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Nasser Azam returned to Pakistan after 25 years to reconnect with his roots and get inspired. “My trip to Pakistan was part of my ‘Saiful Malook’ project, where I visited the lake on an artistic journey with the music composer Soumik Datta. I first came across the mesmerising music of Nusret Fateh Ali Khan in the early ’90s and I immediately fell in love with his translation of the Sufi Saint Mian Mohammad Baksh’s seminal poem Saiful Malook,” he told a local Pakistani news channel.
“I was living in Japan for most of the ’90s but upon my return to London, I researched the poem and immediately felt a strong connection; Mian Mohammad Baksh who had written the poem over 150 years ago was born in Jhelum, the same city as me; the poem is a love story, but also a story of struggle and sacrifice,” he continued, “I recognised many similarities with my parents’ sacrifices and journey to England for the betterment of their children; the struggles the family went through to adjust, and ultimately how persistence eventually pays off.”
The artist’s work comprises of abstract and large-scale paintings and is exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery in London.
“It was my first trip to Pakistan for over 25 years, so the thematic journey of the poem, interweaving ideas of enlightenment, struggle and sacrifice and going back to my roots after such a long time, made it magical, demanding, sentimental, emotional and very creative.”
“I feel that the poem has been misunderstood over time, as the localised Punjabi language it was written is not easy to translate. I was hugely influenced of the thematic undercurrent of the poet as an artist who is searching for creative fulfilment through divine intervention, and how he is trying to get his audience to appreciate that as a social message,” he told Geo News. “It is intertwined with the charm of Sufi poetry, and as relevant today as it was when first written.”
