Charles Pachter Canada's Artist

The first time I heard of Charles Pachter was in the Walrus magazine when I saw his famous painting of the Canadian flag. It was a simple and yet a magnetic image of the red maple leaf in a red and white background.

The painting compelled me to do a Google search on Pachter and I discovered a Canadian institution who enjoys a global reputation for his iconic work on the British royalty and the Canadian moose, the Toronto Streetcar. 

He was also a friend of my friend Ali Adil Khan, the art connoisseur, who is a pillar of Canada’s new art establishment.  

In 2016, when Mawenzi House Publishers and I were looking for a cover for my debut novel, we approached Ali to help us. Among the suggestions that we got from him was a self-portrait of Charles Pachter called Decoy, painted in 1968.

I immediately selected it to be the cover of my novel because the boy-man in the sketch had a somewhat perplexed and anguished look on his face and uncertainty and hesitancy in his gaze. To me, it was as near a representation of Rafiq, the lead protagonist of my novel.

Thanks to Ali’s influence, Pachter gave us the permission to use the sketch for free and it became the cover of my novel. Through Ali, we were also able to invite Pachter to the launch program at the Gladstone last November, and surprisingly, he came and stayed till the end.

As a person with some understanding of marketing, I believe that one of the reasons Belief has done well is because of the unique cover that we were able to manage, thanks to Pachter.

Earlier this year, on the occasion of the launch of his biography Charles Pachter Canada’s Artist by Leonard Wise (Dundurn), I went to his famous studio-home behind AGO in the Grange. The place is an art gallery that utilises limited space effectively and efficiently with postmodern minimalism.  

Leonard Wise’s biography is a lush coffee table book with many illustrations of Pachter’s works and an endearing Appreciation by Margaret Atwood.

From the book, I learnt the story behind the Painted Flag. Wise notes:

“One of the Atwood poems, “eath of a Young Son by Drowning,” ends with the line, “I planted him in this country like a flag.” Charles has often surmised that this may have led him to a new phase of his painting. In any case, one summer night in 1980, at his farm in Oro-Medonite, he constructed a flimsy, homemade flagpole – out of two-by-fours, hastily nailed together – to which he attached a small rayon Canadian flag that he had purchased at a Canadian Tire store in Orillia. He manoeuvred the unwieldy mast into a fence-post hole,  lay down in a hammock to survey his handiwork as the sun set, and watched the flag unfurl, undulating slowly in the breeze, rocking back and forth like a primitive mobile at the top of its slender stem. The effect of wind, light, and motion struck him immediately…

In March 1981, Charles began painting variations of the flag at his Grange Place studio, one after the other. Swept along by the possibilities of different compositions based on the effects of wind and light, he could have continued ad infinitum. But eventually he became “flagged out,” and after completing thirty paintings, he began preparing for an exhibition of these new works.

The Painted Flag exhibition opened on November 7, 1981, the day after Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau had coincidentally announced that the constitution was being patriated to Canada…In her November 14, 1981, Toronto Star review of the show, Lisa Bowen stated, “there is humour and excitement, colour and texture in this astonishing show.” John Bentley Mays in the Globe and Mail had a different view, labelling it “over-the-couch art for the walls of patriotic dentists.”

The book also has innumerable anecdotes from Pachter’s memorable life, such as his 30-second encounter with        Queen Elizabeth.

“Your Majesty,” he said, “this is such an honour. Forty-three years ago I painted you as the queen of Canada riding a moose, and it became one of my best-known images. Thanks to you I’ve made a living all these years.”  

She smiled radiantly, and said, “How amusing!”

The exchange lasted only thirty seconds but that was long enough for a Reuters photographer to take their picture. The next morning the byline “Artist who painted Queen on Moose meets queen” was in the Daily Telegraph. Charles emailed the photo to John Hondreich, the publisher of the Toronto Star, who published the 1973 picture of Charles with Queen on the Moose next to the 2015 picture of him meeting the queen in London.”

Let me conclude this post with a paragraph from Margaret Atwood’s Appreciation.

“…in a career that has now lasted three decades, Pachter has continued vigorously to explore his several media, to diversify his imagery, and to structure and restructure his visual world. In doing so he has restructured the world around him, and has changed profoundly the way we look at our own familiar iconography, even our own banalities. His output has been immense, his wit and versatility have remained constant, and his range continues to broaden. His is a sophisticated art which draws upon many techniques and evokes many echoes, yet it remains strongly individual, and firmly rooted in a ground which Pachter has both excavated and cultivated himself.”

Weston Village

Saturday mornings is my time. I generally leave home to go to do my weekly groceries and buy my weekly transit pass.

When I have to also go to the bank at Keele and Lawrence, I stop by at the Flame restaurant for one the best home-style omelette, toast and tea. It’s owned by a Greek-origin gentleman. Some months back (in April) I took a photo of the grilled cheese veggie omelette I was having and posted it on Google maps. It’s got an overwhelming number of hits (135,900 at the last count).

Then, on some Saturdays, I have to visit the pharmacy at Weston and Lawrence, to get my medicines from Mohamed Ahmed, the Somali pharmacist with a Poona connection (he studied in there), or to meet the other Mohammed from Afghanistan, who runs the laundry and alteration place.  On such days, I usually walk down Weston to be in the midst of one of the most interesting streets in Toronto.

Weston has a history and heritage. I’ve developed a sense of belonging to this stretch of road from Lawrence Avenue to Highway 401. To its immediate west is the Humber River; to its east is the railway line on which the new Union-Pearson Express operates. The village was an industrial hub long ago and has changed in its composition and character over the last century (as has most of other neighbourhoods in Toronto). Wikipedia has some fascinating historical information about Weston village.

On some weekends when both Mahrukh and I are at home together (which is rare) we go to the P&M Restaurant on Weston. It’s also a Greek place and serves delicious breakfast and lunch. Since I stopped having meat, I restrict myself to omelettes, and this place, too, has arguably one of the finest omelettes in Toronto. The place is family-owned and everyone tries their best to make you feel you’re a part of their family.

Earlier this summer, Mahrukh and I walked down Humber River into the ravines and crossed the river on a wooden bridge. In autumn the trees on the river bank turn yellow and transform it into a surreal, magical psychedelic place that you’d only find in children’s storybooks.

Further to the north is the Weston Library, which celebrated its centenary in 2014-15. Originally constructed through an Andrew Carnegie endowment in 1914, the library occupies a heritage building. Entering the building is like taking a journey into the past because it evokes a sense of being in an early 20th century wood and red bricks home with stained glass windows. The original structure was expanded and extended to accommodate the growing need for space sometime in the 1960s.

(Read about the original building here and about the extension here). 

Since I made Toronto my home in 2008, I’ve regularly visited four libraries – the main Toronto Reference Library (at every given opportunity/excuse), the North York library when my workplace was at Yonge and Sheppard; the Amesbury Park library when I lived on Keele and Lawrence, and now the Weston library. The Toronto Reference and the North York libraries are grand architecturally, and the Amesbury Park one is functional. The Weston library makes me feel at home because of its ambience. It’s not at all like a library. It’s a place that encourages browsing of books arranged in neat rows of bookshelves, with the original section of the building housing fiction books.

Today, I went to the library to return a book and borrow another one, and while browsing through the rows of fiction books, I saw my novel Belief nestled between David Bezmozgis’s The Betrayers and Rachel Billington’s Perfect Happiness on the shelf. That made me smile. I took a photo on my phone and showed it to the library assistant. She peered into the phone, and smiled and said, “Is that you? Your book? That’s great! You must write another one now.”

Review of Belief by Phil Gurski in the New Canadian Media

Novel Explores Road to Radicalization

Book Review by Phil Gurski

Belief is a novel by Mayank Bhatt, a Mumbai-born resident of Toronto.  It tells the story of the son of Indian immigrants to Canada who cooperates with terrorists to identify Canadian places to bomb, in part to avenge the death of Muslims in Afghanistan by Canadian soldiers. 

The book parallels to a certain extent the 2006 case of the “Toronto 18”, a terrorist cell that planned to explode truck bombs in Toronto and at a military base in eastern Ontario to punish Canadians for the decision to deploy the Armed Forces in Afghanistan after 9/11.

This work of fiction is billed as a look into what “makes young people give up their sheltered, secure lives and take up causes that are sure to lead to catastrophe, for others as well as themselves”. 

It does not quite achieve that goal, but does contain a good look into the effects of terrorism on a family. We see the devastating effects on the mother and father, immigrants who fled violence in India to seek a new home in Canada, but had to struggle to make a new life in a new land.  We see the anguish of a pregnant sister whose husband’s promotion may be canceled because of Rafiq’s actions.

We see a South Asian police officer, Ravindar, who tries to help the family but who is not trusted completely, perhaps because of his role as a representative of the law.

The book does delve slightly into what has often been put forward as the ‘causes’ of radicalization to violence in Canada.  There are references to the slaughter of Muslims in India and to discrimination and bias against immigrants in this country.  

Neither theme is developed in this novel. It also does not explore other reasons why individuals go down the path of radicalization.

The mastermind

Early in the novel the author includes excerpts from emails sent by the terrorist ‘mastermind’, a man named Ghani Ahmed, to Rafiq, the young man arrested and accused of participating in a terrorist plot.  These excerpts are full of the rhetoric most commonly associated with terrorist recruiters: innocent Muslims are being killed and no one is doing anything to stop it.  Ahmed appeals to the faith of Rafiq and tries to convince him that fighting back is a religious obligation.

Ahmed is an intriguing character and more could have been written about him.  Who was he?  Where did he come from?  Who else was involved in his plot?  How did he identify Rafiq as a willing participant? .

The one character who remains an enigma is Nagma Khala, a woman who runs a Muslim crèche and who had an extraordinary influence on the young Rafiq.  She is deeply religious, but it is never clear whether her faith contributed in any way to Rafiq’s openness to radicalization.

Flashbacks to India

I welcomed the introduction of two officers of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), although their portrayal is superficial and unsatisfactory. It would have been interesting to introduce a main character from CSIS and show how that person was trying to understand the scope of the terrorist plot and Rafiq’s role in it.  That may have been beyond the author’s expertise, though.

The book contains many flashbacks to life in India and provides interesting background into the lives of the protagonists, although the link between these episodes and Rafiq’s decision to become a terrorist is not obvious.  They do provide insight into the circumstances behind the parents’ choice to leave India, but these are tangential to the book’s primary plot.

Throughout the book the author seeks to present Rafiq as an unwilling dupe whose involvement in terrorism is peripheral.  While Rafiq regrets his choice, he also seems to minimize his role. 

It is only at the end of the novel, when Rafiq learns of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai (in 2008 – a real event) that he grasps the enormity of what he was part of in Canada and (spoiler alert!!) tries to commit suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills.  The author’s attempt to paint Rafiq as a character to be pitied does not come off strongly, even when he writes of the bullying Rafiq received at the Maplehurst Detention Centre in Toronto.

Overall, the book flows and reads well, with the exception of the flashbacks. These occur at times at unexpected intervals and detract from the story.

The book does a good job at showing the destruction of a Canadian immigrant family when one member becomes involved in terrorism. The emotional responses of the characters are believable and compelling. 

As long as the reader does not see this novel as an actual book on homegrown terrorism in Canada it is a good read.

Phil Gurski worked for more than three decades in Canadian intelligence, including 15 at Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), and is the author of the Threat from Within and the forthcoming Western Foreign Fighters (Rowan and Littlefield). He blogs at http://www.borealisthreatandrisk.com/blog/

The book Belief  is published by Mawenzi House

http://www.newcanadianmedia.ca/item/40040-novel-explores-road-to-radicalization-novel-explores-road-to-radicalization

Candid Talk with Tahir Gora about Belief

Tahir Gora is a multifaceted personality - he's a political activist who has constantly battled religious prejudices to uphold human rights; he's an outstanding author of prose and poetry, controversial but humane in his approach; he's a sharp journalist, one of the finest in the profession; and a great interviewer, who is able to bring out the best in his subject.

In 2015, he invited me to launch a program on TAG TV that he and his wife Haleema Sadia have been operating for a couple of years. The internet-based television channel is a unique platform that provides avenues of expression for multicultural talent, a major lacuna in the Canadian mainstream media. 

During the last year, I have interviewed several authors, artists, musicians from a diverse ethnic background, who have made Canada their home, and continue to creatively express themselves in idioms that may at times seem strange to mainstream Canada, but nevertheless, have a definite place in the Canadian canon of art and literature.

In this series, I also interviewed Tahir himself, when his novel Rang Mahal, written in Urdu, was published to critical acclaim (globally, wherever Urdu is read) and official opprobrium (in Pakistan). We discussed many aspects of creative writing in a social context. It is an interaction that lasted for nearly an hour, and I;m hopeful that the usually reticent Tahir will eventually put it up on YouTube, and other social media platforms of TAG TV. When he does, I'll add the video to the one below.

Earlier in October, we chatted again. This time on Tahir's show Candid Talk. The focus was multiculturalism, and, of course, my novel Belief. Again, the conversation covered many aspects and I think both of us had a great time. It lasted for nearly 45 minutes, so, if you have the time, please see the video. 

And, of course, if you'd like to buy the book, please do so from Amazon Canada. Here's the link: 

Buy Belief on Amazon

What's Belief all about? George Socka talks to me

Belief - review in Quill and Quire

Dana Hansen, editor of Hamilton Review of Books reviewed Belief in Quill and Quire's October 2016 print edition. It's reproduced here. 

Belief

Mayank Bhatt

Mawenzi House

Novelist Mayank Bhatt, who immigrated to Canada from Mumbai in 2008, delivers a taut,timely debut focused on one immigrant family and the devastating experience that threatens to destroy the life they have struggled to build in their new country.

Having left their home in the 1990s to escape recurrent violence between Hindus and Muslims, Abdul and Ruksana Latif and their two adult children, Ziram and Rafiq, find themselves “misfits in Canada as much as they had been, as Muslims, in India.” Nevertheless, by the fall of 2008, the Latifs are relatively settled, with a home they own and jobs that promise more than mere survival. The family’s comfortable existence is thrown into turmoil when it is revealed that Rafiq may be involved in a terrorist plot to blow up a number of locations in and around Toronto. Rafiq’s questionable treatment at the hands of the justice system, and the family’s fear regarding the potential repercussions from his alleged crime, illustrate their terrible vulnerable position in Canadian society.

In part, Belief may be read as a cautionary tale urging those with extremist leanings to “steer a calmer, more sober path.” But even more importantly, it reads as a message to mainstream Canada that the isolation and marginalization of the immigrant experience has the potential to result in unintended consequences when faced with individuals who “[don’t] know what one could do about an unjust system except fight it.”

At the novel’s end, the future for the Latifs is undetermined. It is clear that their lives have been irrevocably altered, though not entirely for the worse. Through the experiences of arrest and interrogation, Rafiq is forced to re-evaluate his religious faith, as well as his understanding of his parents; in so doing, he gains a clearer perspective on the older generation’s struggles.

Bhatt’s illuminating, plain-spoken novel could be instrumental in generating substantive discussion about the immigrant experience in a country that is still a long way from understanding what that really entails.

Dana Hansen


http://www.mayankbhatt.ca/reviews.html

Reading an excerpt...

From my debut novel Belief at the Word on the Street in Toronto September 25, 2016

Belief - a novel

Belief, my debut novel, is being published next month. I began writing it soon after I came to Toronto; when I was working as a security guard at a condo in Toronto’s St. Clair West.

Those long and lonely (and cold) night shifts turned me into a fiction writer. The residents of the building supported me in many different ways, and one of them told me about Diaspora Dialogues. Through Diaspora Dialogues I met MG Vassanji, and then began a journey that transformed me as a person.

Writing doesn’t come easily to me, and it became more painful and nearly impossible during the four years I struggled with the manuscript. Many friends helped me in this process. And sometime in 2014, I forced myself to stop revising the manuscript.

Then, I waited for a publisher to publish the novel. Nobody seemed interested. If writing had been hard and painful, looking for a publisher was even more so. Helen Walsh of Diaspora Dialogues suggested I should ask Nurjehan Aziz of Mawenzi House (earlier known as TSAR). I did, and she agreed.

Finally, after a very long time, the novel is ready for its readers.

Here’s the media release from the publisher:

Belief

Mayank Bhatt

TERRORISM: What makes young people give up their secure, sheltered lives and take up causes that are sure to lead to catastrophe, for others as well as themselves? This is a burning question that plagues our times.

Rafiq is a young man whose family fled the 1993 violence against Muslims in Mumbai. His father Abdul is a sceptic in religious matter and a liberal, a former labour activist in India. His mother Ruksana is devout and practicing though also a former activist who worked with poor women. The family was reduced to humble circumstances after arriving in Toronto and with Rafiq working as a web-designer, is only now beginning to look up. They proudly own a house in Mississauga.

One late afternoon Rafiq’s father and his sister discover some files on Rafiq’s computer that strongly indicate that he is part of a Muslim-radical plot to bomb public places in Toronto.

Belief examines the radicalization and alienation among a section of young Muslims living in western societies, the interplay of attitudes on both sides that is leading to an ever-widening chasm.

It does this not polemically but by setting it within the intimacy of a family situation to accentuate the difficult material conditions and the conflicts of belief, values, and hope that immigrants face in a new country.

Mayank Bhatt immigrated to Toronto in 2008 from Mumbai (Bombay), where he worked as a journalist. His short stories have been published in TOK 5: Writing the New Toronto and Canadian Voices II. In Canada he has worked as a security guard, an administrator, and an arts festival organiser. He lives in Toronto with his family.

Contact

Nurjehan Aziz

naziz@mawenzihouse.com

Sabrina Pignataro

marketing@mawenzihouse.com

416-483-7191

You may buy the book from the publisher or Amazon or from me.

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