LAHORE: Like a cunning lover, the winter comes teasing you,” quotes Saeed Ahmed, a veteran journalist and playwright, from his recently written piece on the season describing it as a beloved
who does not appear at the time that she is supposed to; sometimes it is early, sometimes it is late. On a different level he draws a parallel between the winters and their effect upon the local ‘lunda market’. He mentions two of the most significant and well known Urdu short stories ‘Over Coat’ by Ghulam Abbas, and ‘Garam Coat’ by Rajinder Singh Bedi.
“These have been inspired heavily by Lunda Bazaar because people especially those who were not that well off, came to buy their winter clothes from here. This included writers too,” he says. Indirectly the Lunda Bazaar has throughout the ages helped to clothe many writers and artists, and therefore, literature and art will always be indebted to this market, which in turn has always been influenced by winters. “And of course, as December starts, the writer’s mind is relieved from the nine months of scorching heat too!” Ahmed adds.
Strangers meet…
Another writer, and editor of Adab-e-Lateef, an Urdu magazine, Siddiqa Begum, says that for her December is a month of activity, especially where arts and culture is concerned. “Meeting people is inspiring for a writer, and I love meeting people in this month because of the wonderful weather,” she says.
“This is when actual events start taking place because people are more energized, and they like sitting together. With the real winter starting in December this is the month of coziness and warmth for me. And Lahore’s winters are definitely very beautiful.”
Creativities flourish…
The creative mind of artists is affected too. “Winters or December are a time, when an artist, is inspired to paint more,” says Syed Wasif Ali, a painter. “This goes for those artists who live in hot places like Pakistan. In the summers I often see my canvas boards lying as blank as my mind, because I can’t create much. Even shorts and a light tee shirt don’t help.” But winters is when the real fun to do something artistic begins. “Its definitely a more productive month”.
Or maybe nothing changes…
But for some men of art, December, or any other month for that matter does not hold much importance for them. Ahmed Zoay, an artist, who usually depicts the female form in his oil paintings says that what matters to him most is being comfortable with his immediate temperature while he is at work in the studio, and whether it is winters or summers, December or June, it does not really matter to him after that.
“As for being inspired by winters, well, the human mind is a strange thing…it can be influenced by anything anytime.” Zoay says ambiguously. “It is not seasons that affect me, it is people.”
And what of the poet…
When speaking of art and prose, poetry can never be left behind, in symbolism. While all elements come to denote something or the other in poems, winter too has its own place, in either crisp cheeriness or cold depression, whichever the poet may feel.
A modern poet, Eraj Mubarak, says that while many poets have in the past created masterpieces, which mention months, or a season of the year, giving an example of T.S Eliot’s “Wastelands”, Mubarak says his work is usually spontaneous and unplanned, making it never to be about something in particular.
“I never know what my inspirations are until much later,” he says. He says winters in London made him sit on a bench in a park, and churn out a poem, being inspired by Santa Claus, winter sales, and people being happy. “It reminded me of Eid back home, and the political state of affairs my homeland was in, and I felt slightly gloomy,” he confesses.
“The poem comes from being inspired by winter.”
Like a cunning lover, winter comes teasing you…
