was going on. And they had an English entry test. I think for people like Saeed and so on, it was a struggle.

But still, I think that Sponenburgh had a particular charisma. He was one of those people who almost like could get by with simply the content and the way of delivery, people just understood. There was a kind of osmosis in the way that he could get his message across. And he had great, how should I say, sort of almost like he was…everybody was scared of him like anything. And that included Shakir Ali and it included everybody, because he was just such a perfectionist and he did not take sloppiness of any kind. He was strict, he was a disciplinarian, but he set certain standards I think which is why there evolved a certain culture in NCA.

It was the first time I had encountered it ever. And therefore I think the transition when you went abroad was not that difficult at all. Because already for two years I had been part of a way of learning and a way of disciplining oneself which was totally absent at the F.A. level. It was the way we do it—everything is at half pace. It was not—when you entered NCA you felt the energy and you felt that okay you had to be bang on time—no question. A rule was a rule, it had to be followed its kind of thing. And I think that's what set the place apart. And that's what kept it going for a very, very, very, long time. And the original vision of that interconnectedness of making sure that the architecture student could listen to music and could be lectured to about film and could enjoy a painting was something that was absolutely intrinsic to teaching and learning at NCA, which completely set it apart.

SI: So you spent two years at NCA. You didn't finish your diploma there?

SH: I spent two years. I didn't because by that time…

SI: 1962?

SH: 1962, yes. My parents were keen that I go abroad and I think because they were…the political situation being what it is; I think my father was already making up his mind to leave. So they asked Sponenburgh's advice that in England, where should I go. And he suggested the Bath Academy of Art; a very unusual choice. It was not a world famous place like Slade or Royal College or whatever. But he told my parents that this is where I can see her going because it's a very beautiful place out in the country and there's a revolutionary, sort of, academic order happening there—evolution.

He knew the Ellis', this is this couple, the principal Clifford Ellis, now they're bringing out a book about them—who had again a very visionary approach to the teaching of art and design. And the course I eventually took up was an Art Education course. And I'm so glad because the best artists of that time were all teaching there. They used to come down from London, teach for two days and then go back. So that's how one had the big names in art coming and teaching at Corsham. And nobody believed it that this sleepy village, 17th-century village with cottages and so on, had an amazing faculty. And Michael Tippett, the greatest English composer, lived in the village. So you know you had Jacqueline du Pré came and played for us.

And it was this wonderful 17th-century manor house that had been given on loan from the family of Lord Methuen for the Bath Academy of Art because its own buildings in Bath had been bombed during the war. So that was where we were housed, with beautiful Reuben’s and things on the walls. So it was quite enchanting. So for me after two years at NCA, to take off and to leave, it was sort of quite difficult because I was a very sheltered, very reclusive child. Never went anywhere on my own, so to make that transition was quite tough; to go right into a sleepy English countryside and be on my own. But by that time my parents had moved to London. So they were not that far away.

SI: But in terms of academia you said it wasn't that difficult—going to NCA and then moving on to England.

SH: That's true because I think that the work habits inculcated at NCA—the fact that you had strict discipline—and really, a thoroughly modern approach to the visual world of art and design is something that just stood me in great stead. So I didn't feel that I came from a total unknowing situation at all. I fit right in in terms of the academic. What was tough for me was the rest; being on my own, being extremely lonely, all the things that happen to people when they leave home. So that was difficult.

SI: You were only twenty then.

SH: No, I was nineteen…eighteen.

SI: Eighteen?

SH: Yes, eighteen and a half. By that time though, in Lahore, I had started doing theatre. I acted in plays in Alhamra. Three plays I did with Naeem Tahir and Yasmin Imtiaz and that's where I had met Shoaib. So I was involved with him when I went to England.

SI: At that young age?

SH: At that age, yes.

SI: But then you were also very reclusive.

SH: Yes, yes, and so was he actually. So we acted opposite one another—the final cliché— and that's how we met. But we were friends as to begin with, but it was about the time when I was getting ready to leave that I felt, okay, this is more than…and he got a scholarship to go to The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art even though he was teaching economics at Government College. So he went for a year. He was in London while I was at Corsham, near Bath. So we would meet sometimes, like once a month or something. And that's when he told his mother to write to my father with the proposal. So we were like okay we will get married once I come back. So that was the arrangement. But of course when he came back, I had two more years and that was quite difficult. But then I was very deeply into what I was doing. I worked tremendously hard. So the school was happy with me and enjoyed the programme and I was…

SI: So your switch was also to Fine Arts there, right?

SH: I had primarily gone to do design when I left but they sort of did their own tests and various things and they felt that I was suited to painting and to photography.

SI: Okay.

SH: So I did major in painting and in photography. Photography much against my will because it involved equipment and I felt I can't cope with equipment. But eventually yes, and I did filmmaking also for my last year. And I actually made a film, a short one. And because the structure was such I worked with the greatest textile artists ever, Sheila Hicks, who came to do a workshop there and I attached myself to her. And so I fell in love with fibre and then we went to Paris to be in her studio. I worked with her on textile, on making off-loom works. It was part of an exhibition in Zurich and then later in London. She was really one of the legends in contemporary fibre artists. So Corsham gave one the opportunity to really crisscross across disciplines. I took theatre. You could do puppetry or theatre; I took theatre. One course I did in that also. So there was the kind of approach was exactly what suited me because I was going to be a teacher. So we did teaching practice also. My thesis was to do with educational problems of immigrant children and I chose a child in Birmingham—a Pakistani origin child—to study and to observe and to write about. Which later stood me in great stead because when Shoaib and I went back. When Shoaib was at LSE and I went to teach, I became the lecturer for the Inner London Education Authority on problems of immigrant children. I lectured to teachers all about that. But…yes…so painting and photography…So I travelled to Europe and hitchhiked.

SI: All by yourself?

SH: No, we had friends. We hitchhiked—four friends hitchhiked to Spain. Then one year we went by train to…it was the year there was a Documenta, Venice Biennale—so we travelled with this Kenyan friend of mine and I had had one roommate who was German, so this time I stayed with her. And then time went by. I came back and got married almost immediately afterwards.

SI: And this is what year now?

SH: 1965.

SI: 1965, okay. So your programme was three years?

SH: Three years.

SI: It was a degree?

SH: No, it was a diploma.

SI: In design, in…

SH: In Art Education. And at that time Bath didn't have a university so we were examined by Bristol University. It was called a Certificate in Education which was recognised as being equal to a B.A. At that time it was University Grants Commission over here, so they recognised it as being equivalent to a degree. So that is what I did.

23 May 2017, Part 5

SI: So you got married in 1965?

SH: 1965 in Karachi because when I came back my parents had already settled in Karachi. They left in 1964.

SI: They left England in 1964? Came back to Karachi?

SH: England, yes, they came back to Karachi.

SI: So they only stayed in England for two years?

SH: Two years, yes, that's it. In fact, my father stayed even less. My mother stayed on a bit because he travelled a lot. He went to Cuba, he went to other places and eventually, he came back to Karachi. They had never lived in Karachi—this was their first—so they lived there and that’s where I came back, got married in Karachi, came to Lahore. We had our walima (the marriage banquet) in Lahore. We had barely come back from a four or five days honeymoon in Nathiagali when the 1965 war started. And so there I was very anti- war, very pacifist and everybody around me is going foaming at the mouth. You know, being patriotic, and I am not, and I told Shoaib ‘I hope you won't start thinking of joining the army.’ So he just looked at me, as if, I don't think so. But I found it ridiculous. And of course, history has confirmed what I sensed at the time, that this was an adventure that was started by Pakistan. And they really seriously thought that by sending these people into Kashmir, that the Kashmiris would rise up and join it. And it didn't happen. And they were also assured that India would not attack Pakistan, which of course they did.

There we were in Lahore, because television had started by then and Shoaib had a curfew pass. He used to do a weekly programme. So we had a nice time. We had just gotten married. There used to be pitch blackout. And most of the elite of Lahore had left Lahore. Deserted it and crossed the Ravi Bridge and gone and settled in Pindi and run for cover. So Lahoris, thaith (pure) Lahoris, were left who were basically the working class—those who couldn't leave. And we had a fine time. We would go to the cinema and there would just be the two of us sitting in the cinema. One night I remember, Muhammad Ali the actor, he invited us to come and see him and then we stayed on. He gave us his air-conditioned— this was in No. 4 G Block, Model Town— he used to live here. So we stayed in his house overnight because it was blackout and curfew. We watched the dogfight on the roof and heard people going nuts. It was a pretty short war. But a lot of people died unnecessarily. And the chapter was closed. By that time Shakir had asked me to come and teach at NCA. But because of the war, there were no appointments. They were banned. So I taught for free. I taught in the photography, and I taught Art History, and I taught a drawing course. So I taught Shireen Pasha's class, I taught Shehnaz Ismail's class, and I taught Farooq Qaiser's class.

SI: And we are still in 1965?

SH: Hang on—no, sorry, this is—no, I'm getting it wrong. I'm going to 1971. I'm telling you 1971. What happened—Shehnaz—yes, I taught her.

SI: Shehnaz Ismail?

SH: Ismail. But I'd come back, yes Sheeru was in second year, Shehnaz was in third year and Farooq Qaiser was not anywhere on the horizon. But the thing that I did introduce was—because I was so keen on theatre and I'd done some—that woh hamain pata chala ke (we learnt that) Madam Liu Shaoqi, the wife of the Chinese president, was going to visit NCA. So we were asked to put on a show. So I decided to do a kind of a music-and-mime performance. So we did the different soobas (provinces) of Pakistan, and then of course at that time East Pakistan was still there also. So we had songs. Atif, the designer who lives in Canada now, he was a great musician. So we went to Radio Pakistan. We learnt songs from each of the provinces. And we had the dresses of each province and some mime of each province, which we presented.

SI: Where did you learn it?

SH: Main ne theatre ki aik class li thee na wahan pe, England main (I had taken a class in theatre in England). So I put that into the mimes that I had learnt there. So I had put that into operation, as it were. And the thing was a great hit. But the funny thing was that we were going to sing the Chinese national anthem, because we were going to sing the Pakistani national anthem when she walked in and Mrs Nusrat Bhutto was with her because she was the wife of the Foreign Minister. So we were told that there was a Chinese diplomat who was staying at falana (so-and-so) hotel and he's waiting for you and you can go and l learnt it from him. So off we trooped. Shehnaz and so and so…Mrs Abbasi was with us. So we went to his room and he taught us, the group. And barhay dair tak yeh sab laug gaatay rahay (and they all sang it for a long time). For years afterwards, we used to start off. Abhi bhi agar tum Shehnaz ko kaho gee na (even now if you ask Shehnaz), she'll start singing. And so he taught us line by line. We didn't have recorders at that time so we wrote it down in Urdu. Anyway, practice.

We came out, the CID was waiting for us, that how dare you go into…because you see the Chinese were a Communist country and we were an American ally. So they gave us hell. That how dare you go and see a member of the Communist…even I think of China as our best friends now. And it was then Mrs Abbasi who decided—she was a teacher of course— she said’ you think we don't know how to conduct ourselves? You think we've never been in a hotel?’ And she gave him hell. So then he just sort of ‘no, no, no, no, I didn't…’ Then I got it maybe thorha sa main bhi staff member hoon (maybe I should too as I am also a member of the staff), because there were only two women teachers at that time at NCA. So I also said that ‘how dare you say this and falana (et cetera/so and so).’ So he was implying that we were spying or something. Or he was making us into spies or something like that. But that was Pakistan's stance. We were very firmly capitalist pithoos (toadies/sycophants/stooges).

The funny thing was that when we started singing this in front of the audience, nobody knew what we were singing, including the Chinese. They looked kind of nonplussed; what is this? But then because our audience had been told that we were going to sing the Chinese national anthem, so they all stood up. So then the Chinese also stood up. And then they kind of realised that we were singing something close to the Chinese national anthem and they sort of very tentatively started singing whatever it was that we were singing. But we were very full of spirits. That whole performance started something at NCA which was to do a performance to music. So that's how mime started there. And then when after eight or nine months we left because Shoaib had got a scholarship to go to LSE in London to do his masters and PhD, so we left. But then after I left, then Farah Diba came to Pakistan and they did the same thing all over again. And I don't know if they learnt the Irani national anthem or not but I got these letters saying that we did the same programme again and it was a great hit. So those were my two years at NCA post- England. And then we were in England for three years while Shoaib was studying.

SI: From 19…?

SH: 1966 to 1969. We came back in 1969.

SI: I just wanted to interject one more thing; you said there were only two women teachers at the NCA between 1965 and 1966.

SH: Yes. I don't think…because you see before that when I was studying there was Jamila Zaidi, Mary Louise had gone but there was Abbasi Abadi. Those were the two women at that time. And then when I came Jamila Zaidi had gone to live…I think they went to Ghana or Nigeria. I think she left for Nigeria with her husband. So then there was only Abbasi and myself.

SI: Were you also writing at this time? Like you know, when you were teaching at NCA, did you start…because you know, we did find your writing when you were…

SH: No. That was the first time when I went back to England. That was my first piece.

SI: Post 1966?

SH: Yes. So then when we went back to England we stayed in this flat which belonged to friends of my parents, Mr and Mrs Afzal. So I started looking for a job. It was very obvious that I was not going to get an art school job because there was just no way. So somebody suggested to me that you know why don't you do school teaching. So I applied to the Inner London Education Authority and I went to give the interview.

They were very pleased with the interview but they said ‘we want to do six weeks of induction course, which we do for all teachers who come from other parts of the world. I did the induction course.’ They posted me to a school, which was not too far from my house. And so I taught there for three years—five-year-olds. And I taught everything through the art. I taught mathematics through art. I taught history through art. I taught religion through art. And two or three times there was a school inspection by the education inspectors and they gave me such a glowing report because they said ‘we never thought of modern math being taught by the three kings during Christmas time and tall king, middle size king, little king’ and so and so forth. So I'd done a lot of…I really put my art into the teaching of all subjects. I was also especially successful with what is known as difficult children. So, children who had huge disciplinary problems or had IQ problems, they were sent to me. And in one famous case, the child was declared educationally subnormal. I spent time with her.

She was a West Indian child. And at the end of about three months, she was reading. And I sent her up to the headmistress. She was just totally floored and she wrote a long report. It was simply because nobody had ever spoken to the child because her mother was a nurse. There was no father. And the mother used to be on night duty. So when the child went home from school she used to be on her own and she didn't know how to speak really. She spoke a strange kind of gibberish. And by my teaching her in the morning because her mother used to just leave her, and I was there an hour before putting the classroom ready, so she used to put it ready with me. So it was always, okay Jennifer, where should we put the paper. Then she slowly started speaking. And I was sure that she couldn't read. But she had a best friend who was quite sharp, a little child who had started to read. So Jennifer wanted a book also so I would give it to her. And pretty soon I noticed that she would turn the page at the right place. So then I tested her and she could read. And I tested her with the equipment like ‘Take a Word’; would she recognise it and yes, she could. And the headmistress could not believe it. So they wrote this whole thing about—I think she probably got a pat on the back from the educational authority because the child was moved up from educational subnormal to be totally normal.

But I learnt a lot about methods of teaching and learning. And I applied exactly the same thing at NCA. The only difference was that they were adults and not kids but the methodology was ditto. So those years, which were very tough, there were forty kids in the class, and in a school where they were…it was a mixed school so there were some children of professionals, but there was also working class. It was also what they called population in which there were Greeks, there were West Indians. No Indians or Pakistanis at that time. So it was a difficult school but I found that it taught me a lot.

SI: So you taught there for three years?

SH: I taught there for three years. By that time I was expecting a baby and by that time we'd decided to come back to Pakistan.

SI: 1969 you came back?

SH: 1969 we came back. And I started teaching again at NCA in 1970 as soon as I'd had Yasir. In fact just a little bit before.

SI: And then you joined NCA as…?

SH: Then I was teaching in the Fine Arts department.

SI: And you were teaching drawing?

SH: I was teaching drawing and painting both. And then I just taught there for thirty years after that.

SI: What was the progression like? Like from what you had seen before? From two teachers to what was the number of female faculty?

SH: There was only me. Abbasi had left by that time. There had been some big, huge phadda (fight) at NCA in which Ijaz ul Hassan had left and Abbasi had left. There was some big row of some big supposed conspiracy against…she'd got involved with this Agha Hassan Abadi, not Agha Hassan, the other Abadi who was some maulvi. And there was a students' rebellion and 1968 main tau beech main main wo bhi tau garhbarh thee na Ayub Khan ke khilaaf (there was also all the mess going on against Ayub Khan in 1968); so ten years of Ayun Khan, and riots, and places were closed and the rest of it. So we came back when Yahya Khan was in place. So she had been asked to leave and she was in another government department. So I was the only female teacher.

SI: So how many male faculty members in NCA?

SH: I don't remember the number.

SI: Okay. Any approximate…ten, fifteen, twelve?

SH: I would say there must be about fifteen because there were quite a few ustads.

SI: But only you as a female faculty?

SH: Only me.

SI: And what was it like, then?

SH: A lot of male chauvinists. A lot of male chauvinists. And a slight very uppity attitude to me. And there was a class division there with the Aitchison College teachers, so that was Kamil Khan Mumtaz and Mian Ijaz ul Hassan. And yes it was quite a strange kind of situation.

SI: So Shakir invited you to come and teach there? Because he was still the principal.

SH: Yes. He was the principal.

SI: So this would be really strange for the male faculty members to have just one person…

SH: Yes, well I knew most of them from the time that I went.

SI: Besides Shakir Ali. Zahoor was teaching there?

SH: Zahoor had still not come back because he had gone too. But in '65, of course, he was very much there when I joined.

SI: Earlier? The first time?

SH: Yes the first time. But yes on the surface everybody welcomed me. Absolutely. Masood was there. Masood Khan was there who was my class fellow. Saeed was my class fellow.

SI: Saeed Akhtar?

SH: You know Ahmed Khan I knew from before. But there was a kind of…Salahuddin of course I knew, he was my senior.

SI: The ceramist you're talking about—Salahuddin.

SH: Yes. Mian Salahuddin, who in fact was the most difficult person but with me, he was always very good. But I found that there were strange undercurrents, which I was unaware of, and they were all the result of that turmoil that had happened at NCA while I was away. So I didn't understand all of that. All I knew was that everybody had turned against Abbasi and so I left it at that even though she was my mother's friend and so on and so forth and I met her outside college a couple of times. But there was a lot of animosity against her.

SI: Because she was involved with somebody?

SH: It was to do with, I mean I really never ever got a clear picture, but it was to do with the fact that she started a business, some shop that she had opened and in which students were giving their work and her husband who was that maulvi was kind of seen as kind of somebody who was very authoritative and interfering in the work and the college. That was sort of what I gathered. But because I didn't want to get into the politics of it, so I never ever neither discussed it with anybody nor did I ever ask. All I knew was that there was a big rift between her and Shakir and they didn't speak to one another. And I gathered that because he never said anything and I didn't meet her, you know like, out of the way, so I didn't know…nor did I want to inquire because I wanted to keep myself extremely neutral. Many, many, years later she blamed Ijaz ul Hassan for that, whatever it was.

SI: So coming back to the art scene, when you came back in 1965—the first time when you came back after your diploma, were you painting at that time? Were you a practising artist?

SH: I was.

SI: Okay. And then when you came back the second time, so I wanted to see how did you see the progression, one in terms of NCA enrolment, you mentioned it was like only seventy-five students when you were a student. So how did the number increase?

SH: 1965-66 when I came the enrolment was much healthier but it was still very much not the kind of—how should I say—posh place, but there were people like I mean for example, Shireen Pasha was the exception. Shireen Khand. There was Shehnaz. There was Ghazala Rehman. There was Theo who later married Nayyar Ali Dada. There was an old—younger sister of one of my Queen Mary schoolgirls who was Lubna Azam, very gorgeous and very self-conscious beauty. So there were these beautiful girls, accomplished girls. But nobody in the male students was of that class. You know there was Huma who later married Ahmed Khan, a great friend of Shehnaz's. So there was this quite an odd thing that there were all these girls who came from well-to-do families. There were no boys who came from well-to-do families. Except there was, well there was Naeem Pasha who then left after second year. He went to Engineering University.

SI: Nayyar Ali?

SH: Nayyar was there. But I think he had already left. He no longer was teaching. So there was this kind of odd divide.

SI: So for today's interview, the last part I want to bring you back and then we'll start again. Can you talk about the progression of art? What you experienced while you were in school. So one big advantage you have is being the daughter of Faiz, you were right in the middle of everything; all the art activities, all the intelligentsia visiting your house. Can you talk a little bit…we know the Lahore Art Circle was very strongly connected to Faiz. So I want to hear from you, like what did you see around yourself?

SH: Well the Lahore Art Circle thing was when I was a student at NCA and before that in Lahore College. So what we saw at that time was very much a new kind of bubbling up of a movement which was modern. There was Murtaza Bashir—a very wonderful way of painting which was very unusual and very peculiar to him. There were people like Moin Najmi; Aesthetes—absolute aesthetes—Shakir, who represented a complete break from tradition. And all of these people were very clear that what they were doing was new, was fresh and was not connected to the past. They were very emphatic about that.

And yet you find that there is an interest in the past because if you look at what NCA was doing, it was connecting to everything that was there in the craft tradition. Artisans at work were the exhibitions that were done on the design side, not in NCA, but this was done at what was then the Lahore Gymkhana. So they brought in artisans who actually were making daris or they were doing this or doing that and they were from various places. And Begum U. Karamat I remember was a mover and shaker. Her husband used to work in the Punjab University and she was with Abbasi, Begum Akhtar Riazuddin—they formed a nucleus of women who felt that these crafts newly interpreted could be used in modern interiors. So they were looking at the development of furnishings, fabrics, to be worn, as well as to be put in the interior. They were looking at new kinds of floor coverings. They were looking at wall hangings, you know, linen. They had brought in potters doing pottery. So this was all there were these artisans at work.

And that show was a blockbuster. It was in Lahore Gymkhana, which was now where the Quaid-e-Azam Library is, that was the Lahore Gymkhana at that time. And later, after I left and went to England they had a second year of that which was held at Alhamra where again they brought in…and that again was a success. It was a real eye-opener for both the elite Lahoris who would rather have chandeliers and they discovered—re-discovering their craft tradition, as well as people from the old city and those people who suddenly saw that the craftsman had also something to offer.

You know the dhootkaara huwa (held in disdain) craftsman as it were. So this was a kind of pioneering role that NCA played together with these women in the community who were considered influential begums, if you like. So that was the design aspect and in the Alhamra Arts Council, you had these shows which would be happening regularly. You know various artists, and don't forget this was the time when East Pakistan was very much part of Pakistan. So you had shows of artists from there. In fact, most of the exhibitions were really of artists who were making that trip across from Dhaka and Chittagong and showing their work here. And they were influencing, say, something like printmaking. Because you had several printmaking shows, which here people were simply not doing it, or it was very rudimentary.

So that was it. Zainul Abedin was a great presence. He was on our board of governors at NCA. He had just started talking about starting the department in Peshawar, but certainly, he was a very benign influence. And of course, we had two teachers, two people— students—from East Pakistan. One was Sabi-ur-Rehman and the other was Bashirul Haq; one in design and one in architecture. So there was this…it was much more diverse…Pakistan was much more, you got a sense of greater diversity even though by that one unit had been made and Nawab Kalabagh was the governor of one unit and he ruled it with an iron fist.

But NCA somehow had that philosophy of discovering all the provinces. Which was why somebody like Ahmed Khan and Zubairi—his class fellow, who was from Textile—they went into the Cholistan. They did this extensive study and collection. There were no roads at that time. So they were given a jeep. And that collection was eventually gifted to Lok Virsa where it still is. And there whole show was based on—Ahmed was a graphic designer and Zubairi was textile—totally based on their studies in discoveries in the Cholistan. So this sort of closeness with looking at communities which were from different regions of Pakistan, it was very much the backbone of the way NCA actually located itself. Even though it was firmly in the Punjab and it was ruled by the Department of Technical Education in Punjab.

The great struggle we had as students was to have it relocated, because it was in the Department of Industries, to relocate it and bring it into the Education Department. We had to demonstrate. We had to sit outside the Lahore Civil Secretariat and raise slogans and say we refuse to get up from here, and go and meet secretaries and what not. So that was a different part of our struggle for the academic development. We had a students' union and I was a secretary. So that was a role that we played in the development of NCA because at that time the move was to turn it into a vocational school because Sponenburgh left in 1961 and Shakir was made the principal after a long struggle. So there that thing keh college ko bachana hai (we must save/protect the college). And the same thing kind of happened in '71 also, because again it was ke jee is ko Fine Arts ko dai do Punjab University ko, aur architecture dai do Engineering University ko, aur is ko vocational training centre bana do, waghaira waghaira (hand over Fine Arts to the Punjab University and architecture to Engineering University and make this a vocational training centre, etc.) The same struggle started all over again.

SI: In 1971?

SH: Yes. It kept sort of coming back—the same questions. Because it wouldn't be easily located anywhere, so that was an issue. The people who were around were very much S. Safdar who would often be found at NCA talking to Shakir, being with him, Moin Najmi. Then there was the group that came out of the Fine Arts Department—Ijaz ul Hassan, Khalid Iqbal and so on—who, they would all meet at Alhamra. They wouldn't come to NCA because Anna Molka Ahmed hated Sponenburgh.

But in the evening it was all one big crowd. And there would be fights, and there would be arguments, and there would be alignments and realignments, and in that was also— Shemza had come back from England with Mary Shemza in tow and she stayed with us for a while. And I have that memory of my mother teaching her what Pakistan was all about. And she was a very smart—to me—very bohemian looking artist. And she had an exhibition also. There was an exhibition in which there were three women artists. I think Mary Katrina was one; Sponenburgh's wife was another, she was half Vietnamese, his wife, and half French; and I'm not sure, I think Abbasi was the third one in that show.

SI: Do you remember the year?

SH: Must have been 1961 because they went away at the end of 1961.

SI: So in general understanding, in the mainstream, who were the cream artists considered then, people looked at them. Of course, Chughtai…

SH: Yes, Chughtai was always hovering in the background, in everybody's… Allah Bakhsh was really not taken seriously because he was just not…

SI: Considered as an artist, he was just a master.

SH: Yes. Haji Sharif had his first exhibition at Alhamra.

SI: Which Faiz curated?

SH: Which Abba (father) had. And I remember Han Suyin, the Chinese writer of Love is a Many-Splendoured Thing, she was visiting Lahore and it was 1962 and she came to see my father. He was ill. And she mentioned some famous writer, I don't remember who because she was bending down to talk to my father and said ‘I am a friend of’ so and so, and so Abba said ‘of course’. Then she visited NCA also and I remember it must have been the thesis show because the collection from the Cholistan was all laid out, exhibited, and she saw those, you know those typical Cholistani shoes which have a point at the back and the front is…

SI: Khussa (moccasin) kind.

SH: Yes, but you with…and they are bright…she looked at that and she couldn't believe her eyes. She said ‘I had a pair of slippers just like these when I was a child.’ So we were all trying to figure out how this connection happened; from China to Thar. They had gone deep in the desert to collect these. Of course, now you can get them everywhere but at that time you simply couldn't. We'd never seen those before in our lives. And she kept saying I can't believe it. Where is this connection? And she pointed out that these are dragon's eyes. Us ke ooper jo pattern tha (the pattern they had on them)—those are dragon's eyes, so it was an interesting learning moment. So these were the artists. There were shows very often. There were shows at the Fine Arts Department Punjab University also; because I remember one or two—attending a couple of them. These were the main places. I believe before partition a place that they used to have exhibitions was YMCA also.

SI: The Mall Road?

SH: But during my student years I never saw that. Lahore Museum had a show of Rembrandt prints. I remember going to a couple of shows there also. And the other place used to be the USIS—United States Information Services—which at that time was in Bank Square at the back of where is now Askari Bank.

SI: Model Town? Bank Square, Model Town?

SH: No, Bank Square on The Mall.

SI: On The Mall, I see.

SH: Yes. British Council was there. USIS was there. These were the two main…

SI: So they were adjacent?

SH: Yes. And USIS was the only air-conditioned place so it was the most popular library in Lahore; chock-a-block always. This was…1962 tak yeh tha (up till 1962). 1965 we were only here for just eight or nine months, it was post-the war of 1965 so things were very quiet and Noor Khan who was then the Air Force Chief he said, ‘why have not the artists done any patriotic paintings?’ So we said ‘we were kept away from the war. We have no idea what happened.’ So he flew us all off to Sargodha. We went off in a plane to Sargodha where he took us to meet the pilots who were the war heroes. And showed us this is how we did in this Pathankot, and this is how we did that, and this is what happened. And after that, I don't think anybody did any painting. Maybe Colin David did some painting. So there were not that many exhibitions. I'm trying to remember in that year, 1965, when I was here what were the major exhibitions that I saw. Nothing that really left an impression on me that I can place. I mean I can vaguely think of important exhibitions…I think they were 1970, 1971 …like Lubna Agha was one of them that I remember. Her work made a lot of impression at that time because it was fresh, it was bold, and it was abstract. Can't really, really, remember.

SI: So maybe the next part we can start from 1970 onwards. So we can look at the political situation, Zia's arrival and all of that.

SH: Yes, okay.