Sufi Designer

By Aamna Hader Isani, *Style, the Sufi Way* - The Express Tribune - Karachi, Pakistan; Sunday, December 19, 2010

Whispers spread through Lahore like a hush through a dense forest. Muzaffar Ali was in the city and he had broken down in tears while Hina Nasrullah was reciting Bulleh Shah’s kaafis during the launch of his book, Sufis of Punjab, at the Governor House. It wasn’t unexpected.

Ali was ostensibly here for Bridal Couture Week but Lahore draws men like him for far more deep-rooted reasons than fashion. It is, after all, the land of sufi poets. Ali had visited Abida Parveen in hospital a day earlier; he had paid his respects at the tombs of Nur Jehan and Jahangir. His 90-year-old paternal aunt had traveled from Karachi for his showing and book launch. Muzaffar Ali was visibly moved by every moment he spent in this cultural city.

“I have an emotional connection with Lahore,” he says. “This trip has been enriching.”

And having spent no more than moments with the man, it was still easy to see that emotions are what make Ali tick.

Film maker, designer, author, mystic … there are so many labels that define him, and yet it’s impossible to underline just one. He is a sufi designer and mystic filmmaker, the ethos of his work being subtlety and gentleness that infiltrates everything he does. And he has done it all and more in the past thirty years.

If there’s one word that describes the man best, it’s ‘revivalist’ because whether it is adapting Mirza Hadi Ruswa’s novel Umrao Jaan Ada to film, following sufism through Jalaluddin Rumi’s intense poetry or reinventing the simplicity of the age old craft of chikankari, one of Lucknow’s sartorial legacies, Ali continuously strives to keep history alive. He picks up traditions from the past and reasserts their relevance in a new world order. They are revived but not at the risk of losing their ancient charm.

Film

“I now want to make a film on (Empress) Nur Jehan,” he says, causing people to wonder whether he would cast a Pakistani actresses as the star. “My film would be a human saga.”

As a filmmaker, Ali will remain best known for the piece of lyrical brilliance he created with Umrao Jaan in 1981. The film left a legacy that remains unparalleled when it comes to narrating the richness of Lucknow as a home to tradition, culture, art and poetry. Though he could never achieve that success in any other film, it didn’t stop him from trying and now he wants to narrate another historical tale.

He isn’t too happy with the way films, especially period films are made in India today. “The west has a better idea of what old India was,” he reminisces. “We don’t live up to the imagination. I think it’s because people who put money into films these days don’t have the right vision. It’s a battle I’ve been fighting for years.”

Needless to say, J P Dutta’s remake of Ali’s Umrao Jaan (though Dutta insisted it wasn’t a remake) wasn’t a patch on the original. It lacked both body and soul required to transport the viewer to British India. So what did Ali think of the film?

“I didn’t watch the new Umrao Jaan so cannot comment on that,” Ali says, smiling when I ask him the completely clichéd and yet irresistible question. “I was warned not to.”

Literature

Beyond the magic of films, it is a love for literature that fuels Ali’s life. “Faiz Ahmad Faiz is the greatest phenomenon of the sub-continent.” Ali speaks of the legendary poet with reverence: “I have used Faiz’s poetry in my films and have dedicated my work to him. We should celebrate people like Faiz and Abida (Abida Parveen, who he refers to as “my sister”) who are beyond boundaries.” According to him, art is the one thing that liberates nations from the divisiveness of boundaries, as Ali adds, “the relationship between India and Pakistan has to go beyond politics.”

Ali stresses that art and literature in India and Pakistan must not be territorialised. They must be acknowledged as products of the traditions of the sub-continent, rather than of two different countries. This, according to him, will be the only way to create a culture that binds people rather than divides them.

It is with this in mind that Ali organises the Jahan-i-Khusrau Music Festival in Delhi each year. The festival celebrates the poetry of Hazrat Amir Khusrau and is held under the aegis of the Rumi Foundation of which Muzaffar Ali is Founding Member. As Sufism speaks the universal language of love, the festival has also broken down barriers, bringing Pakistani artists on stage. Ali further says it would be great if Pakistan and India could work together to restore archeological heritage sights, especially in Lahore where they suffer from neglect.

Fashion

While literature may serve as the perfect bridge between two countries, it was fashion that brought Muzaffar Ali to Pakistan. Close friends with Yousuf Salahuddin — they share a passion for culture — Ali couldn’t say no when Jalal Salahuddin of J&S invited him to show at Bridal Couture Week.

The collection he brought with him added sophistication and much needed subtlety to the otherwise loud and often brash bridal wear on display on the runway. Standing out against the sea of sequins shown, Muzaffar and Meera (his wife, who supervises the design department) put together a collection that was fluid and gentle, and suggestive rather than flamboyant.

They brought in a variety of clothes woven and embellished at Kotwara, the picturesque studio Muzaffar Ali shares with Meera. It’s where delicate jamevars are spun and comforting cottons are embroidered. It is where old crafts like zardozi, aari, kaamdani, chikankari are revived and brought together as a technique better known as chintz or ‘chheent’ – where woven fabric is made to look embroidered because of the sheerness and delicacy of its workmanship.

“We design for the discerning client,” says Meera. “Ours is a label that caters to well-travelled and sophisticated women who understand the importance of being understated. These clothes are sexy because of the sheerness of the organza; they are suggestive without being overpowering. And they revive techniques that we would like to keep alive.”

The collection may have been lost on most of Lahore but it brought an undeniable sophistication to Bridal Couture Week, making it easier to label Muzzafar Ali in part as a ‘sufi designer,’ if such a thing may exist.