Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Date of Birth: February 13th, 1911

Place: Sialkot (Punjab), Pakistan

Faiz's mother was Sultan Fatima. Faiz's father died in Sialkot in 1913. Faiz's father was a learned man and enjoyed the company of well-known literary persons. Wrote the biography of Amir Abdur Rehman. Faiz was therefore, born in a respectable and literary environment and was a very promising student with a religious background.Primary Education: Started memorizing the Holy Quran at the age of four and in 1916 started his formal education in the famous school of Moulvi Ibrahim Sialkoti, and learnt Urdu, Persian and Arabic. Was admitted to the Scotch Mission High School in 1921 in Class IV. Passed his Matriculation Examination in the 1st Division from Murray College, Sialkot and during this period learnt Persian and Arabic from Allama Iqbal's teacher, Shamsul Ullama Moulvi Syed Meer Hasan.

College Education: Passed his B.A. (Honours) in Arabic from the Government College, Lahore and then M.A. in English from the same College in 1932. Passed his M.A. in Arabic in the 1st Division, from Oriental College, Lahore.

Employment: Lecturer in English at M. A. O. College, Amritsar in 1935 and then at Hailey College of Commerce, Lahore. Joined the Army as Captain in 1942 and worked in the department of Public Relations in Delhi. Was promoted to the rank of Major in 1943, and Lieut. Colonel in 1944. Resigned from The Army in 1947 and returned to Lahore, where, in 1959 appointed as Secretary, Pakistan Arts Council and worked in that capacity till 1962. Returning from London in 1964 he settled down in Karachi and was appointed as Principal, Abdullah Haroon College , Karachi. Editorship of the monthly magazine Adabe-Latif from 1947 to 1958. Worked as Editor under the Progressive Papers Ltd, of the Pakistan Times, the Urdu newspaper Imroze and the weekly Lailo-Nihar. In the 1965 war between India & Pakistan he worked in an honorary capacity in the Department of Information. Acted as Editor of the magazine Lotus in Moscow, London and Beirut.

Marriage & Children: In March 9th, arrested under Safety Act and charged in the Rawalpindi Conspiracy case, and having borne the hardships of imprisonment for four years and one month in the jails of Sargodha, Montgomery (now Sahiwal) Hyderabad and Karachi, was released on April 2nd, 1955.

S.M. Zafar

Mr. S.M. Zafar is a human rights activist, noted lawyer, politician and member of the Senate of Pakistan. He has served as a judge of the high court and as Pakistan’s minister for law and parliamentary affairs. He is chancellor of Hamdard University and Chairman of Human Rights Society of Pakistan. His efforts for recognition and promotion of human rights and fair practices have attained him acclaim and acknowledgment on national and international levels. In his capacity as an attorney, Mr. Zafar has been involved in some of the most important cases of country’s legal history. He is considered an authority on legal and constitutional issues and his opinions are quoted in national and international press. He is also the chairman of Cultural Association of Pakistan.

Prof. Muhammad Umar

Prof. Muhammad Umar graduated from King Edward Medical College Lahore in 1968. He completed his orthopaedic training at Albert Einstein College of medicine in New York. He received fellowship training in joint replacement surgery at Hospital for special surgery, University of Cornell, New York. He was appointed consultant at University of Rochester affiliated hospital in 1975. He established a four-man orthopaedic group practice as a senior partner. As a member of the clinical faculty at the University of Rochester, he took active part in undergraduate education and postgraduate orthopaedic training. 

In 1990 he came back to Pakistan and joined Aga Khan University Hospital (Karachi) as a full time academic faculty member. Here he pioneered the development of arthroscopic surgery and joint replacement work. He is the founding faculty member of orthopaedic residency training program at the Aga Khan University and its director from 1995-2000. he is also a founding member of Pakistan Society for surgery of the hand and has served as its general secretary and president from 1995 – 1998. 

 He also had the honor to serve as secretary general and president of Pakistan Orthopaedic Association from 1996 – 1999. Prof. Muhammad Umar M.D. is the founder and surgeon-in-chief of Institute of Orthopaedics and Surgery and head of orthopaedic service of South City Hospital. He is recognized for his expertise in total joint replacement and revision surgery.

Dr. Saadia Virk

Dr. Saadia Virk, CEO at South City Hospital Karachi is a graduate of Fatima Jinnah Medical College, Lahore. After completing her postgraduate training at the Aga Khan University she went for further training to UK and obtained Membership of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. In the UK she worked in institutions of excellence and obtained special training in general Gynaecology, Urogynaecolgoy, Oncology, Assisted Reproduction and high risk Obstetrics.

On return to Pakistan, with her leadership skills, she established departments of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Mid East Hospital and a centre of Assisted Reproduction at Australian Concept Infertility Centre in Karachi.

In 2008 she took the lead in establishing and inaugurating South City Hospital which is a state-of-the-art facility for surgical specialties. At present she is the Chief Executive Officer and the Chairperson of the Board of Directors of this Hospital.

Clinical work is her second area of excellence. Her expertise lies in management of high risk pregnancies, infertility, assisted reproduction, oncology and laparoscopic surgery including LAVH, ovarian cystectomies, myomectomies, ectopics and endometriosis. She is also well versed with conventional general gynaecology. In recognition of her clinical work and leadership skills she has recently been awarded the Fellowship of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

Under Dr. Saadia Virk’s supervision, South City Hospital is now an established and recognized centre for laparoscopic surgeries in gynaecology and general surgery.

Sara Taseer Shoaib

Sara Taseer Shoaib is a trained gemologist qualified from the Gemological Institute of America GIA. She graduated at the top of her class and completed the jewellery design segment of her training with outstanding honors. She is also a graduate from the London School of Economics and has a sound background in finance. She has worked internationally at Citibank, and ABN Amro Hong Kong. Sara has spent 10 years in the diamond industry in New York and Hong Kong and established a reputation for her design and flair. Her last exhibition in Hong Kong was at the renowned Harvey Nichols store.

Sara has opened her flag ship store in Lahore, in February 2009. Despite hailing from Pakistan’s premier business and political families, Sara has always charted her own course and become an internationally recognized name in elegant jewellery design. Sara has chosen to open in Pakistan, during one of the most trying periods in the history of Pakistan. This is a reflection of her ever strong love for her country and a belief in its viability and potential.

Sara manufactures in Hong Kong where she resides with her husband and three children. Her focus is keenly on quality. Unable to detach herself from her subcontinental roots, and a staunch patriot Sara is committed to the marriage of western modern straight line design with eastern color and motif. Sara produces pieces of insurmountable quality and presents them within the relevance of Pakistani culture. Sara shows through exhibitions in New York, Hong Kong, London, Singapore and Tokyo.

Sara is a true grass roots designer of our time and her passion and creativity brings a new standard of jewellery to Pakistan .

Jimmy Engineer

Jimmy Engineer was born in 1954 in Balochistan (Loralai), Pakistan. His Parsi family could not have known then that he would grow up to break all barriers of caste and creed and truly define multi-ethnicity through his art and altruism.

Jimmy completed his schooling from St. Anthony’s High school, Lahore, and after a brief interlude at the Forman Christian College, he spent the next three years at the National College of Arts (NCA), expanding his creative prowess. It was in 1976 that he turned into a professional painter but his achievements went much beyond his artist’s creativity when he discovered a deep love for all his fellow beings, specially for the downtrodden. His art pieces soon became expressions of truth and his images began to speak of his compassion for the people he saw.

Although an artist by profession, Jimmy Engineer’s life has revolved around supporting troubled individuals as well as social work institutions, though he himself prefers to remain undocumented and unsung. His artistic performance has been acclaimed internationally particularly his series on canvas which depicts the Muslim toil in the wake of Pakistan’s Independence in 1947. The minute details, the layered imagery and the fine lines illustrating the transition of humans into tragic victims equal the skill applied by the Great Masters. His works have never failed to captivate successive generations of art lovers in Pakistan and abroad. Jimmy’s speaking impressions which have the power to move young minds and imbue them with a renewed sense of dedication for the country, have been exhibited extensively in Pakistan as well as abroad. The fortu! ! nes that he has earned have been generously spent on charitable work, which is what gives him satisfaction and he is content in leading a simple life.

A peace-loving man, he is widely known as Pakistan’s indefatigable crusader for the oppressed, disabled, mentally handicapped, impoverished and generally for all who need him as he has the ability to communicate with people from all walks of life. Jimmy’s many ‘walk-a-cause’ have earned him a special standing amongst Pakistan’s philanthropists as he has undertaken long, arduous journeys on foot to create awareness for many human rights issues.

As for his paintings, he has mastered many mediums and from realism (landscape, still life, abstract et all) to calligraphy, in water, oil, pastels etc, be it on canvas, wood or ceramics, he has explored and introduced numerous textures in his works and the amazing versatility is more than evident in his creations. His collection also includes miniatures and self-portraits, many of which are in private collections in Italy, France, Switzerland, Russia, India, China, England, USA in fact almost in every part of the world, validating his status as an International artist. But for Jimmy Engineer, Pakistan is the only identity he wishes for as he continues to work towards merging all cultures for the common good of his soil. Though he already has over 2000 paintings and more than 1000 calligraphies to his name besides the 20,000 or so prints in! ! private collection, selling his work is not why he paints. Like his art he simply aspires to spread his love for people wherever he goes and is ceaselessly pursuing the course of charity as his heart is sold to humanity for the rest of his life

Prof Anna Molka Ahmed

Prof Anna Molka Ahmed (1917 - 1994) was a famous Pakistani artist and pioneer of fine arts in the newly born Pakistan in 1947. She was a professor of fine arts at the University of the Punjab in Lahore. She was among the pioneers of women artists in Pakistan and had been a long-time director and moving spirit behind the Fine Arts Department of the Punjab University, Lahore - the first institution that was opened to the women artists in Pakistan. "In fact she has been the facilitator of a movement that made the proactive role of women artists a possibility". writes Nilofur Farrukh (president of International Art Critics Association, Pakistan Section). It is because of trendsetters like her that the feminist art in Pakistan is gaining strength away from traditional gender discriminatory dominance. In fact these days we are witnessing a gradual dismantling of social and gender classifications. Well this has not been easy, since a lot of women had to struggle hard to bring women atop many a prestigious positions - above men, Ana Molka Ahmed is one such women. She started evening art classes at Lahore Arts Council (Alhamra) and later in a village near Lahore. Her untiring efforts gradually upgraded art education beyond B.A to M.A. in fine art at the Punjab University. She was Head of fine art department from 1940-1978. Her contribution to art education and its promotion heas been most influential. Her paintings and sculpture are found in many public and private collections in Pakistan and abroad.

She was born to Jewish parents, in London, UK in 1917. Her mother was Polish and father was a Russian. She studied painting, sculpture and design at St. Martin School of Arts, London. She converted to Islam at the age of 18 in 1935, before marrying Sheikh Ahmed, a would be Pakistani in October 1939. The couple moved to the Indian subcontinent in 1940-41 and settled in Lahore. Although, her marriage was over in 1951, but yet she lived in Pakistan with her two daughters. She was awarded Tamgha-i-Imtiaz, for her services in the field of fine arts education in the country. Professor Emeritus Anna Molka Ahmed set up a department, which has now become a center of excellence for Fine Arts in Pakistan. At the time of independence, there were only five or six Muslim students in the art department, and Anna Molka Ahmed went from one college to another seeking students for the arts department and thus was able to introduce art courses in the Punjab University. Her students became famous artists in the country and many of them are playing their role globally.

Beside painting, she was an avid gardener. She would wear her trade mark while tending the garden, cutting hedges in new and artistic pattern, and went on painting and gardening till the very last time until she was ordered by the doctors to stop because it was straining her health badly. Anna Molka also took to writing poetry in later part of her life. She breathed her last in 1994.

Huma Mulji

Huma Mulji's work has moved more and more towards looking at the absurdities of a post-colonial society in transition, taking on board the visual and cultural overlaps of language, image and taste, that create the most fantastic collisions. She describes the time we live in as moving at a remarkable speed and in regard to Pakistan Mulji refers to the experience of 'living 200 years in the past and 30 years in the future all at once'. She is interested in looking at this phenomenon with humor, to recognize the irony of it, formally and conceptually. Rather than dwell on and follow existing theoretical issues of living and working in a post-colonial nation, and applying those stagnant studies to a lived existence she examines the pace of cultural change through her art work.

Mulji's sculptural works respond to the possibilities of making things in Pakistan, and embrace low-tech methods of “making”, together with materials and forms that come from another time, and that are “imported”, “newly discovered” or “re-appropriated”. For example the work Arabian Delight is a low-tech taxidermy camel, stuffed in a suitcase. It plays with ideas of travel, transition, and of mental and physical movement, combined with an old world symbol of the camel, forced into the suitcase, looking formally uncomfortable, but nonetheless happy. This particular work also examines the relationship between Pakistan and the Gulf States and the manipulation of the Governments of Pakistan, the “Arabisation” of the country, for years, towards all but wiping out a “south Asian” identity, to replace it with a “Muslim” identity. For Mulji, this in itself, is forced, unnatural, and disagreeable. However, she also approaches this problem from the angle of someone living within it: therefore looking at it with humor, and recognizing the absurd results of the situation, in daily life, and through interactions with each other, and the world.

The photographic series Sirf Tum (only you) from 2004 and from 2008, similarly address such absurd collisions. Sirf Tum deals with issues related to intimacy in public spaces. Surveying the frame through the lens, the camera zooms in, becoming the voyeur, awkwardly, confidently, watching and disapproving at once. The protagonists are second hand dolls bought from piles of toys sold around Lunda Bazaar in Lahore, incidentally brought into Pakistan with salvation army clothing from another world, leftover from some child’s summer holiday. Already on the Periphery of society, the naked couple is placed in locales that challenge and are challenged by their scale, creating a hyper-real space, a hyper-real narrative, a “plastic” story, convincing and disturbing at the same time. In the 2008 series, the two seemingly interactive narratives engage with each other visually, but don’t really converse. Which of the narratives is real? This also brings into question contemporary media images, and the phenomenon of “photoshop”, where the fine line between truth and untruth becomes a matter of belief.

The newer work, with the taxidermic buffaloes, and the photographs of buffaloes in the landscape, continue to be informed by the absurd and incongruous visual confrontations in a country desiring to be at once the most forward-looking, and unable and unwilling to negotiate its traditional values with this idea of progress.

Heavenly Heights and Her Suburban Dream both attempt to juxtapose these colliding metaphors, to envision this surreal reality. The work avoids easy taking of sides, or didactics, in imagining a future urban landscape of Pakistan. Sculpturally too, the work underscores the conflict. The suspension of volume and weight, and the pushing of anatomical possibilities to emphasize the tension.

Shahzia Sikander

Shahzia Sikander (b. 1969, Lahore, Pakistan) is a painter, living in New York City. She earned a BFA in 1992 at the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan; and an MFA in 1995 at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island.

She has had solo exhibitions at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (1999/2000) and at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago (1998). Her work has been shown in group exhibitions at the Whitney Museum (1999/2000 and 1999), at the Third Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, Australia (1999), and at the Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany (1999).

Sikander has been schooled in the miniature painting tradition of Pakistan, and combines the historic iconography and technique with her own aesthetics resulting in a hybrid of traditional and contemporary styles. The imagery in her work references the tensions that exist in Islam, Hinduism and Christianity as well as her personal history, politics, and sexuality. Religion is a significant element in her art as well as her personal life, as she is a practicing Muslim. Sikander explores in particular, the role of Muslim women and challenges the view Westerners have of associating Islam only with terrorism and oppression of women.

She has been granted the "genius grant" for 2006 by the MacArthur Foundation.

Imtiaz Safder Warraich

Choudhry Imtiaz Safder Warraich, Minister of State for Communications is a seasoned politician and remained a prominent practicing lawyer. Mr. Imtiaz remained MPA from Punjab during 1993-1996,MNA during 2002-2007 and presently is also a Member of the National Assembly since 2008 and with the portfolio of Minister of State for Communications. Her emained Joint Secretary and then General Secretary of the Gujranwala Bar during 1977 and 1983 respectively. Mr. Warraich was elected twice as Member Zilla Council, Guranwala while as elected for four terms as Director, Punjab Provincial Cooperative Bank, Gujranwala. In 1996, he remained as Advisor to the Chief Minister Punjab. Mr. Warraich enjoys huge popularity among the masses and is still the Vice President of the PPPP Punjab and Divisional President of the PPPP Gujranwala Division.

Mr.Warraich has a Masters degree and LLB from Punjab University.

Mr. Imtiaz Safdar Warraich was born on 15thof November, 1952 in Gujranwala, He has traveled widely to many countries and his hobbies include Reading and Trekking.