Peshawar: ‘Perhaps the picture of the Saudi Crown Prince will become a means of Umrah’.

He was wearing glasses, frantically making straw pictures on black canvas. The white glue was stuck to the fingertips of his old hands as he walked with speed, but the work on the picture was going on quite neatly and neatly.

I had seen this artist named Syed Abid Shah once before in Peshawar Sadar, we had a brief conversation, he also gave his contact number, but I don’t know why that number was never called. No.

See them again on 18 September 2022 when an exhibition was organized in Peshawar to introduce small scale industries in the market and increase employment opportunities for them. The exhibition was organized under the joint effort of Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Al Hayat Group of Companies and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Board of Investment.

On this occasion, the elderly artist was accompanied by his young son, who was sometimes carrying the pictures from one place to another, and sometimes talking with the buyers.

Finally saw the picture in this stall today, which he had told me about in the last meeting, but it was not there.

It was a portrait of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which he created to serve as a reference to his age.

During the detailed discussion, he told that actually he has made two pictures which took a total of one month.

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Abid Shah said that he spent 50 years in this art, in which he not only brought up four children, married two daughters but also gave them higher education. ‘I just want to perform Umrah now. Because if I don’t do it now, then when will I do it?’

He said that the art he is involved in is called ‘straw art’, which is two hundred years old and is now disappearing from Asia.

‘In the whole of Peshawar, I am the only person involved in wheat straw art. Now he has taught his son too.

Abid Shah said that he often works all night on artworks, as this is his livelihood.

‘Sometimes nothing sells for days and weeks. I spent my youth in this and now I am old, what else can I do.’

Syed Abid Shah has created various designs including straw calligraphy, which shows that this work requires skill as well as breadth of mind, which he possesses.

However, to encourage rare arts, there is a need for efforts at the government level not only to spread it further but also to recognize such artists.