ISLAMABAD - Prominent artist and social worker Jimmy Engineer has said that there is a need to revive the spirit of Pakistan Movement in the people to pull the country out of crisis and put it on the path to progress, development and prosperity.
Jimmy Engineer, in an interview with APP, said that the people in general and the younger generation in particular needed to be apprised and reminded of the sufferings, sacrifices and struggle of the millions of men, women and children for the creation of a separate homeland under the inspiring leadership of Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
He said: “somehow we have forgotten the sacrifices, struggle and sufferings of our forefathers and today we need to revive the spirit of the Pakistan Movement.”
Jimmy said he had painted the struggle, sufferings and sacrifices of millions of men, women and children on huge canvasses more than three decades back.
He said over the years, he had been making donations of back-lighted transparencies and canvass prints of the huge Pakistan Movement paintings to educational institutions, organisations, legislatures and other places of public interest all over the country to remind the people about the sufferings and sacrifices of their forefathers for making Pakistan.
Jimmy Engineer said that he was willing to donate paintings to all institutions, organisations and public places to display prominently for the benefit of general public.
He said that the huge Pakistan Movement paintings had given him immense recognition and appreciation not only in Pakistan but also the world over and he was genuinely proud to have created such an ever-lasting art work of great historical importance. Jimmy said that he regarded his art creation s as a God-given gift.
Highlighting the background of painting on huge canvasses, Jimmy Engineer, who was born in a Parsi family of Loralai, Balochistan, seven years after Pakistan had come into existence, said it was just to acknowledge the sacrifices of people given during the Pakistan Movement.
Jimmy Engineer said that in early 1970s, he had started having bad dreams of bloodshed and violence for days together.
He said that many people, including Sufi Barkat Ali of Darul Ehsan, Salarwala near Faisalabad, had advised him to start paintings reflecting his dreams.
He said that accordingly he had drawn several big paintings showing different aspects of the Muslim sufferings and sacrifices while migrating from undivided India to their new motherland Pakistan which they had achieved in 1947.
Jimmy said that he was proud of being the artist, who had done a series of these huge paintings which are now known as the Pakistan Movement paintings with his art work recognised and appreciated internationally and nationally.
Replying to a question that when he will exhibit the original Pakistan Movement paintings anywhere in the country, he said that this would be possible only when he was assured of safe and secure transportation and display of his costly paintings.
He said his two paintings of the Pakistan Movement series in original were on permanent display, one each at the National Art Gallery in Islamabad and the Permanent Art Gallery in the Alhamra Cultural Complex in Lahore.