There never was before this, and there never will be after this, a little brother as great as you my Danyal.
Proud of you.
Happy birthday!
DANYAL ZAFAR - Happy Birthday
Danyal Zafar - THE CARRIAGE OF KNOWLEDGE
My dearest Danyal
As elders, our natural
instinct is to want to protect our kids; we aim to take care of them, we
imagine that without anchoring them they might waver in life. As time winds
down, the realisation dawns that when your children have grown up, the first
thing you do is stop telling them what to do – not because they would oppose
you – but simply because by stepping aside on tiptoe, you can observe them etch
a forte for themselves where they would be a role model for the rest of the
world to idolise upon.
The day I watched you spread
your wings my dear Danny, I grasped that it was my time to tiptoe and observe, from
afar, how humanity was taking to you quite like iron takes to a magnet. I found
myself finding such rapture in your eminence, and it was not something that I
could express via any medium: art or words. It was a feeling that an elder
brother felt for his younger brother, and it was a feeling that I would want gone
with me when I cease to breathe, embedded and buried deep within my heart.
However, when the world
is shrouded in mist, and the atmosphere is so bloody that only the stupid are
fairly untouched, whilst the sensitive wither like a bug-befouled leaf, my chest
rather swells with honour when I see light at the end of the tunnel because of
you my Kidd, or do I even entitle you that, because you are now an admirable
young man who has acquired such a secure grasp on how to shape civilisation
just by being yourself, that calling you a Kidd would be most violating that
very essence, although, the fact does remain that regardless of how older you
grow, you will still remain, in my heart and soul, my little Kidd . . . my little
Danny. And as severe as this may sound, this is also precisely why I am rest
assured that even if I were to die, my greatest treasure, you, would be the
beacon who would manoeuvre the mislead to the zenith of peace and harmony that they
most rightfully need to find themselves in, for god knows that the world needs
a healer, and most urgently.
Thus my Dan, a man with
such a gifted ability and influence to make a dent, remember that when I close my
eyes never to wake up again, live so that your very presence would have made all
the difference to mankind. Commit to memory that your alluring
lips must speak words of kindness. Your lovely eyes ought to pursue the good in
people. For an athletic structure, share
your food with the hungry. For beautiful
hair, let a child run his fingers through it at least once in a day. For carriage, walk with the knowledge that you will
never walk alone. Remember that whether we elders are there with you or
not, we leave you a tradition with a future that
you will try your best to the tender loving care
of human beings, and you will strive that it will never become obsolete.
That you will keep in mind that it is not things, but people even more than anything, that have to be restored, renewed,
revived, reclaimed and redeemed. Be mindful that these very people will displease
you to such irksome levels, whereby you may desire to toss them before the
guillotine, yet, never toss anybody out, for
everyone who traverses your course does so in order to teach you something of
value. Most important of all, bear in mind that if you ever need a helping
hand, you must find one at the end of your arm, and the other one, you must use
for helping others, always.
While I wish you the best of everything in life and nothing
more my Danny, do not think me callous when I say that I would also like that at
different walks of life for you to experience defeat, suffering, struggle, loss
– it is these occurrences and their responses, laterally with delight and humour
that are rather responsible to provide you a way to find your way out of the
depths of delirium. It is these encounters that will help inculcate in you an
appreciation, sensitivity, and an understanding of life that would fill you
with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not
just happen, the trials and tribulations of life make them what they are.
I am infinitely
thankful that you exist, my Dan. Now go along and mend the world. It is indeed
your forecourt.
In deed and thought
I remain
Your very own
– Farahdeen
PS: I know, I know, I vowed I would step away and watch quietly, and even then I ended up giving you the longest lecture in the world. For that you officially have the freedom hereon to hold a gun to my temple and pull the trigger (as swiftly and painlessly as possible), as I mouth the last words – But, my Kidd, old habits die-hard, so do I really deserve this?
Photographs by Izzah
Shaheen Malik
Canaletto - London. The Thames from Old Somerset House Terrace towards the City. 1750-51
Giovanni Antonio
Canal (18 October 1697 – 19 April 1768) better known as Canaletto was
an Italian painter of city views or vedute, of Venice. (A
veduta, Italian for “view”; plural vedute, is a highly
detailed, usually large-scale painting, or, more often print, of a cityscape or
some other vista. The painters of vedute are referred
to as vedutisti.
Canaletto also painted imaginary views (referred
to as capricci), although the demarcation in his works between the real and the
imaginary is never quite clear. (In painting,
a capriccio, plural: capricci; in older English works often anglicised as “caprice” means an
architectural fantasy, placing together buildings, archaeological ruins and
other architectural elements in fictional and often fantastical combinations,
and may include staffage (figures). It falls under the more general term of
landscape painting. The term is also used for other artworks with an element of
fantasy.
He
was an important printmaker who used the etching technique. In the period from
1746 to 1756 he worked in England where he created many sights of London. He
was highly successful in England, thanks to the British merchant and
connoisseur Joseph Smith, whose large collection of Canaletto’s works was sold
to King George III in 1762.
London: The Thames from Somerset
House Terrace towards the City (1750-51) Oil
on canvas
Canaletto
arrived in London in 1746 and remained there for most of the next nine years.
This painting is a pendant to a view in the opposite direction, towards
Westminster. This pair was the last by Canaletto, and the only English views to
be acquired by Canaletto's great friend and patron, Joseph Smith, who was
British Consul in Venice. They are on a Venetian type of canvas with a russet
ground rather than the light grey that the artist used for most of his English
paintings. This suggests that Canaletto painted them when he returned to Venice
briefly in 1750-1. The view is not based on the drawing, but on a slightly
different view now in the Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery. Canaletto
adjusted the composition to suit the much grander scale of the painting.
The
view is taken from the Terrace of Old Somerset House. Its New Gallery facing
the river had been built in 1661-61 for Henrietta Maria, the Queen Mother and
was perhaps designed by Inigo Jones. The building was subsequently the home of
the Royal Academy, and part of it is now occupied by the Courtauld Institute of
Art. The skyline is dominated by St Paul’s Cathedral, completed in 1709.
Canaletto altered the dome so that it is viewed from slightly below, magnifying
its powerful presence. Beyond it stretches a horizon dominated by the steeples
of the City churches, largely built by Christopher Wren following the Great
Fire of 1666. At the right is visible the Monument to the Fire, erected in
1671-77, Old London Bridge with its houses which were demolished in 1757, and
part of the south bank.
The pair of views relates not only to Canaletto’s Venetian scenes, but also to the long tradition of topographical views of London dating back to the 1600s. Earlier engraved prospects of London were usually printed on several sheets to include the whole riverside from Westminster to the Tower. During the last century artists had chosen to depict the city stretched out in a line from a bird’s eye view over the south bank. Canaletto adopted a high viewpoint for his earlier views of the river but brought the viewpoint almost to ground level here. The great curve of the river dominates the composition, which also manages to include all the principal features to be seen from the terrace of Somerset House. When the two views are placed side by side they create a long panoramic view of the curve of the river, the equivalent on the Thames of Canaletto's wide-angled views of the Bacino in Venice.
François Flameng – Bathing of Court Ladies in the 18th Century 1888
François Flameng (1856–1923) was a very successful French painter during the last quarter of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th. He was the son of a celebrated engraver and received a first-rate education in his craft. Flameng initially received renown for his history painting and portraiture, and became a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts. He decorated such important civic buildings as the Sorbonne, and the Opera Comique, and also produced advertising work. Flameng was granted France’s highest civilian honour, the Ordre National De La Légion D’Honneur, and designed France’s first bank notes. He was also made an honorary Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in the 1908 Birthday Honours.
Flameng married Marguerite Henriette Augusta Turquet on 30
November 1881.
This painting hangs in the Hermitage.
MASCULINITY & FRIENDSHIP: Two (BEST) Friends
The recent accusations by women who had been taken
advantage of by Harvey Weinstein, the founder of Miramax isn’t quite the nightmare
it is being made out to be – women have had to battle such predators since the
origin of civilisation. Only that the world has taken cognisance of it at this
point in order to exploit it as a means of keeping the populace engaged in
order to promote readership and viewership percentages largely because of the
names of the famous people involved with the man in question. As cruel as it
may sound, and despite the rallies and remonstrations, this too shall pass, and
some other ogre shall be born, and history would repeat itself because at the
gist, human beings remain rather animalistic in their biological bearings.
Most recently I was drawn to a research that was
published in the journal, Men and Masculinities. It speaks curiously about how
social scientists are warning women about the upsurge of ‘bromance’ and how these scientists deem that
this bromance endangers heterosexual relationships. Dr Stefan Robinson, of the
University of Winchester, says in the research that the results were
‘significant and worrying’ for women and warned there is in emerging culture of
sexism and disdain in the way millennial men view the opposite sex.
“These heterosexual millennial men
cherish their close male friends, so much so that they may even provide a
challenge to the orthodoxy of traditional heterosexual relationships,” said Dr Robinson. “Given that young men are now experiencing a delayed onset of
adulthood, and an extended period of adolescence, men may choose to cohabit as
a functional relationship in the modern era.” He further elaborated, “Because heterosexual sex is now achievable
without the need for romantic commitment, the bromance could increasingly
become recognized as a genuine lifestyle relationship, whereby two heterosexual
men can live together and experience all the benefits of a traditional
heterosexual relationship.”
I mostly agree
with him, yet, some of that study happens to appear a tad unconvincing. What
the current generation is calling ‘bromance’ is nothing but another synonym for
intimate friendships between men. And men have found an emotional union with
men from the time menfolk existed.
A
BIT OF HISTORY
I have had the
privilege to make an acquaintance with therapist and researcher Geoffrey L Greif,
Ph.D. The author of 11 books, Dr Greif, is the professor at the University of
Maryland. In his book Buddy System:
Understanding Male Friendships, published by the Oxford University Press,
he us tells how friendship, like love, works best when a person can be himself
with another man. That being comfortable, first with oneself, and then seeking
out men who are a good counterpart is the best way to have meaningful
friendships. He explains how the very word friendship has been derived from freogan (an Old Goth root) that means
‘to love’. That friends have been partners in crime and in survival. That they
have hunted together. They have sat around the campfires and figured out game
plans. He throws light on how the very nature of friendship has changed from
the Palaeolithic Age to the Neolithic Age. In the former, small tribes
travelled from plain to plain in search of food (some 10,000 years ago), and in
the latter Neolithic age, farming commenced, and with it a sense of stability was
established in the communities. When men were on the move, men needed to be
dextrous at interpersonal relationships, and that is when the start of serious
friendships and relationships began to set. Barbarism gave leeway for the wise,
just as existential ideas about life and philosophy grew, and side-by-side thrived
friendships and relationships. Fraternising for professional requirements
became the norm in the Middle Ages, and The Friendly Societies of the 18th and
19th centuries operated more like an insurance by protecting their members from
natural calamities.
One-to-one bonds
were common amongst men in the 18th century, wherein men would most unreservedly
express their innermost feelings to each other in epistolary exchanges. One such
example is from 1779 by American statesman Alexander Hamilton to a friend: “I wish, my dear Laurens, it might be in my
power, by action rather than words, to convince you that I love you.”
Another example is U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and his close friend Joshua
Speed. The friends lived in the same room for 4 years, and slept together on
the same bed. Considering today’s utopian generation, who does not judge
sleeping in the same bed with a man as anything sexual or deviant, some 20th
century historians speculated that Lincoln and Speed might have been lovers,
although both the men married and stayed devoted friends until the
assassination of Lincoln.
Sex between
men was prevalent from centuries, simply, it was not a subject of speculation,
or considered abnormal until the 19th century. In fact, the very term homosexuality was sparingly used until
then. So what exactly happened you may ask? Weaving together the accounts of
historians and sociologists, it is evident that people, in order to preserve a
certain code of conduct to bestrew their faith began to inject the society with
the fear of homophobia. Men, in order to prove their allegiance to
heterosexuality had to cease being with men as much as they wished, and occupied
themselves by being primarily around women. The 19th century was the last era
wherein to hang out with men was not considered homosexual.
This ‘gay’ view
most rapidly infected minds, almost like an epidemic, and while it was not
immediately visible, the craze remained active for the last 125 years in
certain parts of the world. The result – devastating effects on the male psyche
in which men began to bottle themselves up, and this schism saw men descend into
a cavity of emotional turmoil, to the extent where, unable to deal with such anxiety,
they even began to take their lives.
THE
MALE AS ART
“My figures are
invariably caught on the move or in transition - I am fascinated by the subtle
interactions of muscle, bone and sinew that come into play as a body moves. A
half turn, a shift of balance, sometimes just an intention to move can animate
an entire figure. As this shows up most clearly and dramatically in male
anatomy, most of my figures are male.
The ordinary
actions of every day present endless pictorial potential. Quite unconsciously,
a man makes wonderful shapes in the course of pulling on a T-shirt, stepping
into a pair of trousers or towelling himself dry after bathing. These shapes
often suggest the urgency of sport or the measured grace of dance and every now
and again, bring to mind the posture of a memorable figure from a great work of
art. With these references in mind, even the most routine activity acquires
resonance.”
I was reading
that rather remarkable summation by artist Michael Leonard when a friend peeked into my phone and
stared at me, aghast. “Is something the matter?” I asked him with nonchalance.
“My man,” he said most mockingly, his finger pointed towards the screen of my
phone, “that’s homo!’ No sooner had those words escaped his larynx, I thought it
best to ignore his inanity, as I reflected that when I read or hear something
like that, I am not persuaded into thinking of the male as a sexual object, but
only as an object of art. What’s more? That is how I reckon any healthy mind
would perceive of the same. In earnestness I wished to inform my friend that
everything in life was nothing but a form of conditioning. That a child is born
with a clean slate, and what you engrave on that slate is what the child will
grow to accept as normal. I wished to inform him that if we were to leave ‘sexuality’
blank, it would be fascinating indeed to observe how the carnal desires of a human
being, when unopposed, would take shape in the real world.
With women it
is considered common to compare their anatomy in the flesh, but for a man to
even compliment another man on his sense of dressing, or his carved frame
raises eyebrows, and such compliments are conveniently labelled homosexual, or
leaning towards homoeroticism by a certain section of the social classes, and in
certain parts of the globe. It is here that I differed once again with the
research published that the sharing of friendship between men is a threat to
the heterosexual relationships we men share with women, and it is here, once
again, that I quite subscribed to the ideologies of the utopian generation,
where being a heterosexual male with absolutely no slants towards homosexuality
or bisexuality, when I was quite relaxed in conveying to my fellow men that I
liked how they dressed, or, how I adored their chiselled bodies, I wondered why
the other men could not follow the same? A man who is confident and comfortable
in his own sexuality would not find himself threatened or afraid of
appreciating anybody else from his own gender.
As I dunked
more into the research presented in the journal, the researchers revealed that ‘lad
flicks’ have made close friendships between men seem regular and rather desirable.
That the men involved in the study had had bromantic friends who they lived
with, and had known for at least 18 months. Apparently, of the 30 men
interviewed, 29 said that they had experienced cuddling with a friend of the
same sex. One man named Aaron even told researchers: “We hug when we meet, and we sleep in the same bed when we have
sleepovers. Everyone knows it, and nobody is bothered by it because they do it
as well.” Another man Martin said: “It’s
like having a girlfriend, but then not a girlfriend.” When asked to describe
the difference between a bromance and a romance, one undergraduate called Bob
answered: “Sex really. That’s all.”
If that is sufficient proof that there is indeed a healthy attitude in the
world today as regards feelings of the same sex, the enquiry elaborated how most
men surveyed said they shared with their male friends secrets, which they felt
unable to share with their girlfriends. And this is where Dr Robinson adjoined:
“Young heterosexual men are now able to
confide in each other and develop and maintain deep emotional friendships based
on intimacy and the expression of once-taboo emotional sentimentality. There are however significant and worrying
results here for women. These men perceived women to be the primary regulators
of their behaviour, and this caused disdain for them as a whole in some
instances. Much in the same way that
women are portrayed in contemporary cinema as objects for male gratification
several of the participants spoke of women they knew in a generally negative
way.”
BUDDY
SYSTEM:
UNDERSTANDING
MALE FRIENDSHIPS
DR
GEOFFREY L GREIF
Dr Greif’s
book is an eye opener about how people in the time he conducted his research
thought of men and the friendships they forged with them. He elucidates how the
obsession of being ‘gay’ kept these men from developing a deeper connection
with their male friends back then. If only the men who had found themselves
influenced by such dreadful ways of assessments had visited Asia, and some of
the other cultures around the world where men connecting with men is not
considered unnatural, they would have rid themselves of their prejudices to a
large extent. When I discussed this with the affable Dr Greif, he did throw
light on how when he was working on his book the scenario was rather different
than how tolerant it is today.
In an article published on September 27, 2008 in
Psychology Today, under the title Understanding Male Friendships, Dr Greif reveals:
On the topic of men and their male friendships, it
has long been established that people with friends live longer, healthier
lives. Men’s lives are shorter than women’s. By helping men to better
connect with other men through supportive friendships, I hope to help enrich
men’s lives. His
initial postings were based on his research on more than 400 men and 120
women about how they defined friendships, about how they make and maintain
friendships, and the suggestions they offer for enhancing friendships.
Some of these postings came from his book on men’s friendships and some came
from other events and research that he came across. Two initial points, he
says, to be made from the book are thus:
1. Men, from an early
age, are socialised by society to have difficulty establishing and
maintaining friendships. We have been raised to compete with other men
and not co-operate with them. We have been raised to hide our
vulnerabilities and have often lacked friendship role models in our fathers. Yet we have friendships with other men – do they look like women’s
friendships? No. But we have them and we value them.
2. Aristotle has written that friendships
are the purest type of virtuous interaction, a giving of oneself to the
other. He observes that one can only be a friend with a peer! If you
have something to gain from someone else, or that person has something to gain
from you, it is not a true friendship as one must be an equal to participate in
a friendship. Consider in your own life, whether your closest friends are
peers.
LES
DEUX AMIS (2015)
One
cannot but conclude this composition without the citation of Two Friends (2015). Written
and directed by Louis Garrel, co-written by Christophe Honoré, based on the
play The Moods of Marianne by Alfred de Musset, it is an intensely intelligent,
yet sweetly screwed up film. What is utterly fascinating is that Garrel and Honoré have succeeded in embodying the essence of life’s lessons
on what it takes to have and balance the attachments between the woman whom you
love and make love to, and the man, whom you love, just like you would the
woman, but do not make love to. This they have achieved in such a profound
manner that at no stage in the film is it burdensome on the brain, as one would
expect of such a byzantine subject.
It
is a nearly faultless metaphorical illustration of life, a charming ode to the
poetics of friendship, and an endearing annotation on the semiotics of
relationships. It is to cinema what Keats was to poetry, Cocteau was to
literature, and Goethe was to philosophy.
References:
Sarah Knapton (2017). Rise of the ‘bromance’ threatens heterosexual
relationships, warn social scientists. The Telegraph. 12 October 2017
Geoffrey L. Greif (2008). Buddy System: Understanding Male Friendships. Oxford University Press; 1 edition (August 29, 2008)
Geoffrey L. Greif
(2008). Understanding Male Friendships. Male Friendships: Yes, we have them.
Psychology Today. (September 27, 2008)
Louis Garrel and Christophe Honoré (2015). Two Friends (French: Les Deux Amis). Based on the
play The Moods of Marianne (French: Les Caprices de Marianne) is an 1833 play by
the French Dramatist Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay.
Wikipedia.
Michael Leonard. Tonal Nudes. Under the Main Heading DRAWINGS on the artist’s website. http://michaelleonardartist.com
Michael Leonard. Tonal Nudes. Under the Main Heading DRAWINGS on the artist’s website. http://michaelleonardartist.com
A special note of gratitude for my dear friend
Jonathan Myles-Lea, the British artist and photographer for his continued
support in hearing me out whenever I have bounced something off him regardless
of the differences in time zones. Most grateful my dear, J!
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