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KARACHI: On the walls of Maryam Ali’s studio in Karachi hang intricate sketches of the holy Ka’aba, a lion’s fierce expression, and jagged mountain peaks under a clear, blue sky. At 38, Ali has built a name for herself in the city’s art scene, with her drawings featured in exhibitions at leading galleries and the National Museum of Pakistan. 

Ali also lives with Retinitis Pigmentosa, a rare genetic condition that causes progressive vision loss, but her art continues to draw admiration from both peers and senior artists.

According to the US-based National Eye Institute, RP is a genetic disease that people are born with. Symptoms usually start in childhood, and most people eventually lose most of their sight.

Diagnosed with the disease when she was just two, Ali discovered her passion for art as a child. She studied at a mainstream school and completed her matriculation and intermediate qualifications before tying the knot. Her vision, which has been deteriorating since birth, worsened sharply after she turned 30.

However, that didn’t dim her passion for drawing and painting. Ali honed her artistic skills by becoming the first visually impaired student to complete a diploma from the prestigious Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in Karachi in 2022. Her husband’s support helped along the way.

“I call myself a unique artist because I suffer from a very rare eye disease,” Ali told Arab News. “It is an eye condition in which your cells die and you get difficulty in seeing things.

“So, you have night blindness in it, you have blurry vision, and you have tunnel vision,” Ali explained.

Ali said at night, she becomes “totally blind” and cannot even move without her family’s help. The visually impaired artist estimates she has only 30 percent of her vision left.

Hence unlike other artists, she cannot draw from imagination.

“In my case, I can only paint through pictures,” Ali explained. “Only those pictures which my eyes focus and they can draw it.”

She began her professional career in 2022, using pencils, charcoal, and acrylics to draw. Prolific sculptor Mansoor Zuberi saw her work at an exhibition in Oct. 2024 and has since helped Ali with shows and exhibitions.

Her drawings were featured in a recent Independence Day exhibition at the National Museum of Pakistan. Before her work garnered recognition, Ali said she never admired her craft.

“Because for me, whatever I’m painting, that’s my vision, what I’m seeing,” she said. “So, for me, it was very beautiful and to its fullest. But I valued my work more when the normal artists and senior artists appreciated my work.”

Shahid Rassam, a Pakistani Canadian painter who is the principal of the Arts Council Institute of Arts & Crafts in Karachi, is impressed with Ali’s talent. 

“When I saw Maryam’s work, I realized that not only is she a tremendous talent, but she has not allowed her disability to become a handicap,” Rassam told Arab News.

“She is fighting, and she has transformed all the catharsis within her into art, which is appreciable.”

‘NO COMPLETE CURE’

But even as she soldiers on with her passion, Ali is constantly on the lookout for medical treatment, knowing fully well RP isn’t curable.

“It’s treatable, not curable, and even that is extremely expensive,” she said. “So, I’m looking forward to exploring those, but only once I have enough funds.”

Dr. Haroon Tayyab, an ophthalmologist serving at the Aga Khan University, agreed that there is “no complete cure” for RP. However, he said certain treatments can help slow the disease or manage its effects in some people.

For example, Tayyab said gene therapy for specific mutations, retinal implants, and emerging stem cell or drug-based therapies.

“Beyond the physical limitations, RP also carries an emotional and psychological burden,” Dr. Tayyab noted. “Adjusting to changes in vision, maintaining independence, and coping with uncertainty about the future can be overwhelming at times.”

But RP doesn’t faze the visually impaired artist one bit.

“If I, as an impaired person, can work as well with my disease and come in front of the world and do whatever I have the talent in me, [if[ I can face the difficulties with ease,” she said.

“So why can’t other people do it?”

KARACHI: Authorities in Pakistan’s Sindh said on Saturday that floodwater rushing downstream from the eastern Punjab province pose no major threat to the southern province.

The floodwaters have been rushing southwards to Sindh after devastating Punjab, where 97 people have been killed and submerging over two million acres of farmland has been submerged since late August.

The inflow of water was 537,220 cusecs at Guddu Barrage on the Indus river, 460,490 cusecs at Sukkur Barrage and 261,234 cusecs at Kotri Barrage in Sindh, according to the provincial information department.

Syed Salman Shah, head of the Sindh Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA), acknowledged that some villages in Sindh’s Dadu district have been inundated, but the situation is “not alarming.”

“The situation in Sindh is not alarming... We have identified 1,651 such villages across Sindh that could be partially inundated in case of a water flow of 700,000 cusecs,” he told Arab News.

“The residents of these villages have already been evacuated and shifted to safe locations, where they are being provided with health care, food, and other facilities.”

Shah said riverside villages in Sindh were likely to be affected if the water flows reached 700,000 cusecs.

“But since these homes are built at height after the last floods [in 2010], there may be no damages to these villages,” he said.

The floods resulted from unusually high rains and India’s release of excess water that swelled Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej rivers in Punjab, which travel southwards to merge in the Indus river in Sindh.

The deluges have affected more than 4,500 villages and over 4.4 million people in Punjab, the country’s breadbasket province, according to Relief Commissioner Punjab Nabeel Javed. Rescuers have so far transported 2.4 million people and 19.1 million livestock to relief camps after rescuing them from marooned villages in several districts.

On Saturday, the Pakistani military, which has been engaged in rescue and relief activities, said Army Chief Field Marshall Asim Munir visited flood-affected areas of Kasur and Jalalpur Pirwala in Punjab to review the prevailing flood situation and ongoing relief efforts.

“The visit to flood affected areas of Kasur and Multan focused on enhancing synergy between the civil administration and the military to ensure effective assistance for the affected population,” the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media wing.

Monsoon season brings Pakistan up to 80 percent of its annual rainfall, but increasingly erratic and extreme weather patterns are turning the annual rains, which are vital for agriculture, food security and the livelihoods of millions of farmers, into a destructive force.

Rains, floods, landslides and similar incidents have killed at least 946 people nationwide since June 26, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). The disaster has revived memories of the 2022 deluges, when a third of the country was submerged, over 1,700 people were killed and losses exceeded $35 billion.