Dear Mughees Riaz,

I am unsure whether I should first admire your passion and celebrate your success in capturing the spirit of Ravi or share my grief on the river's deteriorating condition. I shall do both. In this open letter, I address all those concerned; people of Lahore, the custodians of the city of gardens.

The gardens that depend on Ravi; the sustainer of life, the custodian of history, curator of cultural expressions and the muse to poets and painters amongst whom you stand tall. Before this letter becomes an elegy, a nawha for Ravi, lamenting the neglect, misuse and lack of empathy towards its history, ecology and future, I shall direct my attention to your contribution to contemporary landscape painting in Pakistan.

Landscape painting is a form of art that depicts natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, rivers, trees and forests. It provides a wide view of nature and its elements arranged into a coherent composition. This is, at least, the Academy Art approach towards the genre that became popular during the........

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