Why Ushna Shah's heart shattered?
Ushna Shah has shared an emotional conversation online, calling it “A must-see thread. shattered my heart.”
Taking to Instagram, she shared a story featuring a collection of the 19th-century paintings by Edwin Lord Weeks (1849–1903), an American Orientalist painter whose work documented the Indian subcontinent with realism.
The artwork, titled Hindustan through the Eyes of Edwin Lord Weeks, offers a rare visual record of South Asian life during the late 1800s.
Weeks was among the first American artists to travel extensively across the region, sketching and photographing on site to capture its architecture, rituals, and everyday moments with remarkable accuracy.
The collection includes iconic landmarks such as Lahore’s Wazir Khan Mosque, shown glowing in morning light with elephants and townsfolk animating its courtyard, and the Golden Temple in Amritsar, reflected serenely across its sacred pool.
Multiple renderings of the Taj Mahal, bathed in warm sunset hues and framed by women in vibrant traditional attire, highlight Weeks’ mastery of light and scale.
Beyond monuments, the paintings delve into daily life from ritual bathing along river ghats, likely in Varanasi, to bustling old city streets where decorated elephants weave through narrow lanes.
Scenes like "At the Office of the Ledger" reveal commercial life integrated into ornate architectural spaces, while intimate moments such as "Where Two Paths Cross” capture fleeting human interactions under the harsh South Asian sun.
Royal and military imagery also features prominently. Works depicting palace courts, ceremonial assemblies, and sowars with meticulously detailed horses and weaponry emphasize the grandeur and structure of princely states of the era.
Paintings evoke nostalgia, loss, and reflection not just for a shared history, but for cultural spaces and traditions that have since transformed or disappeared due to colonisation, partition, and time.
Unlike many Orientalist painters who relied on imagination, Edwin Lord Weeks insisted on authenticity. Known for versatile roles in dramas like Bashar Momin and Parizaad, Ushna has a background in theatre and graduated from York University. She is also a noted animal rights activist.