Muslim Miniature Artist

Here is a link to my blog published by DUNYA NEWS, Pakistan. Language of blog is urdu. This blog was published on May 26, 2016.

LINK

http://blogs.dunyanews.tv/urdu/?p=831

Summary
Styles and techniques of miniature art developed by the Muslim artist of Persia, Ottoman Empire and Mughal Empire of India.

1. Techniques of Illumination, Gilding, Color development, Calligraphy, Border work and Binding are briefly discussed with sample work by great artist of that era.
2. Among Style one which was adopted by Muslim miniature artist, was to hide any mark of identification which can help in tracking the artist who did work on that particular piece of art.

Inspiration
Blog is inspired by the novel 'My Name is Red' by Orhan Pamuk.

Journalism & Flattering - Social Evil

Awad ud din Anwari was a Persian language poet, he was born in modern day Turkmenistan. His famous work is 'Tears of Khorasan'.

He is known for his panegyric poetry, it is said that he once told Sultan Sanjar, that if he appoint him his court poet, he will never be bored. Anwari was so skilled in eulogies and was confident of his laudatory poetry required to please Sultan. He once said to Sultan

"To sing praise and laud for someone else but you Is like performing the ablutions with sand at seashore"

Unfortunately majority of our Pakistani journalist are doing the same thing, few are writing laudatory essays on the performance of our politicians and few are writing panegyric for military. You can feel that in their programmes, very few gives the impression of neutral opinion.  Some are unduly praising the work of military and other are blindly defending the politicians.
Anwari once said to Sultan after being offered stale vinegar

"I asked for wine and you gave me stale vinegar
Such that, should I drink it, I should rise up at the resurrection like pickled meat".

Under all conditions they will defend their worldly Gods.

Holy Cow

Pakistan is a place, where if you say a word against the Army, you will be labeled as a traitor. It is understandable that one should not malign the national institute, but then what about the other national institutes, which every one in this country love to ridicule and bash. Surprising thing is i have seen serving military personnel making fun of there own supreme commander i.e. Prime Minister on social networks, and if any politician or analyst or a common person say anything against the policy of military in Pakistan (remember commenting on a policy is different from mocking any individual ) these so called flag bearer of patriotism jump on to that person with all there propaganda of patriotism, loyalty and national interest.
Tolerance level have reduced to alarming level, we are always ready to put a label of traitor or kafir on any one whose ideas are slightly different from us. We should seriously try to make our new generation tolerant and resilient enough to listen to alternative view point with patience.
Discussing ideas always open up new arenas.

Mongolia- Time to invest

Mongolia is a land locked country, extremely cold with large area and very little population. It is a peaceful country and has abundance of natural resources. Most of us have heard the name of chengaiz khan who was a Mongol warrior and later his successors founded the most brutal era of human history in which millions of men and women were killed.

Later successors of chengaiz conquered India (modern day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh) and ruled the region for centuries. So in a way we have some connection with modern day Mongolia.

Now a day Mongolia is one place which has a lot of potential of  growth and development, more than 60% of population is below 30 and these young people growing up in the age of internet have much more knowledge and desire to succeed than their ancestors. They are getting themselves acquainted with the western society and aspire to be like them which is driving them to improve there life style and have a better life .

Mongolian Nomads

Mongolian are moving from there traditional life style to urbanized way of life. As a general rule when societies grow new business opportunities comes up, which make Mongolia one of those places in world which require foreign investors to come and fulfill the demands of developing society. Although there are many developing countries in the world but if you will look around you will find most of those are already conquered by big corporations, which makes it hard for small business man to penetrate in it, but Mongolia is one such place where even small investor can invest and make big money.

Mongolian Capital- Ulan Bator 

Being an engineer i can say, there is a lot of potential for even small engineering design and services companies to make big money, as Mongolia is rich in minerals and a lot of business opportunities are available in mining, power, oil & gas and petrochemical sector. Now is the time for countries like Pakistan and small entrepreneur to start looking for opportunities in such countries, our companies can go over there and explore possible opportunities. Its like British used to conquer different territories about 300 years ago, and make use of that by doing business with them, now off course new way of conquering is to develop economic bonds.

Chabahar, Gawadar Port & Gas Pipelines

India is making huge investment in Iran, along side the more popular news, circulating in media of development of chabahar port in iran by India, India and Iran are planning to build a gas pipe line via Arabian Sea and it will bypass Pakistan. Other than this India is developing a road and railway network from south of Iran to Afghanistan. This link will provide an easy route to access landlocked countries of central Asia. The good thing about Indian foreign policy is that they have not limited there economic ties to few countries like Pakistan did. India have very good trade relation with China, they might have some territorial differences with them but both the countries have realised that it is worthless to fight for those barren lands in north rather it is much more important to develop strong trade and economic relations. Similarly when it comes to defence Indian unlike Pakistan have come out of this mentality of Soviet block and US block, now they have signed defence deals with Russia and at the same time they are dealing with US and many other European countries as well. On the other hand Pakistan is still sticking with the old ways, i cannot understand what our foreign policy makers or defence analyst and economic gurus are doing, why they cannot convince the government to adopt a neutral policy and go for the option which is good for the people, if India can bypass the international sanctions and do business with Iran, then why can't Pakistan do that. Why Pakistan have to go and buy Qatar LNG, when a gas at lower cost is available next door, if India can fly in and start infrastructure project in Iran, then why can't Pakistan start same project that will provide high quality road and railway between Balochsitan and Sistan, and if Pakistan intend to start and work on such projects, it will be at a much lesser cost.
It is important for us to know that Gawadar as portrayed in media is no special port, it is no different from Chabahar which is few miles away, tidal and climatic conditions are exactly same, but it can only be made special if we start developing strong relationship with our neighbour, rather than looking some power thousands of miles away.

Pakistan Should Give Top Priority to Baluchistan

Growing up in the urban area of punjab will never help you in realizing the fact that people in baluchistan do not even have access to resources that originates in there land and you thousand of miles in islambad are enjoying its benefits. We did the same mistake in bangladesh when we treated them as worthless and did not give them their due share in government, administration and other affairs of the country. Unfortunately we are committing same mistake in baluchistan, it is the largest province in pakistan, with abundance of natural resources and still the poorest among all. Educational, health, road networks, transportation are poor in that part,  majority of natural gas in pakistan is supplied from Sui and other gas fields in baluchistan, still there are many areas around Sui and most part of baluchistan,  which has no natural gas. Just be honest with you and ask yourself whether punjabis ( which are in majority in Pakistani military, government and bureaucracy) have done justice with baluch, and then you blame them of starting a freedom movement,  muslims of india started the movement for Pakistan because they felt that they are not given the due share in any matter of state and it happen every where in world, where any ethnic group of people are sidelined, a time will come when they rise against the dominating ethnic group in that region, and they adopt every mean (peaceful dialogue or a brutal war) to get there rights.
Majority of people living in Punjab cannot even name more than two cities in baluchistan, if you ask them to pinpoint a city like naushki on a map they will take a while to do that,yet they enjoy the wealth of that land and if someone speak against this unbalanced distribution of resources ansd wealth he is labeled as a traitor and an agent of foreign powers.