Turning his passion an occupation for youth

Saidabad: While most of those who retire relinquish from their occupation, this Septuagenarian engraves his experiences of foreign tours through his new-found love of wood inlay, following his retirement. Fascinated by the interior designing of his own house, he laid hand on this new venture of wood inlay design.

This self-taught man trained over 200 students, most of them without any fee, during the last 10 years while continuing his experiment with new techniques. The 72-year-old Syed Nasiruddin Viquar was documentarian in United Nations Development Program in Kenya (1977 to 1982) and worked as a librarian with King Faisal Foundation, Riyadh (1983 to 2006). After his retirement, he returned back and started experimenting with artistic works. During the interior designing of his house, he observed workers and took it as a challenge to learn new things. At first, he tried his hand by attempting art work by using glass, but later on decided to sculpt wood and has come up with fascinating artist work. “After I realised that the glass is fragile, I decided chose wood as part this new venture of my life,” he said.

Viquar started wood inlay artwork in the year 2008 and later perfected himself in sculpting and later went on to achieve several awards and at national level in his particular category. His art works include relics of Islam, like grand mosques of Mecca, Madina, other historic Mosques and many historic monuments like Golconda engraved on wood. The artwork starts from a small size of 12*18 inch size to a bigger size. He uses instruments like piercing saws, wood cutter, micro saw, glue, shining spray and different types of wood to provide different shades in inlay work. The process starts from taking a photo copy of the picture and pasting it on the wooden frame and later work starts by sculpting and attacking pieces of wood.

The work of the inlays is done using different types of wood (there are about 132 types of wood he currently uses). The pieces of wood start from size of pin, which is will be used for filling the decorative art. “The process covers a range of techniques in sculpture and a decorative art for inserting wood pieces into a contrasting wood. After inserting pieces of wood by applying paste, the artwork is kept for 3 to 4 days. For some artwork is shining spray is also used for giving a glowing effect and to highlight all the minute details. An average project completes in about a month after spending 4-5 hours of time daily,” Viquar explained. Viquar’s artwork was exhibited both at National and International art galleries. He recently represented to the Deputy CM, Mohammad Mahmood Ali to set up an Islamic Art Gallery, where struggling artists can get recognition in this genre.