Suffocating homes need escape

Art precedes all boundaries.

My name is Saadan Khalid, I am a 24 year old guy living in Rawal Pindi. My story might be a little boring but it might be relatable and it is a story of my own struggle through life, as all of us. I was born in Peshawar Airbase, My four siblings and I were raised by our parents. I’m the youngest. Sometimes it’s easier being the youngest and sometimes it’s a curse, I shall not get into that right now.

As a kid I was always amused by small things like the pattern of light when it’s piercing through the leaves of the forest trees. I grew up around airplanes. I was always into Art, I drew sketches from human portraits to landscapes and inanimate objects, abstract. I used to paint, I played a tiny electrical keyboard, flute. I would learn without the use of any internet or tutorial books.

One day I was flipping through my new notebook that I got for school and I drew a little bird in the corner and I realized that I could animate the bird if I drew it on every page and flipped it. It really amused me. I started to make little flip books and as I grew up I realized that’s what movies and animation is.

There’s barely any opportunity here. Too much religion, too much negativity. Nobody wants to think here. I just want to go to the states and reset my life and start my art all over again.

I was obsessed with my own little stories that I would have in my head. I was always drawing, in the class room, in recess, at home, in a park. I would make little comics just to please myself. It was fun. Then came 8th grade, my parents became strict. They wouldn’t let me draw or paint and instead I had to learn math and physics and biology. I had to go to tuition centers for 6 hours even after coming back from school. Everything became hectic. I started to get anxiety. I stopped painting and sketching or playing music. I would have to go secretly watch movies at a friends house so that my parents could never find out. Slowly and gradually I started to lose my art.

Then came my F.Sc years and I had to study a lot leaving everything I loved behind. Huge notes of math and physics on the table where once I would make my little flip books. I lost it. I loved art and I decided to go to Lahore from Quetta to study in an Arts school. I got admission in National College of Arts in Film making in my first try. I had to confront my parents and I did, I left. I went to college with only a thousand rupees in my pocket because my parents were never supportive of it. I had to because film making was the only thing I ever wanted to do. I wanted to make films and animated films. I wanted to make art. I thought it was the only field where I would be at peace with myself and where I could excel beyond my limits. I stayed in random hostels, random peoples rooms, I stayed on footpaths until I laid my hands on a little side job that I would do after my college hours.

After being in NCA for a year and a half I realized how pretentious the people were in there, how pretentious the left wing actually is, how nobody respects anybody’s value and how art is exploited in politics. I decided to leave and my only aim since then is to get to United States and get a degree in film-making there, I want to grow as a person and as an artist and it is really hard to do that being in this country because I’ve already been to the best art school and I’ve already tried. There’s barely any opportunity here. Too much religion, too much negativity. Nobody wants to think here. I just want to go to the states and reset my life and start my art all over again.