Of Laburnums and Kikars...
Mian Ijaz-ul-Hassan
The tree, which was my inspirational source for these panels, grew at the
roadside next to Simla Pahari. For years the tree had been happily bearing its
golden burden for our enrichment. The extent and the number of blooms it
shouldered were incredible. Why the tree was cut down and removed I will never
comprehend. But I can never forget the shock I had when I visited the spot one
spring and found it gone
There are people who spend hours trying to amuse plants imported from abroad but
would not allow one of their own species in their sight. A few years ago at the
Lahore Golf Club when a member protested why a large number of old trees had
been cut down, the chairman of the club replied that they had to be cleared in
order to make way for the new driving range. After a casual pause, without any
sense of remorse, he added that the trees that had been cleared were in any way
of no consequence as most of them grew only in graveyards. Which unfortunately
is true. Most of our native trees, some of them hundreds of years old, have in
fact only survived in the graveyards, where it is considered taboo to cut them
down.
Kikar is the least desirable tree people would like to have around. But do have
a close look at a mature specimen, which has weathered storms. Don’t you find
its lissom trunk as it rises twisting and turning from its base dramatically
exhilarating? Luckily there are a number of Kikars which still survive on the
old road to Sheikhupura. While passing, these acacias strike us by their sadness
as well as for their powerful-tortured forms.
In Lahore, Kikars are either steadily dying or are being callously cut down,
giving way to the pet varieties which the horticulturist finds more befitting.
There are now only a few, which stand at the Lahore Golf Course and a small row
on the Mall adjacent to the Freemason’s Hall. A few are atop the mounds in
Jinnah Gardens. There is also an acacia grove on the slope facing the rhino and
the elephantine closures.
But let me not forget to mention that there were two magnificent ones growing on
the rise facing the Edwardian structure built for the lions by the Nawab of
Bahawalpur. Unfortunately these were also cut down to provide additional room
for the Royal Bengal tigers and their cousins from farther east, including a
pair of albinos. A more sensitive architect could surely have saved these
glorious specimens. I find the sad, agonised appearance of the Kikar at one
level symbolic of our trials, and at another level expressive of our common
nascent strength. Not being a member of any horticulture society I may not have
proper knowledge of the prevailing social hierarchy in the botanical world, but
I have no hesitation in confessing that I find our common trees rather precious,
as precious as our common rivers, our common mountains and plains, our common
flowers and our common people. Whenever I paint a tree, a plant, or a shrub,
they enable me to identify myself with them, thereby helping me, in whatever
small way, to endorse and justify my own existence. Above all, it enables me to
pay homage to my land and nature of which, as a poet said, I am a mere weed
aspiring to blossom one day.
Talking of blossoms, I recall an Amaltas growing in the backyard of a hut at the
turning of Zafar Ali Road, which leads to the Mall. It was quite a magnificent
specimen. One day late in spring while driving down my usual route, I was
startled to observe that it was denuded of all its foliage and wore a grim
expression. It looked charred seemingly without any sap in its limbs. Even the
tender branches appeared dead and brittle as though all life fluids had dried
up. Everyday when I would take the usual turn towards the Mall, I would feel
deeply touched at the sight expecting that any day it would be cut down and
cleared. Days passed but nothing happened. Then one day I noticed that it had
awakened and evidence of life had quietly burst out in lemon from innumerable
parts of its seemingly dead sapless branches. Soon these flecks of yellow grew
into golden showers, which continued to grow till the spectacle of death was
transformed into a dazzling spectacle of life. The metamorphosis from death to
life was so miraculously unexpected and real that it was not difficult to make
an analogy between the doleful sight of the Laburnum tree and our people pining
away in the ‘backyards’, awaiting their season.
On another occasion in the heat of May, I was driving along the Lahore Canal
when I saw a Laburnum in full bloom. It was laden with rich golden tassels
dangling by tender light green threads. If there had been a breeze they would
have swayed like paper lanterns. But it was dry and the heat was suffocating. I
thought to myself, ‘look at this tree, in total harmony with itself and its
habitat and here I am born of the same earth, at odds with myself as well as the
land to which I belong.’ This simple aside gave my imagination enough courage
to celebrate the sight in one of my paintings of Laburnums, poised on the West
Bank of the canal under the Mian Mir Railway Bridge.
I have ever since done a few other works on Laburnums but mostly for the
subject’s inherent visual beauty and gracefulness. What attract me to a
Laburnum tree in bloom are not merely the sumptuous richness of its swaying
blooms delicately held aloft, but also a sense of great abundance that is
overwhelming. There are three panels, which I employed later to share the
abundant bounties of nature with others.
The tree, which was my inspirational source for these panels, grew at the
roadside next to Simla Pahari. For years the tree had been happily bearing its
golden burden for our enrichment. The extent and the number of blooms it
shouldered were incredible. Why the tree was cut down and removed I will never
comprehend. But I can never forget the shock I had when I visited the spot one
spring and found it gone. How callous and insensitive have we become to beauty
and the suffering of others. Its death was no one’s loss. The world moves on
and the traffic goes around the Simla Pahari with people pursuing their
individual goals and needs. But each coming spring the Laburnum will not be
there to greet them with its smiling face, to fill their emptiness with its
dazzling spectacle of colour and scent. What a loss for us all.
Prof Ijaz-ul-Hassan is Pakistan’s leading painter. He is a teacher, art
critic and political activist. He was awarded the “President’s Pride of
Performance” in 1992. He is currently the president of the PPP Punjab’s
Policy Planning Committee and Chairman of the party’s Manifesto Committee