‘Aina-e-Naqqash’: Dream of a Special Person

Spiritually gifted artist, enthusiastic painter of shrines wishes to open an art gallery in capital

Mirza Shakeel Baig, 32, a special person with amazing ability of painting and sketching is a spiritualist and is impaired of one of his eyes and has been painting shrines since 2004 voluntarily without the aid of any particular person, having no abode to reside in and is forced to live in different mosques and shrines.

He has 2 brothers and 2 sisters while his father has died few years back. Since the time his mother died i.e.2003, he has been living a very miserable life. He started visiting the shrine of Kalyam Sharif located in Rawat and was fascinated by the shrine’s beauty. He further wanted to paint it in a good way in order to give it a special look. Since 2004, he has been doing canvas painting over there. At that time he was penniless and he is still the same.

He was attached with his paintings so much that some spiritual power blanketed him due to these shrines and he became a psyche-patient according to his doctor. He then recovered from his illness but still his passion for paintings is alive.

He took six months to complete the first paintings of ‘Roza Mubarak’ -- Mausoleum of the Kalyam Sharif Shrine in Rawat which is famous with the name of Baba Fazal-e-Shah Kalyami. His second painting took him 4 years to accomplish in which he painted the whole Mausoleum in such an aesthetic way that it surprised people on the very first sight. During all these days he had no money with him to buy food, to hire any room, to buy clothes, to fulfill the basic necessities of life and also had no credit for the painting materials like brushes, canvas, colors and lots of other things.

He says, “I was making the paintings of shrine for the whole day and used to sleep there in the shrine and residents living near the shrine used to bring food and water for me and I slept after eating that.” He had been in this field for the last 7 years and had left home due to its wilderness”.

Nowadays he is living with some friends of him who extend some support to him for buying painting stuff and also provide meager amount for his survival. He says, “I have no objective in life except painting.” He further told while talking to this agency, “It gives me joy, happiness and soothes my soul when I make paintings. These paintings which I make are a result of natural talent in me and I have not learnt it from anyone rather it is my own creation and effort. My latten potential came when my mother departed me all alone leaving me in the lurch. At that time I was clueless owing to the shock and I could not understand what to do.” Kalyam Sharif is famous for Qawali and especially for spiritual treatment of snake bites.

He said while talking to INFN, “I have no tension, woes and worries; I just have a wish to make an art gallery in Islamabad with the name, ‘Aina-E-Naqqash’ to further my work. I do not need anything in this world except the Gallery where I may paint, day in and day out, non-stop but for this I need some generous person’s help because I have no money.”