Feica

By The NuktaArt Team

Rafiq Ahmad, popularly known as Feica, is one of Pakistan’s foremost political cartoonists. Based in Karachi, he works as the resident cartoonist with Dawn. During his long career Feica has also worked for other national dailies like The Muslim, The Star and The Frontier Post.

Feica was born in Multan in 1957 in an orthodox family that allowed him to enroll at the National College of the Arts in Lahore (NCA).   

Both an artist and a journalist, Feica’s insightful cartoons are often a scathing commentary on political events but it never fails to make the reader smile. Few important leaders have escaped the brunt of his humor or his skills as an accomplished caricaturist. 

Feica’s career as a political cartoonist spans three decades. He has had a major contribution in consolidating the field in Pakistan for which he was honored with an APNS (All Pakistan Newspapers Society) Award in 1989. 

Deeply committed to the cause of freedom and peace, Feica has created several murals on this theme for the Karachi Press Club. It’s not unusual to see him at peace marches and anti war rallies. While he has ‘fought’ long and hard for peace with his brush, he remains ever determined to lend his support to fellow activists.    

NuktaArt: Can you tell us about your first political cartoon

Feica: While studying at the NCA, I was asked to make a cartoon for an article on Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. This was in the early or mid 70s when that cartoon was published, but because I was young, I really didn’t value what happened to it, so I do not have any record of it. Even at the art school, I had a tendency to ride against the tide, and to be sarcastic. My art assignments were strongly tongue in cheek, for example I remember making one assignment of a chicken and egg in which I drew my teachers around it, as if they too were contemplating what to make of the unresolved chicken and egg theory. 

My first cartoon for the mainstream media was published in The Muslim in 1979. It was on a columnist’s story of dogs chasing the cats away from a dustbin. When I was asked to make a cartoon I went to that dustbin and another one near the office and spent a lot of time, making many drawings of the dustbin. I found its form and detailing very interesting, the handle, wheels etc. I remember producing a very strong caricature of the dustbin.

NuktaArt: What is the difference between an artist and a cartoonist? 

Feica: There is no difference as far as I am concerned.  You can easily end up repeating yourself as a cartoonist too. I am inspired by Van Gogh, among other artists.  (Points to the Zainul Abedin pen and ink drawings of the Bengal famine, thumb tagged on his office/studio wall). A painting is often a drawing to begin with; it’s just that paint and brush are used instead of charcoal or pen. I am also inspired by Khalid Iqbal’s landscapes of the Punjab and Colin David’s depth of color…Who’s to say that drawing with a pen is not drawing and a cartoon is not a drawing in the first place? I draw every day.  

My first medium was charcoal, which I discovered quite by chance. 

Once when I was upset after a quarrel with a family elder and sat sulking, I started to make strokes with a bit of burnt wood on a wall in my house. From this emerged an image to which I added a moustache, and used white chalk to make the man’s big teeth. It was after this caricature that my family discovered the artist in me!

It is important for me to find a way of expressing myself without words. I feel a cartoon can also be a painting.  Take the example of Afshar Malik. He could have made a very successful cartoonist, because his lines are very strong. So, isn’t there a fine line between the two? 

I also see endless possibilities in animation. I could create small animation strips for the local channels, but I cannot think of anyone willing to finance such an expensive project.

NuktaArt: A cartoon is more direct in its message, unlike a painting which is more contemplative, lets say, and its message is hidden. 

Feica: True, but we are the artists who are connected with ground reality. I was once travelling by train and was sharing the compartment with another family. I was amazed by their response and laughter when they shared my cartoon with each other printed in the local newspaper. I did not disclose my identity as for me it was enough that they were able to relate so well to my work.  

An unrelated incident that I can recall was a cartoon I did in 1988, for The Frontier Post, Peshawar. It was of Zia ul Haque on a non-functional flying carpet. It turned prophetic when a few months later the General died in a plane crash. 

NuktaArt: What about the use of words and a punch line. How important is that to a cartoon?

Feica:  A lot can be masked in an image. Words are more direct, and the challenge is to say what you cannot write, through the drawing.  Take an example of a cartoon by Vai Ell (Yusuf Lodhi). His cartoon on the Ojhri blast in Rawalpindi in 1988 had a line that read: “The Ojhri dump was built by the British, so Mrs. Thatcher should resign”. That sort of piercing commentary and genius is rare!   

NuktaArt: What role has censorship played in curbing your work? And how much is self censorship part of it, if it is?

Feica:  I have managed to get many provocative cartoons published, one of which was published in The Star in the mid 1980s.  I drew two hands knitting, and the yarn was coming from a Mullah’s beard!   

I make cartoons to make people laugh, and not to ridicule them.   Take the example of the Denmark cartoons. I think that they were made by amateurs.  A professional will never do this sort of work. I felt insulted by them.  You cannot trample other people’s religious beliefs. Respect is very important. I will not insult anybody. 

But I have always challenged the establishment because I am not afraid of them.  Benazir had humor and would laugh at the way I portrayed her as a witch in my cartoons!  It maybe difficult to do a parody of a powerful political leader on television but a cartoonist can make him/her the butt of his humor.  

NuktaArt: A lot can be written to confront the establishment, but when a provocative painting is brought into the public sphere, there is severe reaction.  Could a cartoon similar to the questionable photomontage of Benazir at the Shanaakht Festival 2009 by Nilofer Akmut, have got away with such a reaction, if it had been a cartoon, or not?    

Feica: It is a common misconception that a cartoon has to be “bad”. It takes one with a good sense of humor to understand the other’s sense of humor. The audience also has to be enlightened.  A cartoon can also be complex. Very often it competes with the editorial page, because there is a certain credibility attached to a cartoonist.

We are on the whole a very intolerant society.  Also, the values and ground reality in our society is different from the West.  It is necessary to take that into consideration, and not get vulgar or insulting.  I think that particular work was vulgar. Self- censorship has to be exercised wisely.  Censorship exists…During the Gulf War in the 90s, I drew an Arab head dress of an American flag and showed the leaders praying to the White House instead of the Kaa’ba. That cartoon never got published. 

NuktaArt: Can you tell us about the symbols, like the crow through which you might mask your message.

Feica:  Like any other artist, when you have been at it for many years, you develop a vocabulary. I used to have a bird in the beginning. Then there was an old man, whose features kept changing, so my symbols change continuously. I have used the crow a lot, simply because the crow is a very intelligent bird. There is a crow that comes to our balcony and my children feed it, so it’s become a part of my imagery. 

NuktaArt: How do you define your aesthetics? Surely, you are very involved with social issues and participate in protests outside the Karachi Press Club.

Feica: My creative sensibility has always been shaped by a social and political awareness. The NCA years, from 1973 to 1979, developed this consciousness.  It was here that I got the freedom to create without fear. 

I had Shakir Ali as a mentor, who unfortunately passed away the first year that I was there. Sadequain at that time was working on the Lahore Museum mural and we would have our classes at the Museum and watch him paint.  Khalid Iqbal, Saeed Akhtar, Zahoorul Akhlaque and Salima Hashmi were a part of the faculty. 

I became friends with Zahoor, as I did with the others. We were the non conformists, and were accepted as that. One day we decided to wear dhotis and khussas to class, just to be different and it was fine with our professors. It was like a live Shakespearean drama! (Laughs).  

I like to question restrictions. For instance instead of buying paint, I decided to make my  own pigment and like a scavenger would hunt the garbage and school for waste material and used it instead of the prescribed materials. This is the time when we did our own thing and felt like revolutionaries.

NuktaArt:  You carried that courageousness with you in your work and attitude, but what became of it otherwise? Where did that energy dissipate to, in the art institutes?

Feica: It’s no longer there because the curriculum is not there. If I was to train students, I will tell them to use discarded newspapers, markers and charcoal and make huge drawings, maybe of ten feet each and fill the walls. Discussion would be a major part of education. You have to break the mold to allow for something new to take root. 

Art colleges are not interested in developing a proper curriculum to study caricature, cartoon and animation. Building an animation department is essential.  I would go the classical way, of first teaching hand animation and then build it through computer technology. There will be no Micky Mouses, but our own characters. 

We were fortunate that with mentors like Zahoorul Akhlaque and others, there were no shagirds or ustad; we were friends who learnt from one another.  

NuktaArt: Was your early upbringing conducive to your bohemian nature? 

Feica: I was brought up in a conservative and religious family in Multan, where we were told that drawing an image was a sin. Often when I was upset, I would end up at the mazaar of Shah Shams near our house. The mazaar was like an old tree, under whose roof I would take refuge and think things out. It was here that I was drawn to Sufism and tasavuf and began to separate the teachings of the maulvi from Sufism. Since I was always rebellious by nature once I left Multan, I did not look back. 

NuktaArt: Can being a cartoonist be a viable full fledged career?

Feica: Presently, out of a population of millions, there are only a handful of us in Pakistan. This speaks for itself. And to tell you the truth, we are a neglected bunch. The intellectuals and fellow journalists have not taken the trouble to value our contribution. They should seek out our work and uncover our language and research and document it.

NuktaArt: Do you think that a cartoonist is an artist or a journalist? 

Feica: He is both. Since we are like a double edged sword. People don’t know where to place us. 

(Feica’s work can be accessed through www.feicart.blogspot.com)