Tribute To A Friend

Published January 2010

I will always remember the first time I met Asim Butt. It was in Singapore, circa 1989. We were a bunch of new students, gearing up for the scary world of high school during the early days of orientation.

There we were, a fine lot of us. Coltish, unsure, nervous. Looking around and studying each other. Nervous smiles and butterflies in stomachs. Trying to muster the best nonchalant expressions an 11 year old could.

Then Asim made his appearance. Tall for his age. Slender would be a great way to describe him, with a megaton watt smile. He spoke to everyone he came across. He was calm and grinned from ear to ear as he introduced himself, also a fellow newbie, to the rest of us.

When he got to me I tried to break the ice further by asking him if he got teased a lot for his surname. “It makes me the butt of a lot of jokes but I don’t mind,” he offered politely as he waited for me to react to the pun.

Several well-intended chuckles and a smattering of exchanges later we were ushered towards our respective tutor groups and headed off in different directions. That was the start of our five year friendship.

We did have several art and drama classes together and I suspect we fancied ourselves as artistic. But then again we were encouraged to be precocious. I veered towards music and languages while Asim shifted focus to the stage. During my time in high school, I cannot say that Asim and I were best friends. We weren’t that. But we were close, in the way that connoisseurs of, say, a fine wine, would be. Selectively in the know. Leaning in to discuss one form or art or another, from time to time.

Now, embarrassingly, I can’t remember the last time I saw Asim, or if I even said goodbye to him before I left high school. But I do know that we got back in touch over Facebook in 2007. This was someone I met almost 21 years ago and he was now just a click away.

I discovered that my old friend had moved back home to Pakistan in 2002 after abandoning his PhD in History at the University of California, and had become something of a poignant enfant terrible whose work was taking the country’s art scene by storm. Yes Asim had indeed stuck to his artistic roots, but instead of fine-tuning his dramatic skills he chose to focus on becoming an artist proper.

And what an artist. Sure there is a bit of personal bias here, but if you were to simply Google Asim Butt you’d come across wonderful reviews from renowned stalwarts such as BBC, ABC, Al-Jazeera, The Chicago Tribune and The Boston Globe, to name but a few. Asim was also known by many in Pakistan for his Graffiti art; particularly for his “Eject” button spray-painted on the walls of many city venues, symbolizing the end of General Musharraf’s government. Asim was also responsible for the “Stop” signs sprayed on torched cars and damaged buildings after Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. He was making an impact. People were paying attention.

I particularly enjoyed a review by The Lahore Times in April 2009 of one of Asim’s shows: “Rejecting what is on the horizon of Pakistani art, Butt has stuck to his innate traumas and nightmares, using the medium of oil on canvas.

Butt is a rebellious artist who paints, sculpts, and has an interest in graffiti and printmaking. Through his 16 large size canvases, he continues to defy conformist meanings of family, career, security.

The medium of oil on canvas, digital prints, and charcoal and chalk on board, acquire political tones, conversing with the inner apparitions of the artist.”

Perhaps his ‘innate traumas and nightmares’, the very fuel for his work, influenced his decision to throw in the towel. My friend, Asim Butt, took his own life on Friday, January 15^th 2010, while at his home in Karachi. He was 31 years old.

Another alumni member, film director Risa Okamoto, summed him up succinctly and perfectly: “Asim was so totally memorable. I didn't see him at all after he left school but I still remember what his voice sounded like and what his mannerisms were. It's crazy, some people just leave a huge imprint wherever they go.”

It was Risa who informed me of Asim’s death. I spent my entire Sunday reading tribute after tribute to my fallen friend. I had no idea he had moved or affected so many, so greatly. It was touching yet agonizing to read messages from people I will probably never meet, who felt exactly as I did at that very moment. Numbingly surreal. And painfully humbling.

I hope that my words here will serve as an appropriate tribute to someone who is no longer with us. It upsets me to think of what he could have accomplished in the future. It was that bright. And I also wonder if he was in pain when he died. Without judgement, I struggle to understand what could have made him feel that low, to make him think that he had no other options left.

But then I realize that he is at peace now, something which he wasn’t able to find or feel when he was alive. While that gives me some level of comfort, I just want to say very simply, very plainly and very honestly that I miss my friend. I miss him a lot.

In loving memory Asim Butt 1978 - 2010

(Photograph by Ziad Zafar)

Sources: www.pakistaniat.com/ www.stuckism.com