He Listens, I Ramble

He Listens, I Ramble (2025) is an artwork by Muzzumil Ruheel, made in dialogue with the work of Zahoor ul Akhlaq and shown in Dialogues Across Time, curated by Saira Danish Ahmed, at Chawkandi Art Gallery, Karachi.

Zahoor ul Akhlaq’s practice remains a reference point for many artists working with the visual legacies of South Asia. Drawing from Indo-Persian miniature traditions and the authority of Firmans — royal decrees — his work stripped inherited forms to their bones, rearranging them into modernist abstractions. Borders, margins, and unreadable text stopped being decoration; they became thinking tools, quiet provocations in paint.

As Salima Hashmi observed, Zahoor’s engagement with tradition was “deeply analytical, never nostalgic.” In his work, the written word often refused to be read, functioning instead as a rhythm or pause — something you felt rather than understood.

I never met Zahoor, though in responding to his work I’ve constructed entire conversations with him in my head. I’ve heard he was a man of few words; in my version, he sits there in silence while I talk endlessly — questioning, speculating, connecting dots that may or may not be there. It’s possible this “conversation” is just me speaking to myself, which, come to think of it, is probably how most artists converse with the past.

My own recent piece takes a similar route: a calligraphic-like line, unreadable but culturally loaded, suspended by two strings that droop into the shape of a miniature border. The shape changes each time it’s installed, like memory or inherited forms — never quite the same twice, never entirely under control.

For both Zahoor and myself, form is the content. The Firman, the border, the flourish — not fixed relics, but working frameworks. You don’t just preserve them; you test them, bend them, see if they still hold weight. And if, in my imagined meetings with Zahoor, I’ve said far more than he ever would — perhaps that’s fine. Silence can be generous. Or maybe he’d just be politely waiting for me to finish.

He Listens, I Ramble
Mild steel, string, screws, and paint
22 × 30 × 1 inches / 55.88 × 76.20 × 2.54 cm
Edition of 10 + 2 AP
2025
By Muzzumil Ruheel

Dialogues Across Time, curated by Saira Danish Ahmed
Chawkandi Art Gallery, Karachi