The Message Of An Artist Forced Away From Her Passion Is An Untold Story Of Every Artist In Pakistan

My name is Syeda Sidra Batool. Want to know that one word which describes me completely?

“Outcast

Yes, outcast. Just an average girl fighting for her dying dreams like everyone else. My dream was never to be a doctor but legacy and norms prevailing in our society have pushed this beautiful field away from me. Each day, I now chock on medical books and lengthy pharmacology syllabus.

 It is actually very suffocating for a girl, let alone a middle class medical student to survive in this era. We live in a society where people pin nails on your skin and skull so you don’t fly away. They like to cut our wings. 

Source: Syeda Sidra’s Facebook

I love theater and why wouldn’t I? I can be anything and anyone I want on that very stage.
Even A tree if I want to. 
My mother doesn’t support this one bit because of the society “kia kahey ge.. kia kahey ge yai society jis kai mo mai zuban tu hai sir mai dimagh nahi.”
 
My mother watches these theater acts with such wonder and bliss on how the actors bring out the life in dead souls. Why can’t our pin pointing society appreciate this form of art?
I have performed on 13 small platforms, mostly as a man. However, there were two times I got selected for Anwar Maqsood’s play. I got shot down by “yai achi larkiyan nhe karti” tag line of society.

One More Dream Buried Again

I love art in all forms. I even wanted to become a cartoonist. Sculpture art, doodling and zentangle are my front runners. I sell my work for charity and love what I do, though it can be challenging due to my tremor problems. I feel like a tap dancer.

 You Know the Feeling you Get of Pure Raw Naked Bliss?

 The gratification you get when you do something you were born to do? That is what I feel when I
hold a pencil in my hand and draw something on a blank canvas. I can create and recreate bliss. Being a medical student, I hardly get time to indulge myself and feel these feelings.

How Different Form of Art Helps Me

 Doodling and Zentangles increase concentration, congregation and assemblage abilities
in a person. On the other hand, sculpture Art engages a person in higher intellectual understanding of human
psychiatry. Wood craft and paintings improve three dimensional co-ordination along with tremors.
I used to have a blog when I was 13. My first work “Bipolar Girl” was published in a newspaper. I wrote various other pieces for colleges. The sad thing is that both of my parents are unaware that I can write and I have kept it that way. Maybe because I was scared of being rejected by them.
Being a 90’s kid, it is never easy to deal with changing chameleon shades of society. Being best at everything is practically impossible but to excel in everything, a step is needed in my life. Having an army background with PHDs and doctorate in roots, the pressure is always high, just like my BP due to anxiety and depression. 

I Lost Someone I Loved The Most

 During my second year of medical school, my beloved died in my very hands, just an hour before my final exam. My father. My superhero. My keeper. You know, the feeling everyone has about their father being indestructible? Isn’t it the most enticing feeling ever?
 
Seeing him die in my hands and hearing my own shaking voice screaming out his name in helplessness was the most agonizing event of my life. Following hour, I had to the take my final exam and I still remember the emptiness I had in my existence when I wrote my father’s name on my exam paper. Walking out of those classrooms, racing towards the door in a hope to see him standing there, facing me with exemplary joy. Just more emptiness.

Source: Syeda Sidra’s Facebook

Life is extremely challenging and beauteous. Its just the perception of how we handle and influence the meal served on our plates by fate.

I am just an average girl learning how to fly in a society where norms and people continue saying countless, meaningless and mindless words about me. My wings are prayers of my mother, my family and few other kindhearted souls.
I aim and hope to make a charitable hospital in the name of my late father Syed Zaki ul Hassan so that I can give something back to this world. No matter what happens, no matter how much pessimism surrounds your arresting soul, don’t give up.
One day, I will spread my wings and soar freely.
One day I will touch all the heights I was always meant to.
Until that day, I must nurture and preserve and wait.
Until the winds are back in my favor! 

Give Aid, Achieve and Repeat. Best Mantra!

 

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