The Magic of Qamar Dagar's Pen

Calligraphy, the art of writing has many names in India. Called su-lekhan (su, meaning beautiful and lekhan, meaning writing), khushan visi, su-lipi, sulekh kala, in Hindi, khushkhati, khush nafisi, kitaabat, suloos, and khattaati in Arabic, Persian or Urdu, they all refer to the beautiful art of writing.

These find a true partner in handmade paper especially when the texture does not soak in too much ink from a pen.

Brushwork, writing with bamboo pens, or even a simple sketch pen gives highly aesthetic and beautiful results when a calligrapher’s sure and thoughtful flourish lights up the paper.

The calligraphy of Japan, China and Korea where a few black brush strokes bring magical art to rich cream-coloured paper are its the India’s calligraphy flourished during Mughal times, when Persian calligraphers wrote manuscripts illustrated and illuminated by Hindu painters or vice versa.

Paper making happened in many parts of India at that time, in spite of having 22 official languages, 13 scripts and over 700 identified dialects, Independent India has never been known internationally for its calligraphy.

It has many forms of classical and folk art, but although artistic sensibilities of its creative communities are high and widespread, they never extended to calligraphy.

Perhaps this was largely because the communities that painted or crafted did not value or feel the need for being literate. The skills of writing were left to those upper classes that served temples, kings or governments.

Calligraphers who continued valiantly were all Muslim, as the value of writing was originally attributed to the fact that the Prophet Mohammad’s sacred words needed to be written beautifully, so all holy sayings were inscribed lovingly and artistically on whatever surface was chosen.

Calligraphers practicing in multiple Indian scripts are few, but, in the 21 st century, there are a growing number, demonstrating, displaying and selling their art works in galleries, schools and at prestigious international events.

The papers acquired from hosiery waste, elephant and rhinoceros dung and the argeli plant were given to four prominent calligraphers of India, Jamyang Dorjee, Rajeev Kumar, Qamar Dagar and Irshad Farooqi, and Sanjhi paper artist Ram Soni, to enhance the visual and tactile experience of exploring handmade paper with their art.

Qamar Dagar, a Delhi-based calligrapher specialises in combining Devnagari and Urdu calligraphy through poetry and lyrical images.

Calligrapher-artist Qamar Dagar tries out some initial brushwork on rhino dung paper from Assam.

Mohabbat sabse behthar rah hain, or, ‘Love is the best path’, is styled in the calligraphy art form using Devanagari and Urdu scripts on banana fibre paper by Qamar Dagar.

Qamar Dagar works on banana fibre at her studio.

The calligrapher develops her art work using three kinds of pens and brushes.

The tools for calligraphy must ensure the colours do not spread due to the absorbent nature of a particular quality of handmade paper

Calligrapher Qamar Dagar’s completed art work is the word alaap which is the early improvised section of a raga which forms a prologue when rendering of a piece of music.

Qamar Dagar paints a tree of random Devanagri alphabets on rhino dung paper.

Trees and the need for their conservation recurs in many activities concerning handmade paper using waste materials from industry or nature.

Naad denotes soundscapes, written in both Devnagari and Urdu calligraphy by Qamar Dagar.

Qareeb in Urdu calligraphy conveys an image of the sacredness of the near one. It is also one of the many names of the Prophet.

Read more about Calligraphy in India here:

-Calligraphy in Sikkim
-Rajeev Kumar
-Irshad Farooqui