00:00My original ustad, Ustad Bashir, the ustad of miniatures, he's the one who's taught me
00:16since I was a child.
00:17You know, whether it was personal, because I knew him since I was a child, I've done
00:21a lot of private classes, which is an apprentice of a ustad, where they sit together and he
00:25gives you his work to do and he teaches you things which they don't teach normal students.
00:31So I think he is the one who is the person who actually made my art look the way it does
00:38today and, you know, he really made me work very, very hard, 16 hours a day sometimes.
00:44Sometimes he used to push me, everything.
00:46And then on top of that, my family.
00:48My mother saw that I love art and she saw that I'm also very good at painting and I
00:53had always, even when I was a child, my painting and thing was never of a child, it was always
00:58an adult.
01:00And so she took me all over the world, she used to make me see museums, she used to pursue,
01:05she used to give me a lot of paints.
01:07And then in school also they told them that, you know, she's very good.
01:10My art is basically all about Islamic calligraphy, but rotated in a slightly modern way, but
01:17also maintaining the old school, the way I was taught how to write it, maintaining that,
01:21but with a touch of modern.
01:22And yet also at the same time I'm trying, like, I'm trying that a lot of the art should
01:27be readable, because a lot of people have a problem, they say calligraphy is not readable,
01:32what does it say?
01:33So basically that's what I do, that it should be readable, yet modern, yet also it should
01:39have the old school, like it looks like a proper painting, not like something somebody
01:42just did in one day and they just gave it to them.
01:45I was the first person to start Arabic calligraphy classes in Dubai, at Dubai Community Art Center.
01:51Nothing like that ever existed, in fact to a point that even the pens, the bamboo pens
01:56and the kalam that we write with had to be flown in from Pakistan by me.
02:01And you know, the person who makes the pens, I had specially got boxes and inks made for
02:07my students, specially packeted from Pakistan, so that that's the material that they used
02:12to use.
02:13And slowly, slowly people started to get to know about my classes.
02:16And I think by now I have taught every nationality of the world, including royal families of
02:21different countries.
02:23Many people have sent their children to me, many big families in the Gulf have sent their
02:28children to me.
02:29I have worked for movie set, you know in the movie sets, royal family bought my paintings,
02:34I taught them, I taught many other artists, I did a lot of work for, for example, Gucci,
02:40Louis Vuitton, you know.
02:42So slowly, slowly, you know, people's interiors, ceramics, a lot of hotels.
02:48So that's how my name came about.
02:51If you want to do something, whether it's art or anything that they're pursuing, and
02:55specially art, then you have to work very hard.
02:58But for sure, they should follow what their heart tells them.
03:02If they want to be a calligrapher, they should be a calligrapher.
03:05If they want to be a miniature artist, if they want to be a sculptor, you know, they
03:08should follow that.
03:11But before following this art, one thing I would advise the youth is they should have
03:15a degree.
03:17You know, whether it's an art degree or any kind of degree that they have that they think
03:21they're pursuing, in that it's very vital in this day and age, they have a proper degree
03:25in it.
03:26You know, because if you have a degree, then it'll take you a long way, you can do a lot
03:30with it.
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