Posing nude for a Zahoor painting was a privilege, an event for any woman. For a complete portrait is a reflection of the heart’s innermost emotions, pain and wisdom interpreted onto the rough surface of the canvas.
Zahoor had yet to paint that portrait, which could be the key to his soul. He was in search of himself; his secrets and his desires lay deep inside him but he couldn’t reach them. Zahoor had painted many beautiful faces, yet that wasn’t enough for him. He felt empty inside. Beauty alone didn’t quench his thirst. He wanted a face in which he could see his true self. He wanted to feel alive, content, perhaps even complete. He wanted a face that would pull at his heartstrings and change the monotonous heartbeat he had become immune to. Zahoor wanted to feel life fully.
Today, Suzan Velonsky, the most beautiful woman in the world, sits before him. She has broken many hearts and enjoys torturing in a somewhat sadomasochist manner in his friends’ bodies. As usual, she is high on drugs. Her scantily clad photo cover for Cosmopolitan Magazine has set many a heart beating. While the whole world is dying over her divine beauty, she is dying for Zahoor. All this stimulates his creative mind and engenders magic sparks from his conical finger. Whoever stares at his paintings will turn into a stone statue.
Totally absorbed, Zahoor continues to stare at her naked body, starting with her moonlike face. Upon this perfect circle of a face are perched the two perfect circles of her eyes, a circle’s distance between the two. Under these round eyes, lie the round arches of her cheekbones and the small convex semicircle of her lips. Below them her slender neck, and between her two-round shoulders the bowl-like circles of her soft breasts. And in the center of the tummy sits the tiny circle of her raisin-like navel. But when Zahoor emerges from his imaginative trance, he examines the canvas and finds nothing but a single circle. Deep in thought, Zahoor gazes at this circle. He has seen magnificently attractive women. And has been stricken by the visual appeal of the moon, sun, and earth. They convince him that the most splendid form in the world is a circle. The circle is proportionate from all sides and evenly connected to its core center. It is a complete shape in itself.
But Zahoor was in search of his own soul, his own purpose. He marvels at the exquisiteness in Suzan’s naked body. It reads like a sermon for his own masterwork. Still searching his own soul. This leaves only a simple circle on the canvas, which continually encircles his eyes. However, there’s no way yet to enter the circle. It is sealed shut like the gates of a fort upon the kettledrum’s announcement on a dark night. Zahoor’s anxiety keeps him in distress and perplexed throughout the entire night, he hopes that either the Muezzin’s call for prayer or the first ray of the sun might rouse the watchman to open the deadbolt of the gate to let Zahoor enter. Nonetheless, the gates remained closed. (he was shout out) Suzan, waking up from her intoxicated coma, sees Zahoor arguing with his canvas. Upon looking at the canvas, she could not understand it and Suzan started crying and cried out, “I’m not beautiful!”
Zahoor tried to convince her that only magnificent beauty would yield the Perfect Circle. “It’s because you are a total beauty.” Though Suzan was pleased to hear his praise, she still didn’t understand his aesthetic. She was simply cheered that such a well-known artist praised her.
A woman’s face, the work in its original shape by Mumtaz Hussain
After this, Zahoor stopped painting and locked up his studio. In his heart, he no longer desired to paint. His inspiration had fled. His mind was on gridlock, where beauty once flourished, where youthful passion rained. Gradually, his life’s savings and ended up broke. Suzan offered to help, but his swollen pride wouldn’t let him accept. He knew no other profession nor wanted to do any other work. One day, while strolling downtown and feeling financial distress, he came across a few tattoo shops near Astor Place. He was fascinated by their shades the colorful paintings on the body’s canvas. With a needle screwed into a tattoo-making gun, the color would fill up the naked body at the cost of oozing blood. It was like shedding blood and tears over his own incomplete, projected masterpiece. As he watched this new process, excitement took over. He discovered pleasure in pain. The experience of agony blended with ecstasy seemed to compensate for his sense of failure. It was the price of a minor satisfaction, whereas sweet pain is not such a bad deal. Achieving the look of beauty at the cost of saccharine pain might be a worthwhile endeavor. He inquired of the store owner, who demanded some experience. Zahoor told him that he was a creative artist willing to learn the art of tattooing bodies. The store owner hired him on the condition that he learn without pay. Zahoor enthusiastically accepted and in no time become a master of this trade.
Suzan continued to live with him. She earned a whole year’s rent in a single day. Always on drugs, she would sleep all day and visit the most expensive bars at night. Wealthy people paid any price to be in her company. Wealth, fame, and beauty were her handmaids. Suzan’s attractive and magical image sold many products through eye-catching ads in prominent magazines. But her breathtaking beauty was just an ornate goblet for Zahoor, another ornament on the shelf above his fireplace. One neither filled with liquid, nor dry, yet holding the fragrant jasmine of his soul.
One day, one of Zahoor’s friends got an infection from a tattoo on his back. Zahoor went to the hospital to visit him, but by mistake ended up in the ward for Craniofacial Anomalies. It was a strange, new place for him. So, he asked just what craniofacial anomalies were. The nurse explained: “Anomaly” meant “abnormal”. And “Craniofacial” refers to the head and facial bones. Human beings who are afflicted look different from most others. Zahoor thanked her and left the hospital, only to come upon an Indian girl with an unusual face. The circle of her left eye was sunken and this broken and incomplete as it stretched downwards. There was a gap between her nose and lips like an unstitched wound that had healed on its own. Her face was an incomplete circle. Which protruded from a whopping bump.
Zahoor’s heart knocked at his soul’s door. “Here’s a beauty whose doors are wide open. Doing her portrait would help me meet my soul”. Zahoor nervously asked her, “Are you from India?” She covered her breast tightly with her books. He noticed that they were about craniofacial anomalies. “Yes, I used to live in Delhi and now I’ve lived in New York for several years. What about you?” He replied, “I’ve also lived here for several years and don’t even remember when I was born, but it was in Pakistan.” He sighed deeply. She asked if he was in pain. He told her that sometimes the rawness of beauty wounded him. And that every wound bears a tale. The girl was astonished and asked, “the story of my wound, I don’t have a wound. If you’re judging me by my face, let me enlighten you that I was born like this. My mother used to tell me that when I was born, the whole universe shifted gears. The sun got stuck in an eclipse and the moon hid behind the stars, and the earth spun out of control. But the ox or the bull that held up this earth had only one horn. So when he got tired, he switched his horn” She went on, “I may be different, but I am not wounded.” Zahoor extended his hand to her and introduced himself. My name is Sundermukhi. Zahoor’s eyes shimmered as he told her that he was an artist, but his studio was shut down.
She asked why. He told her that his heart was searching for his soul and that his former style had disappeared. She told him that his style was very enigmatic. Then they parted ways with a promise to meet again. Zahoor sensed that Sundermuki’s beautiful face might open the locked door of his heart. He was convinced that her portrait would be the one and only masterpiece that could free his heart and his soul. After a long wait, they met at a restaurant and after dinner, he said. “I would love to paint your portrait.” After a while, she agreed.
Zahoor was ecstatic. He had found his new muse, His professional life would start up again. He informed art dealers that he was coming back. That became the raging news of the art circles. Zahoor was painting again! He bade goodbye to his tattoo job, even though it was another aspect of his profession. He kept his gun and pigments as a souvenir. Like a bridegroom, in high spirits, Zahoor decorated his studio impatiently impulsively, like passionate waves crashing against the shore. Actually Suzan was delighted that he was painting once again. And was still very much in love with him. Of course, Zahoor didn’t tell her about Sundermukhi, who was supposed to arrive at noon to sit as his model. He assembled all his paint materials. He could hardly wait. He couldn’t sleep the previous night with all that excitement, lust, and thrill moving coursing through him. Suzan thought this was because he was excited by his return to painting.
Zahoor was surprised when he restlessly arrived at the studio to find the door open, pigment boxes properly arranged, and the brushes aligned and ready. Even the brush cleaning oil was on the table. Then he saw Suzan naked in an intoxicated stupor, lying as usual in front of Zahoor’s canvas. Next to the brush cleaning container lay an unopened envelope addressed to him. He saw that it was from Sundermuki, he opened it with great disappointment that she changed her mind. “My face is an open book, it should not be imprisoned within the four walls of a canvas prison”. Zahoor was heartbroken and dejected. He sat down on the chair to pull himself together. When he looked up, he saw before him the enraptured and intoxicated Suzan, He felt a sudden shock wave hit his head. He grabbed the tattoo machine filled with paint and tattooed the imagery of Sundermuki all over Suzan’s face.
