Calligraphers: Their art forms dying, these maestros live with fond memories

Chowk is a bustling market, three kilometers from Bara Imambara in Lucknow. Most tourists and lots of locals head towards the congested market where crumbling old havelis and tiny shops share space with roadside vendors. It is where they pore over mountains of pastel cotton and georgette with the finest of chikankari work – also called shadownwork.

But there is another very fine art tucked away in this old part of Lucknow. Meander through this labyrinth of narrow lanes, and one will reach the residence of 75-year old Hashim Akhtar Naqvi, Hashim Bhai to everyone in the locality and the many who know him as an architect and master calligrapher.

There is a chance that you will be greeted by his wife Shahana as she lovingly and carefully takes out a bundle of closely held paper sheets, separates them one by one, airs them for a while, before ensuring that the wooden boxes where they came from have been treated with her secret ingredients, to ensure the sheets do not get damaged—by weather or termite or even time. For the precious papers are Hashim Bhai’s labour of love, and even more. They are the calligrapher’s prayer—“Bismillah ir rehman ir raheem”. The first sentence in the Holy Quran, the four words said together mean “In the name of God, the most beneficent and merciful”. For all the 6000 plus calligraphy art that he has done read just that – Bismillah ir rehman ir raheem. It is incidentally also the way he signs.

Ironically, as the market for chikankari embroidered garments and unstitched fabrics and sarees grows exponentially, giving work to many, the art of calligraphy is dying. He himself devotes his life to it only to ensure that he can keep it alive for as long as he can.

“Earlier the Urdu papers that used to be published, there were “katibs” who wrote the “kitabs” by hand, with bamboo pens and nibs; the pens were made of these two, and the newspapers were written with these, they were written on yellow papers and were lithographed and their reverse prints were taken out on stone and then they would be printed in the printing presses. But now because calligraphy is not linked to such livelihood or employment, there is very little use of calligraphy,” elaborates the architect who chose to spend more time beautifully writing the Bismillah in Urdu, Persian and Arabic alphabets.

Hashim Bhai has spent enough time in Iran to explore the beautiful calligraphy there, and he has seen a lot of calligraphy work of Japan, China and some other countries. But he took a different route, and every word he designs and paints is the first sentence of Quran Sharief, “Bismillah ir rehman e Rahim”. “I started with that sentence, and have done more than 6000 different calligraphic designs of that,” he says. It is almost like it has become his signature style.

He oozes passion for calligraphy even over the phone. “There are two types of calligraphy, one is the conventional one, and the other non-conventional. In the conventional one, some names have been set, and we are expected to remain within those parameters; but in the non-conventional one there is a bit of liberty that we have been given, to design it our way. I have written the Bismillah in over 6000 ways, in the non-conventional form, and figure in the Limca Book of Records,” the calligrapher says. There was an international competition on the conventional art of calligraphy in J&K in 1989 where Hashim got the first prize.

Prince Amyn Mohammad Aga Khan, younger brother of the Aga Khan IV, describes the endless possibilities of calligraphy, in a book on the Treasures of the Aga Khan Museum: Arts of the Book and Calligraphy, thus:

“Just as the Quran and its message pervade every aspect of a Muslim’s life, secular or religious, material or philosophic and abstract, almost any physical object can bear calligraphy, whether sacred or secular, whatever its size and use. Calligraphy is indeed ubiquitous in the arts of Islam. It is perhaps most visible in architecture and particularly in places of worship, but it is present on all forms of decorative arts – from coins to jewellery, textiles, weapons and armour and even household utensils, painting and, of course, on all manner of written documents such as manuscripts, scientific documents, political acts and so forth.”

But Hashim has taken it even beyond that huge scope. The zeal to do all it takes to keep the art alive has resulted in Hashim pushing his boundaries and innovating his brand of calligraphy.

One such is what he calls “linguistic calligraphy”. He has, for example, written Bismillah in such a way that when you see it from far you will think something is written in Hindi, and think you can read it from left to right. But in fact, the letters are in Urdu, Arabic or Persian, and so have to be read from right to left, he explains. “I have collected some of the letters of all the regional languages of India and also some foreign languages—English, Chinese, Japanese. By amending them a little bit, I have used them in calligraphy. Anyone who can read Urdu, Persian or Arabic will be able to read the Bismilla in linguistic calligraphy style, and they will read it from right to left only, whatever the language,” he explains.

Hashim has used the letters of Bengali, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and other alphabets, and is happy at the response these have evoked at exhibitions. Personally, he cannot read any of those languages, but has picked up letters that will fit into his art.

It is almost as if calligraphy came to him naturally! When he was a student at the Lucknow College of Arts and Crafts – a part of which later became the Government College of Architecture, Hashim’s s doodling was very different from what
most students do. He simply wrote his name in different ways, and when his classmates saw his notebook, they wanted him to write their names too in all those very classy and impressive calligraphic style of his. That is how it all really started, but he got into it seriously, and to save the art form, in 1986. It was not with Bismillah, but the number 726.

“I took up the number 726—in the Bismillah, every letter of the alphabet has been given a number, and 726 is the total of the numbers of the Bismillah—you find it mentioned in some Hindi films too,” he explains.

Another innovation is what Hashim calls the constructive art of calligraphy. He explains that he has designed two buildings with the Bismillah, “not the usual way that people inscribe Om or 726 in the front wall or something — those can be removed — but the Bismillah in my constructive art of calligraphy cannot be erased without demolishing the building”.

Yet to come up on terra firma, he is in talks with interested parties who have many times taken a look at the cardboard models and sketches of these buildings. One of the two works of constructive calligraphy could be in Badayun in UP.

Some designs take him just a few hours, but those for the constructive art have taken him over 8 months. But he has no regrets because he has “linked the Bismillah to my profession of architecture”.

Calligraphy is not taught anywhere the traditional way. But he says there are some Madrasas where they teach students to write in Urdu to improve one’s handwriting. In the old days they were made to write on wooden boards—Takhti. But all that, he says, is only for good handwriting, and not to keep alive the art, craft, culture and tradition of calligraphy that united a diverse Muslim community spread across the world, and also united them with others by this art.

He does not have any students though he will happily teach this dying art. “People say they want to come to me and learn, but they don’t come. At an exhibition in Delhi, many people had come, different schools and colleges wanted me to come and hold classes twice a month, but that was not convenient for me. People say they want to learn, but don’t come, because it does not lead you to any profession or employment. Only those with a shauk—passion—do it.” He reasons that when computers do almost everything in a matter of minutes, people would not want to spend time –and money – on calligraphy.

Art colleges that teach fonts have not contacted him either. At the Arts and Crafts College of Lucknow where he studied architecture, fonts are part of the syllabus of commercial art, but only English fonts.

There is unusual contentment when Hashim says he has not sold his works commercially.

Some three years ago the Devi Art Foundation in Gurgaon selected about 40 people from all over the country from different fields of art. He was chosen for calligraphy, and made one for them on art paper with acrylic paints– it was 6’ x 3’. They exhibited it and paid him “a very handsome amount for it.”

The Darul Quran Publications in Mumbai once printed a fabulous Quran. Every line in it began with the Alif—the first letter in the Urdu, Arabic, and Persian. “It is like starting every line in an English book with the letter “A”, and not forcing it out of context”. Hashim has designed 52 of the 113 “sooras” in this Quran.

He doubts if there is a gen next calligrapher who would be interested in all this. He is equally sure that calligraphy on the ceilings of Moghul era buildings and ancient mosques cannot be done the way they used to. If it is so difficult for people to take an interest in writing on paper, imagine how difficult to write on ceilings that too in a way that it is uniform, when the surface is not a flat plane. He has never been asked to help out with any restoration work involving calligraphy, and guesses the government or executing agencies could be bringing calligraphers from outside.

A painting of his most innovative design—constructive calligraphy—and some smaller works hang on the walls of his house, and Shahana takes care of them as well.

“If I find a sponsor, I would like them to be published in a book form, a book on calligraphy and design. But I haven’t found a sponsor. The pages are mainly 10x6 inches, 10x12 inches, though there are bigger ones — about 1000 of them — that I use for exhibitions and discussions on calligraphy…they are basically enlarged versions. I have exhibited them many times— solo exhibitions in Delhi, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Lucknow,” he says.

There is no museum of calligraphy in India, at least not to his knowledge. “But there are sections in the Hyderabad Salaar Jung museum, those are very ancient works,” says the artist whose studio is a room in his house.

In another congested market – Bazar Seetharam in Chawri Bazar, Delhi – 85-year-old Satya Narain Saxena shut his “shop” that the family has been running from 1812. A 10th generation documents writer, he learnt the art of writing Urdu, Persian and Arabic “like art” at the feet of his grandfather, when he was barely 8 or 9. “My grandfather would say, come, sit and start writing and hand me a takhti (wooden board)”.

The family was in the documents writing business from the time when they moved from Jairpur to Shahjehanabad, ten generations ago. When the Britishers came, they were forced to leave their “shop” in the Red Fort, and move to the 2 feet by 4 feet cubbyhole.

“When the process of documenting by people like us began it was in the emperor’s mother tongue which was Urdu, but the documents were written in Urdu, Arbabic or Persian. All the official work was done in these three languages, till the government of independent India decided that it has to be in English,” Satya Narain, shrunk with age and infirmities, says. His trade — “kalaam”—is known as “Munshiji”, and he displays a lot of pride when he talks about it. “Ask anyone in all of Delhi where “Munshiji ka makaan” is, and they will direct you to me. I am the only surviving Munshi now, all my sanghi saathis have gone,” he says, in a matter-of-fact way

“We were tied to that language for documents. Like a pandit makes the janampatri of a child, he draws the lines, makes the grid pattern, draws and writes within. Just like that we have a patented language, what you want to convey, we will say it in that language.” He calls it “munshiana zuban”, akin to legal languag

They drafted everything from a rent deed, or ‘kirayanama’, promissory note which was valid for three years, detailing the terms of repaying loan and interest, ‘rehen nama’, gift deeds, sale deeds and vaseeyat or will.”

The work was remunerative but it came to a sudden halt when proformas for all these documents were available on line, and the government started issuing e-stamp papers, he says. There is anger over the thought that machines have taken over jobs. “I told my son that he should do something else, there is no future or employment in writing documents, whatever be the language,” he says.

His world has changed, his art is dead. As is the livelihood. The nostalgia remains.

“When the police lodge FIRs, or a patwari writes a document for a property, whether it is in Hindi or English, many words are still written in Urdu, or Farsi. It’s a court language that has not gone away yet, and is very reliable. There are no two meanings in what we write, there can never be any doubt or confusion

About a kilometre away, in a tiny corner room across the Jama masjid, sits Shakeel Akhtar. Like Satya Narain, he too says he is the only “Urdu-Persian-Arabic” painter in all of Old Delhi. Shopkeepers want their boards to have their name in English, Hindi and Urdu, so the computer has not really snatched Shakeel’s work. “But as young people go to good schools and colleges, learn to read and write in English, they will not want boards in Urdu,” says Shakeel, worried that his son Hizar Akhtar, 25, may face a bleak future, unless he expanded his skills.

Shakeel and Hizar have to have the calligraphy quality in their boards – for they are outside people’s homes as well as next to the graves. “Most people who did calligraphy have left the line, because of computers. I am surviving only because I do other work—portrait painting, sceneries etc apart from name boards,” he says.