The tradition of storytelling - ‘Dastan or Qissahgohi’ can be traced back to medieval Persia. As the Persian speaking rulers gained afoot-hold in India, and established courts across the country, professional story narrators –‘Dastan goh’ became an essential part of their entourage. These stories were generally cultivated in the royal courts, and usually contained fictionalized versions of the wisdom, bravery and successes of the rulers and became the chief source of folklore. As Urdu gained popularity in the sub-continent, this genre was adopted by Urdu speakers and became the medium of oral ‘Qissah’ (story) narration in central and southern parts of the subcontinent. This artwork builds up on this tradition of storytelling and narrates the story of the storyteller.

Sometimes life presents people, who are difficult to forget. During our recent visit to Lahore’s Badshahi mosque, we came across a short frail old gentleman standing in one of the mosque enclave’sgiving a discourse about the mosque architecture. One would have ignored him as one of the many guides that haunt the place, but there was something different in his presentation, maybe it was his English or the way he made his words reverberate that got my attention.

Faqir Muhammad Shami as he later introduced himself to us, knows the exact spots in the architecture of the mosque where the designers of the time had built a unique feature that allowed the words spoken by someone at that precise spot to echo and be heard a long distance away. A Mughal era microphone system of sorts, either designed to make the preacher’s sermon be heard by a larger audience or perhaps force their voice and words to linger in the listeners mind.

During his shot spiel about the greatness of Mughal architecture and design, Shami candidly mentioned his presence on Youtube and Facebook.I would have ignored him as another ‘wacky’ gentleman to cross our path as we toured around, but something in Shami’s attitude had captured my attention and intrigued me to validate his claims. Moreover, my daughter’s photograph of Shami had captured the lines and forms of his aged wrinkled face so masterfully that it presented an opportunity that had to be explored.

Consulting ‘Dr Google’, lo and behold, Shami does have a cyberspace presence. His admirers have uploaded his interviews on Youtube(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8NrpkomU_Q) and he has been featured in national newspapers (http://tribune.com.pk/story/599460/lahores-unofficial-tourist-guide-the-rime-of-the-ancient-qissa-goh/). He also has a Facebook page dedicated to him and photos of him also appear on Flickr.

In his own right, Shami is a historian, a political activist, a poet, a tourist guide and has his say on everything, from Shakespeare to current government policies. He has his own view of the world, what is and what ought to be. Even his hand written visiting card is unique and after presenting the trivial details about his mobile phone number, name and address disseminate his view point aboutthe chaos in the world and reads ‘on the day when we can fully trust each other there will be peace on earth’.

Being the sucker for left-field ideas that I am, Shami’s life story has enough material to inspire me to paint this piece - a story of the storyteller.  This one is dedicated to you Mr Shami- God Bless.