Portrait of an outsider in Pakistan

By Manish Chand

Lahore: Statuettes of Shiva-Parvati and the Buddha jostle for space with paintings of pensive prostitutes in the eclectic studio of maverick painter Iqbal Hussain housed in Coocoo's Den, the famous restaurant founded by him in the heart of Lahore's red light district.

“I am an outsider. I paint what I see. I don't care what others think of me,' Hussain, a born iconoclast and an instinctive radical, tells this writer in a freewheeling conversation on a full-moon night in this city known for its infectious joie de vivre and old world charm.

With dreamy eyes, Hussain gingerly walks on the lantern-lit terrace among the rich and well-heeled who have come here as much to enjoy delicious kebabs and other delicacies on offer as to savour a unique view of the well-lit Badshahi Mosque and Lahore Fort - two of the prized landmarks of the city that parties well past midnight.

If one shifts one's gaze a little, one can see the city's oldest gurdwara to which some 100 odd-Sikhs come to pray every day.

At the back of the restaurant is Hira Mandi, enshrouded in tantalizing darkness - the warren of narrow alleys that once flaunted some of Pakistan's most beautiful dancing girls, but has now become a refuge of painted, gaudy prostitutes. 'Hira Mandi culture is on the wane. People are no longer fond of classical music and dance. Pornography has become very common,' says Hussain, his eyes lit with scorn for a new breed of philistines who have neither time nor taste for such rarefied entertainments.

Being a painter, words are not exactly his forte. He thinks in bursts of images, but when inspiration strikes he could be surprisingly eloquent. The story he tells tonight is the story of his life - how a street kid from the sleazy world of pimps, prostitutes and debauchees, goes to the National College of Arts and becomes a painter. He still lives in the same house from where his mother entertained in the heyday of Hira Mandi and tells with great relish how the restaurant which was despised by the city's demi-monde has become a status symbol, marking a sharp U-turn in the fortunes of this self-confessed outsider.

'In Islamic countries, it's illegal to buy sex. Prostitution is illegal. Most of my life, I faced the stigma of being a prostitute's son,' the stocky painter sporting a regular beard says matter-of-factly, his voice betraying no trace of emotion.

'In the beginning, it was scorned by respectable society. But I never gave up. I was harassed by fanatics, some of whom even threatened to kill me,' he said recalling his early struggling days as a painter when he mostly painted suicidally sad women peeping out of kothis of Hira Mandi.

'I am portraying reality. I was tired of double standards. I paint from life,' he says, his face bristling with rage at societal hypocrisies that darkened his growing-up years.

Being perennially starved of money, twelve years ago Hussein thought of starting a restaurant in the same house he lived with his mother and his extended joint family. But the stigma and the taint caught up with them in his new venture as well.

'It wasn't easy to run business. I started off with a potato-frying machine. I took a small loan of Rs 600 from my teacher in the National College of Arts. I started off with selling burgers in 1996,' he recalled.

'Two or three of my friends would come to my restaurant. Initially, the press also played a negative role. It wasn't recommended for families,' he said while pointing at the paintings of vacant-eyed prostitutes and courtesans in the studio located at the entrance to the restaurant in the ground floor.

'The restaurant's turning point came when the then US ambassador Robert Oakley visited Coocoo's in 1996. It's the typical South Asian psychology. Once the gora says yes, things start happening.'

'Now, it's a status symbol - the rich and the well-heeled ask: Oh, have you been to Coocoo's?,' he says with a touch of justifiable pride.

For a painter, he has some straight-from-the-heart things about Pakistan's love-hate affair with India. 'We are the same family and we enjoy each other's company. Politicians have created a rift or divide. People don't have such issues,' he says, mocking their grandiloquent rhetoric and sham realpolitik.

'I love India. I last went there in 2005. I was touched by all the hospitality and warmth I got from Indians. They really looked after me,' Hussein, an avid fan of Indian film legends Dilip Kumar and Saira Bano, recalled.

Incidentally, Coocoo's is the setting of a much-hyped novel by Pakistani novelist Mohsin Hamid that dramatizes a conversation between a reluctant fundamentalist in Pakistan with an unidentified American.

Scathingly critical of the American stereotyping of Muslims as terrorists, he recalls his visit to the US when was strip-searched and subjected to extra layers of scrutiny simply because he was a Muslim, and, that too from Pakistan.

'The sad thing is Pakistan can't stand up to American double standards. Calling Pakistan a terrorist thing is a very wrong thing. We are a peaceful country. Radicals are in a minority,' he said.

What keeps Hussein ticking in this trivia-distracted zeitgeist? 'Painting keeps me sane. I am an intensely private person. My passion is painting. If I am honest to myself and observe the life around me honestly, I don't care about anything else,' he said.

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