Quack team and students of TIP express their deep sorrows on demise of Rubina Khan’s Father. May ALLAH bless his soul in heaven and give his family, strength to bear this loss. (Ameen)

Craftsman Mohammad Arif Mirani said he loved Sindhi culture and therefore was struggling to keep this dying industry alive. However, he said love alone was not enough to run the affairs of the household.

SUKKUR: Ajrak is said to be an integral part of Sindhi culture but its industry in Sukkur has reached its lowest ebb due to government inattention.

Recently dozens of Ajrak-making industries have been closed due to financial crisis, rendering hundreds of craftsmen jobless.

Earlier, there were more than 150 Ajrak making units in the city employing hundreds of craftsmen, but tremendous increase in the rate of raw material have forced those units to close the business.

Now only one unit is working in Sukkur near Shalimar railway crossing, adjacent to Minara road, where a craftsman, Mohammad Arif Mirani and his seven sons were struggling to keep this traditional industry alive. When this correspondent visited the unit, Arif Mirani refused to talk to him saying that media persons came and wasted hours of his precious time, but nothing had helped him. Even district nazim of Sukkur Syed Nasir Hussain Shah also visited the unit and promised to grant him Rs200,000, but to no avail.

However, after venting his frustration, Arif Mirani expressed sorrow over the decline of Ajrak industry in Sukkur.

He said that in yester years, there were more than 150 Ajrak industries in the city, in which hundreds of craftsmen used to work in three shifts round the clock.

Recalling the past, he said Ajraks prepared in Sukkur used to proudly sent to parts of the country including Hyderabad, Karachi, Lahore, Faisal Abad, Islamabad, Quetta, Peshawar etc. People of Sukkur used to present Ajraks and Sindhi caps to their friends and relatives belonging to other cities and towns.

But high prices of raw material affected the industry and then gradually owners of Ajrak making units lost their capital and thus were forced to say good bye to their business.

Answering a question, Arif Mirani said he loved Sindhi culture and therefore was struggling to keep this dying industry alive in Sukkur.

However, he said love alone was not enough to run the affairs of household cart. He and his sons were compelled to continue this work in a two-roomed accommodation to earn livelihood because they were not educated and know nothing about any other skill. He said cloth for preparing Ajrak was bought from Faisalabad while colours were available in Hyderabad and Karachi.

He said Ajrak took its final shape after passing through seven phases. The last phase was to wash Ajraks in the river and dry in the sun to give its colour a glitter.

He told, after completion Ajraks were supplied to wholesale dealers who paid in instalments, which was quite disturbing.

He said that after 10 to 12 hours of toil, a craftsman prepared two Ajraks and earned Rs200 which was insufficient to pull along the household.

He said that rising tariff of electricity, increasing prices of other-daily items and low income in Ajrak making were compelling him to quit the business, but “I don’t want to make this business a tale of past at least in Sukkur city”.

Source: DAWN, 26 February 2010.

Rules were pretty simple, we had our punchline as Think Global & Act Local.
Initially we got 17 teams that participated in the first round, and that was to submit a two pages executive summary of their business idea.
We already asked everybody to be as creative and innovative as possible but restricting oneself to business viability!!!

From these 17 teams we selected the top 8 teams, the judging panel for the first round consisted of students including the TIES members (Sarim, Amna, Shumaila, Dawood, Rida and Nussebah).

After the screening out of the 8 teams, we had our Final round on 24th Feb’ 2010 Wednesday TISF Slot. Each team gave a presentation of 5 minutes on their proposals.

For the final round, our judges consisted of Sidrah Nadeem (external jury) and for the internal jury we had Ma’am Saira Danish, Sir Saifuddin Kamran, Sir Fariq Mukhtar, Sir A.Q. Zaidi and the chief guest for the event was our very own president Mr. Tariq Ikram.

The ideas varied from fashion houses to nutritional plans, to utilizing natural fuels to designer wear Abayas!

It was very difficult controlling the audience since its a natural aspect of TIPains to be as happening as possible!

And as for the winners, third position was secured by Umair Sadiq TMM4 (Nutropia), second position by a group of 4 girls, Madiha Altaf, Fizza Asad, Saba Alam and Fatima TMM3 ( Glamour House) and the champion of BIC 2010 was Muneeb Ur Rehman TDT-2 (Jacq-Art).

We, the Team of TIES highly appreciate the hard work and effort put in my each and every participant and acknowledge the fact that the judges took out their precious time for this event!

Thank you everyone for your support and participation

TIP was pleased by the visit of Michael Esson; Dir. IDRI, Professor at Glasgow School of Art and Dong Hua University, China. His recent art work is on display at VM art Gallery, Karachi. He shared his experiences and knowledge in a one day seminar held at TIP auditorium. He was the first artist who resided at Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh, for his inspiration with human anatomy as an artist.

In first session, he gave a brief about his organization, International Drawing Research Institute at CoFA, UNSW in Sydney, Australia. CoFA is one of the leading art schools in Australia providing graduate courses, masters and Ph.D. degree in fields related to Arts & Design.

Then he shared his experience at Outside In; Drawing and Fashion, A dong Hua University Project. How he transformed his art work to make dresses and using the concept of human anatomy and surgical procedures and relating it to typical Chinese culture to form dresses.

In second session he started with a video, which I still can’t figure out what that was about. All those pictures on the wall formation of different objects and that series of people coming out of other people’s stomach and then that fat guy ate the head of small one. All those transformations, what I can relate it to were about human nature or the inside.

In the end he said that how things appear ugly to many people but how beautiful we can actually make them. Then came the president and gave his lasting words, a true artist is 99 % Perspiration and 1 % inspiration. Hopefully these students will perspire something new.

We have selected two committee members on basis of interest from each year of the design department and some have already been selected from the marketing department to assist us in organizing and making decisions. Further committee members will be selected according to participation.We had our first meeting a while back and the turn out was impressive. We decided on a name for the committee and settled with ‘T spectrum’ and people who were interested signed up as members.

Anybody who would like to join is welcome and can come and sit in on any of our meetings to see what we are all about. We took part in an event recently and raised a reasonably good amount. (Thanks to the people who helped out selflessly. Ahsan, Godil, Mustafa, Rameez, Habib, Jawad, Rida, Faizan, Uzair, Nabah and TDT1, Sherry, Nehdiyah and Saad)

We have agreed on a short term agenda and have also been offered sponsorship for our next event which we will be further discussing at our next meeting. We always talk about how we feel bad for the less privileged, yet we don’t want to give up the privileges God has blessed us with and so we are combining the two, so you can enjoy yet do a bit for those who don’t get to.

We hope to see you all at the next meeting!