میرے گھر کی دیوار
Dasy Kosay Dasy Watan Day Zama
Da Her Dywal Suray Dukhmum Dy Zama
Pa Jung Keh Sok Da Cha Pa Zad Walar Dy Tupuk Zama Dy Hum Badun Dy Zama
Stha Da Barodo Aor May Zra The Thyr Sho
Da Che Awaz Dumra Taaojun Dy Zama
(My country is such that shadow of every wall of its streets is my enemy. Who are fighting against whom? The gun is mine and I am the target. The fire of your arms has reached the core of my heart. That is why my language is ferocious)
Parachinar a city situated in Kurram Agency which is now Kurram District.
Beautiful snowy White Mountains, villages, tombs, orchards, jungles, lakes & meadows makes it one of the most beautiful places in Pakistan & its geographical placement makes me call it wall of our home.
Parachinar which is called mini Iran by some as it is the only in Pakistan which has a majority of Shia population & is closest city to Kabul from Pakistan.
Parachinar has battled through years of sectarian violence in which thousands of people have lost lives. For people of Parachinar Sectarian violence is not an unknown phenomena.
It is one of the most affected area by the sectarian violence in the whole region & its geographical position also plays a very crucial role in keeping peace or control of the region. It boarders with three different Afghan provinces, namely Ningrahar to its north, Paktia to its west and Khost to south west. It comprises of the turi, bangash, mangal, mugbal, parachamkani, masuzai and alisherzai tribes. Turi and half of the bangash tribe are shia, while the rest tribes follow the Sunni sect.
There were times when Shia & Sunni used to live together peacefully in Parachinar but with time especially after reign of Gen Zia, Iranian Revolution & Afghan Jihad things escalated. These events affected the whole country but Parachinar & other Tribal areas were affected on a different scale as at times it turned into tribal civil war.
There have been at least three periods of sectarian violence in the last decades – during 1983-87, 1996-98 and 2001. The present sectarian conflict started in April 2007, and continues to the present.
Thousands of people lost their lives or got get injured in these 3 decades long sectarian violence related incidents. According to Haidery Blood bank more then 850 people were killed only during 2007-2013 conflict. There is not a family in Parachinar which has not lost anyone during those dark times & almost everyone living in the region got directly affected by these conflicts.
These conflicts became a major part of their identity & the history of the region is very much the story of the individuals themselves.
“Wall of my home” is about exploring the story of such individuals on a personal & intimate level.The way their circumstances shaped thier world.
Maisam Husain is one such individual, a visual artist who graduated from National College of Arts, Lahore in 2020 was born in 1997 in “Zeran” It is one of the villages in Parachinar. Everything in his art reflects back to the harsh reality of his past. His subject, materials & techniques are all part of his past & is now part of his identity.
He could make the subject of his art the haunting beauty of his hometown Zeran, its winters or anything else, but he chose something which he cannot get out of his mind. The wall & holes in it, walls of his home.
As he told me while I was watching him work on his latest piece.
“You must be wondering why I draw bullet holes on wall while there are millions of things which I can paint or draw, It is simple, Everyone draw & make or say the things that they have seen or experienced & the city that belong has taught me a lot about bullets & bullets has thought me a lot about life. I call these (pointing toward his work) “wall of my home.”
My Artworks are very simple It starts with the same thing, a blast with gun powder & then I draw further around that. It smells like the freshly fired bullet hole in a wall. It takes me back to those days. I could have done it in any other way too but this make me feel that sensation, fear, rage etc.
“Da sro lambo da ghargharo da zora na de khabar / Da sok che Jang ghwari da jang da zora na de khabar”
Sahib Shah Sabir
(“Thee are ignorant of the wrath of blazing fire / Thee who wage war, are ignorant of its power of obliteration”)
There were times when people asked me if I can forget all this & change the subject of my art, especially when I was working on my thesis project. Then I had to explain them why it is hard for me as I have different life experiences then the people living in Lahore or any other city. It talks about that celebration of violence & is now a part of my identify.
As I had written in my thesis work statement.
Maisam Hussain, Born in (1997) in Zeran,Parachinar.Initialy learned metal work from my father in our own shop. I graduated in Fine Arts Major in Sculpture from National College of Arts with Distinction. My work is mostly influenced by the miseries and harsh realities of Parachinar, where belong to. grew up within the vicinity of war erupted land hearing the horrible sound of blasts, sounds had become used to, which would mark scars on buildings and my fellow humans. I grew up seeing dust filling the air and have witnessed lying on the ground, too shocked to move. The marks of these bullets and bombardments still imprint their marks and scars on the people and places attacked. It has left an immense impact on my own growth and the way I have evolved to think. These sounds of bomb blasts are now are part of me, and the marks left on the victimized building are something look at to reminisce those times, which are undeniably my identity.