How covid lockdown helped Kashmir woman to hone her calligraphic skills

With free time at home during the lockdown period, Farah Deeba from Jammu and Kashmir's Bandipora kept herself busy in writing Quranic verses on a calligraphy canvas. Farah says she learnt this art from her friend whom she met online.

Bandipora: When almost the entire world was under lockdown last year due to the outbreak of deadly COVID-19, Farah Deeba in north Kashmir’s Bandipora had an opportunity to realize her childhood dream of becoming a calligrapher.

With free time at home during the lockdown period, Farah kept herself busy in writing Quranic verses on a calligraphy canvas.

She says with increased downtime during the lockdown she was able to hone her skills in calligraphy, as she would able to dedicate more time as compared to other home chores.

Calligrapher Farah Deeba while writing on the painting walls

“I was inclined toward calligraphy since my childhood but due to lack of time and perhaps there was no one to guide me in this field so I could not be able to work on it. But for the last one year I have dedicated more time toward this art,” she says.

Farah says she is doing Kufic calligraphy, which is a style of Arabic script that gained prominence early on as a preferred script for Quran transcription and architectural decoration.

Over the past few years, calligraphers have come out with the new style of writing called Kufic, which is the oldest calligraphic form of the various Arabic scripts. It consists of a modified form of the old Nabataean script.

It developed from the Nabataeans of Iraq alphabet in the city of Kufa, from which its name is derived. The Kufic script is characterized by angular, rectilinear letterforms and its horizontal orientation. There are many different versions of Kufic script, such as square Kufic, floriated Kufic, knotted Kufic, and others.

Farah says she learnt this art from her friend whom she met online and she is in touch with her even today. She says she had created a Facebook and Instagram page last year after being advised by her friend and she has been getting a good response to her art.

“From the day I created my Facebook and Instagram page ‘Calligraphy By Farah’, I have been getting a good response and I get orders online through my page and later working on the orders I deliver those through courier to my customers. Half of the payment I get when the order is placed and half of it after delivering the order,” she says.

Farah says even though this art is time-consuming but she loves doing it as this has been her childhood dream and she has now been getting a good response.

Besides doing calligraphy, Farah has done M. Sc in Zoology and Bachelors degree in Education. She has also done Masters of Arts in Sociology.

Farah says she is now working on another form of calligraphy, which is called Thuluth calligraphy and in the coming days she will be making some of the samples of this form of calligraphy. Thuluth is a script variety of Islamic calligraphy invented by Ibn Muqlah Shirazi. The straight angular forms of Kufic were replaced in the new script by curved and oblique lines. In Thuluth, one-third of each letter slopes, from which the name comes.