About Ahmad Zoay - Walk on the Wild Side

Zoay came back to Lahore in 1973, hung around, painted and had his first solo exhibition in the old Arts Council hut the next year. ‘The Doors of Perception’ was a sensation and included paintings that he had done on his return from Europe, something like Dali-gone-pop but carrying the over-riding stamp of Zoay’s presence. After all, Shakir Ali had not dubbed him a “hippie artist” for nothing.

For a short while, Zoay worked at the Pakistan National Council of the Arts in Islamabad. But then he came across a book in the council’s library about the Kalash ‘kafirs’. This made him rebel against his mundane routine and he headed to the mountains, looking for the goddess Parthanosa. A strange man for the Kalash, he’d give them clothes and anything he carried that they wanted. They started treating him as a sort of saint and gave him boarding and lodging.

Soon, however, it was time for him to move on again. In his quest for Parthanosa, Zoay travelled on to other valleys around Bumburet and to Paktia in Afghanistan. The valleys were a different place then: a Japanese buddhist meditated, a Swedish woman With her baby grew vegetables and an Italian archaeologist looked for historical stones. But Zoay realised finally that his quest was meaningless and besides, there was no one to talk to really. Seeking conipany, he came back to Lahore, but the desire to travel tugged at his legs again and in 1976, he set out for Europe once again.

Passing through Greece and Macedonia, across remnants of ancient Italy, Zoay arrived in Berlin. Meanwhile in Pakistan, Ziaul Haq declared martial law and scary stories started filtering in. He sought political asylum, and in a precedent setting case reported in Der Spiegel, was awarded the status of a recognized political refugee with full citizenship rights.

In 1978, Zoay married Inge, a nineteen-year-old German girl heavily into yoga and vegetables.

They remained married for two passionate years. Zoay painted lnge, did nude studies, experimented with spray prints and, of course, sculpted. The female form opened up to him in its many variations. During this time, he exhibited in European galleries, including a one man show in Altstat Gallery in Weiden which was highly acclaimed by Der Spiegel, and also worked as an illustrator for 7th US Army Training Command. But then other women started featuring in his life, and Inge could not put up with that.

After the breakup he went to live in a port town in North Germany near Denmark. Flemsbourg was a party town with ferry rides, bars and cafes, rich lonely middle-aged women, Danish tourists interested in dirt cheap alcohol, and an assortment of holiday makers. Staggering in high spirits through the streets of the small town, painting and being picked up either by police who would bring him home or women who mothered him, he survived thereforawhile. Butonenightheran into a gang of neo-Nazis who beat him up badly. So disgusted was he after the incident that he tore up his passport and decided to come back without realising that he would face an even more severe form of fascism back home. It was 1981.

Initially it was nice to be back, but the all-pervading state in boots made Zoay lose his mind. He reacted by coming to the conclusion that the state was not there at all. What lay on this side of the border lay on the other side as well. It was the same land, he argued, both India and Pakistan were his country. Against the advice of people from a border village near Kasur, Zoay crossed over to India in broad daylight in this frame of mind. Two hundred yards into enemy territory amid tall reeds, he was held by Indian border security staff, blindfolded and taken to the Karan police station.

Short of beating him up, the Indian intelligence did everything it could to get a confession out of him. They interrogated him in many lockups in Amritsar and Patiala, and told him to write whatever he wanted to, but were not satisfied with the radical answers Zoay gave to their queries. Eventually, Zoay accepted the Partition in an Indian court where he admitted having made an illegal entry and was sentenced to three months in jail. Satisfied that he was just a mad artist and not an agent, the Indians escorted him back to BaghbanpUra on the outskirts of northern Lahore.

On his return, he felt like an alien in his own country., believing that he was being hunted by the state. It was time to embark upon his second pilgrimage to the Kalash:’ People still remembered him there and were friendly. He stayed in the valleys for six months but the need to interact intellectually brought him back again to Lahore During this stay in Pakistan, he painted the White Female Nudesseries, most probably inspired by his memories of Inge. It was almost exhibited at Bashir Mirza’s in Karachi.

Zoay felt suffocated. A friend suggested that he should try to seek asylum in Sweden. In 1983, he landed in Stockholm and did exactly that. The Scandanavian countries are very humane,” explains Zoay. “They take you seriously, mother you. There is a lot of freedom.” He was given tools and a house by the Lake Lovudden, but sent back after a year and a halt.

Thrown back to the dictator, Zoay attempted this time to address him; it was a turning point for the artist in the sense that instead of running away from pertinent problems at home, he tried to deal with them in his work. In 1985, Ali Imam selected some of his paintings for a group show in Karachi. They included A Freoked Out Soldier With Pigeon Hands, which was especially noticed arnSappreciated. But Zoay was an unhappy man and wanted out.

In 1986, he went to Holland and sought political assylum there. He was given a studio in Den Haag (The Hague), where he did aerosol monoprints (exhibited in Leiden), spray prints (exhibited at Pakschuit Gallery Den Haag), drawings and sculpture. A relationship with Margie, an Italian girl who was known to him from Flemsbourg was revived. This time when he was refused asylum, Zoay did not come back but was smuggled to Italy by Dutch friends.

It proved to be the beginning of a period of discovery and learning. Margie was a linguist and the daughter of a professor who specialised in ancient cultures. With her, he travelled through Italy, talking about the Indus, its cities and its language Pali, discovering connections between ancient civiflsations and their languages in the libraries of Naples or in bed with Margie.

It was also a good time as far his work was concerned. He not only painted and drew Margie wherever he went but also carved sculptures in her parent’s garden. He participated in Benvenuto S. Martino, a festival in which some twenty sculptors were assigned spots in a town in northern Italy to execute extempore sculptures. Zoay also exhibited spray prints in Galeria Clerk in northern Italy and Ponza, and exhibited his work in many other galleries, including Comunekli Belluno, in 1987 Zoay still remembers that period of his life fondly and with regret that it ended.

Zoay’s numerous travels seemed to have equipped him to deal better with his own reality. Gradually he learnt to find sustenance in his civilisational roots and use that identity to challenge the current culture of fallacies which had made him feel like an unwanted alien in his hometown.

In 1989, Zoay did cartoons for Sajjan, the short-lived and lively Punjabi daily from Lahore. An exhibition of his drawings and aerosol prints was put up at the Nairang but was wound up hours after it opened because Nayyar Ali Dada was not comfortable with the idea of his gallery being ransacked by fundamentalists.

He found refuge in Islamabad at Sarmad Sehbai’s house, a friendcum-guru from his college days. He stayed there for a year, studied tantra, read up on Ajanta Allora and worked. “It was a very relaxed atmosphere, a nice place to work,” remembers Zoay.

Since 1991, Zoay has lived in Lahore. He took a short trip to the Far East but did not like it because it was too commercial. He also tried living in Kohistan with Gujars but that too did not work out. Twice he went to Karachi for private shows where his work was sold at throwaway prices at 50 per cent commission. His recent exhibition at Lahore Art Gallery, however, was a big breakthrough for him.

It is difficult for people to get along with Zoay because he doesn’t put up with any nonsense. Besides, due to an exaggerated sense of his ethnic identity bordering on chauvinism, be has the tendency to explode at the slightest provocation and target any person whom he considers an alien on his land. Though much has matured, nothing has been finalized. Years of traveling and exposure to diverse influences and situations, an obsessive relationship with his work, the hunger to fully exist in every moment of his life, refusal to adjust within socially acceptable norms and the openness to renewal, have all contributed to the strength of his craft and content. The masterful line, the strong and original diction of images and colours in paintings and form in sculpture, are all tools with which Zoay is now skillfully equipped. The contents of his work, or the issues of existence he grapples with, are real, immediate and valid. But it is not the end or even enough.

Even today, Zoay is very much alLve, and so is the dialogue. If the Indus has been identified as the source of his identity, its boundaries arastill unclear. If the human (mainly female) form has been identified as the source of inspiration, there are angles and textures,still to be discotered. If the ancient cities of Moenjodaro, Harappa and Taxila inspire his motifs, there are many more to be excavated. For as long as he breathes, Zoay will ask questions, seek answers and grapple with them in his work.