Conversations with Lillies Print

This painting is based on the following couplet of a famous subcontinent Urdu/Persian poet/philosopher: Iqbal who wrote during early 1900s. Dayar-e-Ishq main apna maqaam paida kar Naya zamana, naye subh o shaam paida kar Khuda agar dil-e-fitrat shanas day tujh ko Sukoot-e-lala o gul say kalaam paida kar Translation (some liberties taken to try to make it sound as poetic in English as in Urdu): Give birth to new eras, new mornings, new dusks Set your own standard in the land of devotion If God gives you the sense to recognize the nature Strike, with the inanimate lilly flowers, a conversation The poem is said to have been written by Iqbal as a message to his son who had just completed his studies and was starting to find his place in the world. The poem talks about how one should strive towards excellence in whatever one does. One should pursue one's passion with devotion. Such should be this devotion that even the impossible becomes possible. Such should be the devotion to one's passion that even a task as impossible as striking a conversation with the inanimate flowers becomes viable. Such should be this devotion that the individual ultimately ends up making their own mark/set their own standard in the realm of Love/Devotion. While the context of the couplet was quite worldly, however, the term devotion/love is so vast that the couplet has taken meanings well beyond the one intended in the poem to encompass all forms of loves/passions/pursuits: from Devine to Worldly, from romantic to professional from economic to artistic. In this painting I have tried to depict the conversation with the inanimate lilles by a sufi Dervesh who strives ro excel in his quest for the Devine. Such is his quest, full of passion that he can paint the sky Pink and the horizon gold with the same and thus creating his own world, his own mark in the realm of love.