Sunday, December 9, 2007
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Jhoomar - A Pakistani film's review
When watching a flick by film-maker Syed Noor you can at least be sure of one thing — that the storyline will be sensible and coherent. Jhoomar, his latest offering starring Saima (no surprises there) and Moammar Rana may not be a technical stunner with well-packaged glitz and slickly choreographed catchy numbers, but it has a plot that keeps you fairly engaged throughout its running time of three hours. Partly because it is inspired by real-life events, according to the film’s publicity.
The story written by Syed Noor revolves around Gulaab Bibi (Saima), a village belle who falls in love with a dashing army officer Shahnawaz (Momey) posted in her village along the Pakistan-India border. Shahnawaz hails from a well-off wadera family that owns, among other things, an imposing haveli complete with a done-to-death, two-way staircase in the entrance hall that serves as a vantage point for theatrical entries and exits by different characters throughout the film.
Anyway, coming back to Shahnawaz’s family, both his brothers and a heavy-duty, bedecked sister-in-law put up serious opposition to his marriage plans to Gulaab. Instead, they have their sights set on his brother’s glamorous sister-in-law (played by the late actress Aleena who recently made news with her tragic death) as a much more suitable match for him.
But Shahnawaz foils their plans by bringing the newlywed Gulaab to the haveli much to the ire of his family before setting off for a romantic honeymoon. Trouble rears its ugly head when Gulaab is supposedly found to be unable to have children and his family puts pressure on Shahnawaz to marry Aleena for the sake of carrying on the lineage. The poor girl is eventually kicked out of the house after being blamed falsely of having an affair and in a bid to commit suicide, a devastated Gulaab consequently finds herself on the wrong side of the Wagah Border. She is whisked off to jail after interrogation.
What follows in the second half of the film is the metamorphosis of Saima from a naïve village girl to a defiant and courageous larger-than-life heroine who braves horrific circumstances in prison to eventually redeem herself in the eyes of Shahnawaz, who as it so turns out, is the one suffering from infertility and not her.
In spite of a strong storyline, Jhoomar has its share of technical and conceptual bloopers. For instance, my sensibilities failed to digest the enormous and much-older-looking Saima as a potential love interest for Momey’s athletic-looking army officer. She looked a misfit for Gulaab’s character while twirling her dupatta or biting her finger while acting out the demure village belle. But her transition in the later half of the film makes you forgive both her and Noor; for it takes the amazonian Saima to fight off the advances of first the jail superintendent (played by Shafqat Cheema, I was waiting for him to make his appearance as the villain) and jail inmate Nandni.
Saima manages to look much more pretty in the later half with minimal make-up. Momey’s six-month-long honeymoon vacation is inexplicable as is his job description — he wears the badge of an army major yet is always seen hanging around the border fence. The camera is extremely jerky around the initial one hour into the film or perhaps one’s eyes get accustomed to the shaky frames afterwards. Some shots are abrupt and edited poorly leaving one wondering what the connection is. And every time Aleena walks into Shahnawaz’s ancestral haveli, the Indian film Main Hoon Na’s background score that complemented Sushmita Sen’s entry, was played which made it seem rather frivolous and unnecessary. Aleena’s English accent is also quite atrocious: “Theess iz my strutaway insselt,” she says when Momey gives her the cold shoulder.
Saima’s Gulaab calls Momey’s Shahnawaz ‘Jhoomar’ during the entire length of the film after he gifts her a gold jhoomar. It sounds quite awkward if you ask me. When Saima’s in-laws manhandle her and chop off her luxurious hair, she emerges in a dishevelled yet well-cut bob rather than an unkempt mop of hair. Then there are also the Indian prisoners who converse in fluent Urdu and a Pakistani police truck transporting Saima to an Indian prison! A plastic doll in the garbs of a Hindu deity in prison also comes across as quite absurd and an eyesore. The film-maker, it seems, is not as aware as the audiences of Hindu culture, thanks to the cable TV.
In the last few scenes of the film, the revolver in Saima’s hand miraculously transforms into a mouser in the blink of an eye. The comedy scenes between Irfan Khoosat who plays Saima’s father, and his servant are literally forced into the script. One also fails to understand the great hullabaloo about Momey having to marry Aleena when he has a younger unmarried brother. The bloodbath in the end is typical of a Pakistani film and a quick way to deal with the baddies and dispense poetic justice.
However, one does note some attention to detail paid by Syed Noor as Saima’s wardrobe is refreshingly stylish. She wears simple clothes when she lives in the village and lovely designer stuff when married. The scenes with violence are well picturised without being sleazy. However, the content may be unsuitable for young viewers. All extras cast as Indian prisoners are dark complexioned, perhaps Noor’s attempt to bring a mark of distinction. Saima’s chopped-off hair is also shown to take a year to grow back and her histrionics are quite convincing while facing the odds in jail and her fight sequence with the inmate, Nandni. The scene when she returns to her native village after undergoing immense trauma is also quite touching.
The lyrics by Aqeel Ruby and Rukhsana Noor are melodious but forgettable. Shabnam Majeed’s voice sounds beautiful but does not suit Saima. Period. The songs are situational and there are thankfully no item numbers.
Technically speaking, one can’t compare Jhoomar with Khuda Kay Liye or even Mohabbataan Sachiyaan. However, one feels Noor must be commended for using a theme that elevates the status of a woman to a gutsy, spirited individual rather than a licentious tart as espoused in numerous flicks such as Ghundi Run and Wehshi Haseena doing the rounds in the Lahore film circuit. The audiences that Jhoomar seeks to snare will definitely be educated with a bold theme of male infertility and for them Noor has also packed in ample flavour of rustic simplicity. For instance the dhamaal number filed on Saima was shot superbly.
But it would do Syed Noor and his film viewers tremendous good if he looks beyond Saima for his upcoming ventures and starts investing more money onto the film’s editing, mixing and camera work. After all, talent like Noor’s should make it to broader horizons.
The story written by Syed Noor revolves around Gulaab Bibi (Saima), a village belle who falls in love with a dashing army officer Shahnawaz (Momey) posted in her village along the Pakistan-India border. Shahnawaz hails from a well-off wadera family that owns, among other things, an imposing haveli complete with a done-to-death, two-way staircase in the entrance hall that serves as a vantage point for theatrical entries and exits by different characters throughout the film.
Anyway, coming back to Shahnawaz’s family, both his brothers and a heavy-duty, bedecked sister-in-law put up serious opposition to his marriage plans to Gulaab. Instead, they have their sights set on his brother’s glamorous sister-in-law (played by the late actress Aleena who recently made news with her tragic death) as a much more suitable match for him.
But Shahnawaz foils their plans by bringing the newlywed Gulaab to the haveli much to the ire of his family before setting off for a romantic honeymoon. Trouble rears its ugly head when Gulaab is supposedly found to be unable to have children and his family puts pressure on Shahnawaz to marry Aleena for the sake of carrying on the lineage. The poor girl is eventually kicked out of the house after being blamed falsely of having an affair and in a bid to commit suicide, a devastated Gulaab consequently finds herself on the wrong side of the Wagah Border. She is whisked off to jail after interrogation.
What follows in the second half of the film is the metamorphosis of Saima from a naïve village girl to a defiant and courageous larger-than-life heroine who braves horrific circumstances in prison to eventually redeem herself in the eyes of Shahnawaz, who as it so turns out, is the one suffering from infertility and not her.
In spite of a strong storyline, Jhoomar has its share of technical and conceptual bloopers. For instance, my sensibilities failed to digest the enormous and much-older-looking Saima as a potential love interest for Momey’s athletic-looking army officer. She looked a misfit for Gulaab’s character while twirling her dupatta or biting her finger while acting out the demure village belle. But her transition in the later half of the film makes you forgive both her and Noor; for it takes the amazonian Saima to fight off the advances of first the jail superintendent (played by Shafqat Cheema, I was waiting for him to make his appearance as the villain) and jail inmate Nandni.
Saima manages to look much more pretty in the later half with minimal make-up. Momey’s six-month-long honeymoon vacation is inexplicable as is his job description — he wears the badge of an army major yet is always seen hanging around the border fence. The camera is extremely jerky around the initial one hour into the film or perhaps one’s eyes get accustomed to the shaky frames afterwards. Some shots are abrupt and edited poorly leaving one wondering what the connection is. And every time Aleena walks into Shahnawaz’s ancestral haveli, the Indian film Main Hoon Na’s background score that complemented Sushmita Sen’s entry, was played which made it seem rather frivolous and unnecessary. Aleena’s English accent is also quite atrocious: “Theess iz my strutaway insselt,” she says when Momey gives her the cold shoulder.
Saima’s Gulaab calls Momey’s Shahnawaz ‘Jhoomar’ during the entire length of the film after he gifts her a gold jhoomar. It sounds quite awkward if you ask me. When Saima’s in-laws manhandle her and chop off her luxurious hair, she emerges in a dishevelled yet well-cut bob rather than an unkempt mop of hair. Then there are also the Indian prisoners who converse in fluent Urdu and a Pakistani police truck transporting Saima to an Indian prison! A plastic doll in the garbs of a Hindu deity in prison also comes across as quite absurd and an eyesore. The film-maker, it seems, is not as aware as the audiences of Hindu culture, thanks to the cable TV.
In the last few scenes of the film, the revolver in Saima’s hand miraculously transforms into a mouser in the blink of an eye. The comedy scenes between Irfan Khoosat who plays Saima’s father, and his servant are literally forced into the script. One also fails to understand the great hullabaloo about Momey having to marry Aleena when he has a younger unmarried brother. The bloodbath in the end is typical of a Pakistani film and a quick way to deal with the baddies and dispense poetic justice.
However, one does note some attention to detail paid by Syed Noor as Saima’s wardrobe is refreshingly stylish. She wears simple clothes when she lives in the village and lovely designer stuff when married. The scenes with violence are well picturised without being sleazy. However, the content may be unsuitable for young viewers. All extras cast as Indian prisoners are dark complexioned, perhaps Noor’s attempt to bring a mark of distinction. Saima’s chopped-off hair is also shown to take a year to grow back and her histrionics are quite convincing while facing the odds in jail and her fight sequence with the inmate, Nandni. The scene when she returns to her native village after undergoing immense trauma is also quite touching.
The lyrics by Aqeel Ruby and Rukhsana Noor are melodious but forgettable. Shabnam Majeed’s voice sounds beautiful but does not suit Saima. Period. The songs are situational and there are thankfully no item numbers.
Technically speaking, one can’t compare Jhoomar with Khuda Kay Liye or even Mohabbataan Sachiyaan. However, one feels Noor must be commended for using a theme that elevates the status of a woman to a gutsy, spirited individual rather than a licentious tart as espoused in numerous flicks such as Ghundi Run and Wehshi Haseena doing the rounds in the Lahore film circuit. The audiences that Jhoomar seeks to snare will definitely be educated with a bold theme of male infertility and for them Noor has also packed in ample flavour of rustic simplicity. For instance the dhamaal number filed on Saima was shot superbly.
But it would do Syed Noor and his film viewers tremendous good if he looks beyond Saima for his upcoming ventures and starts investing more money onto the film’s editing, mixing and camera work. After all, talent like Noor’s should make it to broader horizons.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Ajoka Theatre's Bala King - A review
Despots usually have an astonishing way of rising from mediocre beginnings to great success. Hitler, Napoleon or the modern-day Saddam Hussein all had less-than-ordinary backgrounds. They and many others rose to power of epic proportions by usurping their successes by hook and crook.
The Ajoka Theatre presented a play called Baala King along these lines at the Alhamra Arts Council Lahore. Originally written by German writer Bertolt Brecht as The resistible rise of Arturo Ui, as a parable of Hitler’s rise in Germany, the play was skillfully adapted by Shahid Nadeem in Punjabi. Being performed for the last 10 years, the play has continued to enjoy popularity with audiences for its relevance to local society with its fair share of ambitious aspirants of power.
Baala, played by Sarfraz Ansari, is a pehlwan from the Taxali Gate of Lahore, engaged in small-time robberies and drugs dealing. He, with his gang of three other men; namely Papu Neola, Sheeda Tank and ‘Angle of death’ Manna Kharpainch, decides to move to the Badami Bagh laari adda in hopes of making it big in the world of intercity transport. The laari adda is ruled by businessmen who all have a price to them and who trade themselves and their principles for lucrative contracts and business propositions. Banking on their weaknesses, Baala and his men start to climb up the greasy pole of success and power by bribing, blackmailing and intimidating the businessmen and shopkeepers of the area.
Of particular relevance was an underpass contract that is awarded to a construction company in return for tremendous kickbacks worth millions of rupees and the underpass collapses on the day of its inaugural! Strangely though, the mention of a collapsing underpass hit the nail right on the head, seemingly referring to the tragic collapse of the Northern bypass in Karachi. One has to give it to Shahid Nadeem for adapting his plays regularly as per the socio-political scenario of the country which is why this play has been a hit for over a decade.
Baala pehlwan continues to force his way up the ladder and some light moments occur with the regular entry of his ‘madame from Taxali Gate’ aka Gogi Churi, played by Razia Malik, who wears the most gaudy outfits imaginable over dark glasses, plaits with ribbons in them and with a hunter in one hand. She keeps a stiff upper hand on Baala and is perhaps the only one Baala is scared of.
Eventually Baala makes a mockery of the pillars of the state. He is brought to court where he buys the judge and harasses the lawyer into giving him a clean bill. Anyone who stands up against him is either eliminated or made to submit before him by force. The only newspaper that writes against him is coerced to stop and when the editor refuses to, he is shot down by Baala and his gang. Afterwards Baala goes to the funeral and makes an emotional-cum-intimidating speech before the journalist’s widow which drew quite a few laughs. The audience particularly enjoyed the scenes where Baala is convinced by his gang to polish his oratory skills and how he acquires the fine skills of public speaking and diplomacy.
At the end Baala becomes the all powerful Baala King and wins the elections with a heavy mandate emerging as a well-suited, speech-savvy politician. The rise of Baala is an allegory of our own country with its fair share of Baalas. The inability of the people to stop his ascent upwards showed the weakness of society and the lack of collective will in ridding the system of its evils.
The play was well-enacted as all Ajoka plays are except that it was a tad bit too long with a duration of over two hours. The backdrop of truck art depicting the awami culture of Pakistan was very colorful. Baala’s gang provided a lot of hilarity with their dialogue and transition from lungi-sporting pehlwans to gangsters dressed in garish t-shirts and jeans. One of the pehlwans seemed the odd one out with his boyish looks and had difficulty tying his lungi in the initial scene.
The play was an extremely witty and relevant commentary on Pakistan’s current socio-political situation. The brochure of the play stated that after the play was first staged, Shahid Nadeem was fired from PTV because his wit hit the establishment pretty hard and people found it hard to believe that this play was adapted from a German story.
The Ajoka Theatre presented a play called Baala King along these lines at the Alhamra Arts Council Lahore. Originally written by German writer Bertolt Brecht as The resistible rise of Arturo Ui, as a parable of Hitler’s rise in Germany, the play was skillfully adapted by Shahid Nadeem in Punjabi. Being performed for the last 10 years, the play has continued to enjoy popularity with audiences for its relevance to local society with its fair share of ambitious aspirants of power.
Baala, played by Sarfraz Ansari, is a pehlwan from the Taxali Gate of Lahore, engaged in small-time robberies and drugs dealing. He, with his gang of three other men; namely Papu Neola, Sheeda Tank and ‘Angle of death’ Manna Kharpainch, decides to move to the Badami Bagh laari adda in hopes of making it big in the world of intercity transport. The laari adda is ruled by businessmen who all have a price to them and who trade themselves and their principles for lucrative contracts and business propositions. Banking on their weaknesses, Baala and his men start to climb up the greasy pole of success and power by bribing, blackmailing and intimidating the businessmen and shopkeepers of the area.
Of particular relevance was an underpass contract that is awarded to a construction company in return for tremendous kickbacks worth millions of rupees and the underpass collapses on the day of its inaugural! Strangely though, the mention of a collapsing underpass hit the nail right on the head, seemingly referring to the tragic collapse of the Northern bypass in Karachi. One has to give it to Shahid Nadeem for adapting his plays regularly as per the socio-political scenario of the country which is why this play has been a hit for over a decade.
Baala pehlwan continues to force his way up the ladder and some light moments occur with the regular entry of his ‘madame from Taxali Gate’ aka Gogi Churi, played by Razia Malik, who wears the most gaudy outfits imaginable over dark glasses, plaits with ribbons in them and with a hunter in one hand. She keeps a stiff upper hand on Baala and is perhaps the only one Baala is scared of.
Eventually Baala makes a mockery of the pillars of the state. He is brought to court where he buys the judge and harasses the lawyer into giving him a clean bill. Anyone who stands up against him is either eliminated or made to submit before him by force. The only newspaper that writes against him is coerced to stop and when the editor refuses to, he is shot down by Baala and his gang. Afterwards Baala goes to the funeral and makes an emotional-cum-intimidating speech before the journalist’s widow which drew quite a few laughs. The audience particularly enjoyed the scenes where Baala is convinced by his gang to polish his oratory skills and how he acquires the fine skills of public speaking and diplomacy.
At the end Baala becomes the all powerful Baala King and wins the elections with a heavy mandate emerging as a well-suited, speech-savvy politician. The rise of Baala is an allegory of our own country with its fair share of Baalas. The inability of the people to stop his ascent upwards showed the weakness of society and the lack of collective will in ridding the system of its evils.
The play was well-enacted as all Ajoka plays are except that it was a tad bit too long with a duration of over two hours. The backdrop of truck art depicting the awami culture of Pakistan was very colorful. Baala’s gang provided a lot of hilarity with their dialogue and transition from lungi-sporting pehlwans to gangsters dressed in garish t-shirts and jeans. One of the pehlwans seemed the odd one out with his boyish looks and had difficulty tying his lungi in the initial scene.
The play was an extremely witty and relevant commentary on Pakistan’s current socio-political situation. The brochure of the play stated that after the play was first staged, Shahid Nadeem was fired from PTV because his wit hit the establishment pretty hard and people found it hard to believe that this play was adapted from a German story.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Ajoka Theatre's Toba Tek Singh - A review
Sixty years down the road, we as a nation are facing what seems to be a mid-life crisis. The formula of Pakistan’s creation that clicked so well for the first decade or so has now been reduced to a torrent of blame debates questioning its very existence.
Some intellectuals are even of the opinion that the whole Partition business was a huge folly that had and continues to have great repercussions on the lives of humanity on this side of the world.
Holding similar views, Ajoka Theatre recently staged an adaptation of Saadat Hassan Manto’s short stories, Toba Tek Singh, Siyah Haashiye and Khol do in a production titled Toba Tek Singh (TTS).
Staged at the Alhamra Arts Council in Lahore on August 17 and 18, the play was a depiction of the monumental human losses suffered by people on both sides of the Wagah Border during the birth of the two nations. Controversial as the Ajoka plays are, the adapted version of Toba Tek Singh too contained some debatable strains of thought.
According to Madiha Gauhar the play was staged to encourage soul-searching among the audience on the events of 1947. “We need to delve into the human tragedy of 1947 in order to put our house in order and move forward,” she said, adding, “for 60 years we have been fed with the ideology that the migration was voluntary on both sides of the border which is not true. The issues of religious extremism in our country can directly be attributed to the hurried and ill-planned Partition that robbed our country of its religious diversity and reduced a multi-cultural society into a monolithic one. The scars of Partition are still not going away, which is perhaps why it is important for us to think whether it was really needed.”
Set against the backdrop of a pathway lined with barbed wires, TTS shows the fate of lunatics in the Lahore Mental Hospital and how they are treated and transported to India on the basis of their religion. The mental asylum is actually a metaphor used by Manto to describe the insanity of the human losses suffered during Partition.
One particular lunatic, Bishan Singh (played very well by Sarfaraz Ansari), keeps asking whether Toba Tek Singh is in India or Pakistan, and hurls a volley of inanity at anyone who responds to him either seriously or in ridicule. The play is interspersed with screenings of actual stills and video footage of the migration carnage. Black-and-white images of mass cremations and graves, piles of naked dead bodies heaped along roadsides and a vast sea of humanity trekking on foot to its destination casts a grim shadow, driving home the point that the Partition was creation as well as destruction. The story of Sirajuddin’s search for his beautiful daughter, Sakina, in Lahore’s hospitals and refugee camps and her eventual appearance — brutally violated by Pakistani volunteers — was particularly poignant.
In the mental asylum, the inmates are treated like animals, thrown here and cooped there on their onward journey to India, depicting that those arbitrarily deciding their fate were bigger lunatics. Two officials from both the countries are shown filling files of refugee data while a mime of lunatic refugees being dragged violently in the background depicts the callous attitude of bureaucracy towards a highly emotional affair.
The play ends with Bishan Singh alias Toba Tek Singh refusing to cross over to India. The aged Toba stands in deaf and mute grief on no man’s land till one day he falls dead on his feet between the two borders; stateless in death.
While agreeing with the play’s thrust on the catastrophic human losses of Partition and the fact that they etched deep scars on the hearts of people on both sides for years and years, I thought Ms Gauhar’s argument was flawed — that the migration of millions of people was forced and that only those people left for the new countries of their choice voluntarily who had cushy jobs or guaranteed futures. If that had been the case, we might not have survived the past six decades under some of the most oppressive political and social circumstances.
Is it really wise to slur the noble intentions of Mohammed Ali Jinnah and his league of men with integrity who gave us a blessing we haven’t really treasured?
Some intellectuals are even of the opinion that the whole Partition business was a huge folly that had and continues to have great repercussions on the lives of humanity on this side of the world.
Holding similar views, Ajoka Theatre recently staged an adaptation of Saadat Hassan Manto’s short stories, Toba Tek Singh, Siyah Haashiye and Khol do in a production titled Toba Tek Singh (TTS).
Staged at the Alhamra Arts Council in Lahore on August 17 and 18, the play was a depiction of the monumental human losses suffered by people on both sides of the Wagah Border during the birth of the two nations. Controversial as the Ajoka plays are, the adapted version of Toba Tek Singh too contained some debatable strains of thought.
According to Madiha Gauhar the play was staged to encourage soul-searching among the audience on the events of 1947. “We need to delve into the human tragedy of 1947 in order to put our house in order and move forward,” she said, adding, “for 60 years we have been fed with the ideology that the migration was voluntary on both sides of the border which is not true. The issues of religious extremism in our country can directly be attributed to the hurried and ill-planned Partition that robbed our country of its religious diversity and reduced a multi-cultural society into a monolithic one. The scars of Partition are still not going away, which is perhaps why it is important for us to think whether it was really needed.”
Set against the backdrop of a pathway lined with barbed wires, TTS shows the fate of lunatics in the Lahore Mental Hospital and how they are treated and transported to India on the basis of their religion. The mental asylum is actually a metaphor used by Manto to describe the insanity of the human losses suffered during Partition.
One particular lunatic, Bishan Singh (played very well by Sarfaraz Ansari), keeps asking whether Toba Tek Singh is in India or Pakistan, and hurls a volley of inanity at anyone who responds to him either seriously or in ridicule. The play is interspersed with screenings of actual stills and video footage of the migration carnage. Black-and-white images of mass cremations and graves, piles of naked dead bodies heaped along roadsides and a vast sea of humanity trekking on foot to its destination casts a grim shadow, driving home the point that the Partition was creation as well as destruction. The story of Sirajuddin’s search for his beautiful daughter, Sakina, in Lahore’s hospitals and refugee camps and her eventual appearance — brutally violated by Pakistani volunteers — was particularly poignant.
In the mental asylum, the inmates are treated like animals, thrown here and cooped there on their onward journey to India, depicting that those arbitrarily deciding their fate were bigger lunatics. Two officials from both the countries are shown filling files of refugee data while a mime of lunatic refugees being dragged violently in the background depicts the callous attitude of bureaucracy towards a highly emotional affair.
The play ends with Bishan Singh alias Toba Tek Singh refusing to cross over to India. The aged Toba stands in deaf and mute grief on no man’s land till one day he falls dead on his feet between the two borders; stateless in death.
While agreeing with the play’s thrust on the catastrophic human losses of Partition and the fact that they etched deep scars on the hearts of people on both sides for years and years, I thought Ms Gauhar’s argument was flawed — that the migration of millions of people was forced and that only those people left for the new countries of their choice voluntarily who had cushy jobs or guaranteed futures. If that had been the case, we might not have survived the past six decades under some of the most oppressive political and social circumstances.
Is it really wise to slur the noble intentions of Mohammed Ali Jinnah and his league of men with integrity who gave us a blessing we haven’t really treasured?
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Ajoka Theatre's Burqavaganza - a review
ln our increasingly polarised world, issues once unimportant have become a great source of discord among people, irrespective of religion and/or culture. The issue of hijab, burqa or purdah, for instance, is drawing huge debates from western and as well as eastern societies.
Set against the background of this sensitive issue, Ajoka Theatre recently held the premiere of its play called Burqavaganza at the Alhamra Cultural Complex in Lahore. According to the brochure, the play is an “outrageous musical extravaganza written to challenge the mindsets, provoke the audience to rethink and break the chains of prejudice and outdated values.”
What followed was a series of skits based on national and international news clippings regarding the veil. It presented a hypothetical society where every individual is draped in yards of burqa in true Taliban-style and every few scenes ended with a popular film song. It was an incisive take on the fixation with burqa and the double standards that go with it.
To begin with, a TV channel by the name of Burqa Vision flashed the history of the burqa from the Stone Age, where a prehistoric woman is covered in a veil of leaves, to modern times where she wears the shuttlecock version of the head-to-toe veil. A take on the Star Plus soaps was particularly hilarious as all characters including men wore the hijab and acted with exaggerated histrionics in a play called Kyunke Burqa Bhi Kabhi Hijab Tha. Another skit showed two religious scholars taking live telephone calls from all over Pakistan on issues regarding the veil and answering in convoluted terms, beyond the comprehension of the callers. Politicians were shown exploiting the agenda of the purdah to their advantage, and western societies being unyielding in terms of demanding a ban on the all-enveloping veil.
A cricket match played by veiled players sent the audience in stitches. Other skits made fun of the obsession of our security personnel to go into detailed frisking and body searches of females, an astronaut holding an American flag follows local militia running after a most wanted terrorist Bin Batin symbolising that while our nation is busy with superficial issues that hardly affect us, the western societies have advanced greatly in the fields of science and technology. A love struck couple in hijab is shown courting with the parents of the girl coming to see the prospective groom and end up taking his measurements because he is fully covered. They eventually get married and after several years of marriage are sentenced to stoning to death by a jirga for wearing a revealing hijab. Another skit showed politicians and people of national fame hiding behind burqas symbolising that each had their own hidden agendas to manipulate the masses.
The play was well-researched with a witty viewpoint on an issue that has of late become a focal point of discord. Though one could not agree with all the jibes at the sensitive issue, one definitely agreed that purdah is an individual’s own choice and any compulsion to wear or discard it would foment frustration. An exhibition outside the auditorium displayed various news clippings and photographs regarding the hijab to reinforce to the audience that some of the skits were based on authentic facts.
According to Shahid Nadeem, the writer of Burqavaganza, the objective was not to hurt anyone’s beliefs or feeling. “We wanted to prompt a different thought process … one that can change the system through self-criticism. We should be able to see for ourselves where we are in the world with respect to real issues like survival, justice, freedom, human rights, quality of life and not be fixated with base issues like how much we should or should not be covered,” he said.
Set against the background of this sensitive issue, Ajoka Theatre recently held the premiere of its play called Burqavaganza at the Alhamra Cultural Complex in Lahore. According to the brochure, the play is an “outrageous musical extravaganza written to challenge the mindsets, provoke the audience to rethink and break the chains of prejudice and outdated values.”
What followed was a series of skits based on national and international news clippings regarding the veil. It presented a hypothetical society where every individual is draped in yards of burqa in true Taliban-style and every few scenes ended with a popular film song. It was an incisive take on the fixation with burqa and the double standards that go with it.
To begin with, a TV channel by the name of Burqa Vision flashed the history of the burqa from the Stone Age, where a prehistoric woman is covered in a veil of leaves, to modern times where she wears the shuttlecock version of the head-to-toe veil. A take on the Star Plus soaps was particularly hilarious as all characters including men wore the hijab and acted with exaggerated histrionics in a play called Kyunke Burqa Bhi Kabhi Hijab Tha. Another skit showed two religious scholars taking live telephone calls from all over Pakistan on issues regarding the veil and answering in convoluted terms, beyond the comprehension of the callers. Politicians were shown exploiting the agenda of the purdah to their advantage, and western societies being unyielding in terms of demanding a ban on the all-enveloping veil.
A cricket match played by veiled players sent the audience in stitches. Other skits made fun of the obsession of our security personnel to go into detailed frisking and body searches of females, an astronaut holding an American flag follows local militia running after a most wanted terrorist Bin Batin symbolising that while our nation is busy with superficial issues that hardly affect us, the western societies have advanced greatly in the fields of science and technology. A love struck couple in hijab is shown courting with the parents of the girl coming to see the prospective groom and end up taking his measurements because he is fully covered. They eventually get married and after several years of marriage are sentenced to stoning to death by a jirga for wearing a revealing hijab. Another skit showed politicians and people of national fame hiding behind burqas symbolising that each had their own hidden agendas to manipulate the masses.
The play was well-researched with a witty viewpoint on an issue that has of late become a focal point of discord. Though one could not agree with all the jibes at the sensitive issue, one definitely agreed that purdah is an individual’s own choice and any compulsion to wear or discard it would foment frustration. An exhibition outside the auditorium displayed various news clippings and photographs regarding the hijab to reinforce to the audience that some of the skits were based on authentic facts.
According to Shahid Nadeem, the writer of Burqavaganza, the objective was not to hurt anyone’s beliefs or feeling. “We wanted to prompt a different thought process … one that can change the system through self-criticism. We should be able to see for ourselves where we are in the world with respect to real issues like survival, justice, freedom, human rights, quality of life and not be fixated with base issues like how much we should or should not be covered,” he said.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
The Folk Puppet Festival 2007 in Lahore
Culture on a string
Puppetry is a creative art form that gives inanimate objects illusory life for the purpose of telling tales that reflect the ethos of a society. Before the advent of television and even before radio arrived on the scene, folk puppetry was among the prime forms of entertainment.
Over the decades, however, puppetry in general has seen a dismal decline. The new generation of folk puppeteers are seeking out other professions to keep the kitchen fires burning with the devastating result that this rich art form now faces an uncertain future. The fact that the last of the craftsmen known for making wooden putlis (puppets) locally died some 10 years ago only serves to drive home this point.
In a desperate bid to save this art form from extinction, the Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop (RPTW) in collaboration with the Royal Norwegian embassy, recently held the fourth National Folk Puppet Festival coinciding with the World Puppet Day on March 22. The festival spread over four days was held at the Museum of Puppetry, Lahore, and dedicated to folk puppeteers and their craft. The audience was treated to the legendary folklore of Emperor Akbar’s courtroom in rustic Punjabi, to the beat of the dhol and popular filmi numbers in Madam Noor Jehan’s voice.
On a tangential note, the Museum of Puppetry is a commendable effort housing puppets from 28 countries in a three-storey structure. The collection of puppets is impressive with marionettes ranging from tiny finger-manipulated dolls to huge six-foot string puppets. Besides offering classes to aspiring students on different forms of puppetry, the museum also offers residence programmes for foreign puppeteers to come and live in for two to three months, conduct workshops, perform puppet shows, collaborate with local artistes in creating new pieces and design puppets among other activities. About 90 per cent of the puppet shows performed is free of cost, and the museum arranges free tours for schools and NGOs.
Faizaan Peerzada, the curator of the museum and RPTW president says, “Part of our work is financed by the Norwegian embassy’s assistance. To further generate funds, we have Café Peeru on the premises for a fine dining experience as well as live entertainment such as sufi, rock and ghazal nights apart from drama and puppet performances.
“I plan to get puppeteers from Rajasthan to teach the families of folk puppeteers. I want these families to learn the craft from their own people so that the art remains intact. We don’t want to modernise the art form as that license should only be with the new generation of folk puppeteers and not us,” he adds.
In a documentary called Puppeteers in the Dark, directed by Faizaan to highlight the bleak times faced by the dying craft, a folk puppeteer says, “As cities are getting larger, they are driving us out. Nobody has any interest in us anymore.” Another adds that as the craft of putli-making died with his father’s generation, he can only carry out repair work on his puppets and stitch their costumes, changing them once a year due to paucity of funds. All the folk puppeteers said they only perform if someone invites them and do not roam the streets looking for an audience as the exercise is futile.
But Faizaan is keen to make folk puppetry a viable entity once again. “People object to the rustic clothes and rural dialect of these puppeteers; I tell them it’s our culture. We take great pains in being eloquent in English while disassociating ourselves from our roots. I plan to keep at least two of these folk puppeteer families on my payroll, making elaborate costumes for them and their puppets. We have already made them popular through the World Performing Arts Festivals by keeping the tickets to their shows at a low price to encourage youngsters to watch the performances. We are also working out a plan for them to perform at private birthday parties, etc, so that they can earn a decent livelihood through their craft.”
With the new generation of folk puppeteers adding newer tales to their repertoire to reflect the moods of an ever-changing society, here’s hoping that with the efforts of the Rafi Peer team, this ancient art form will survive, evolving with time to reclaim its rightful place in our society as a popular form of entertainment.
Puppetry is a creative art form that gives inanimate objects illusory life for the purpose of telling tales that reflect the ethos of a society. Before the advent of television and even before radio arrived on the scene, folk puppetry was among the prime forms of entertainment.
Over the decades, however, puppetry in general has seen a dismal decline. The new generation of folk puppeteers are seeking out other professions to keep the kitchen fires burning with the devastating result that this rich art form now faces an uncertain future. The fact that the last of the craftsmen known for making wooden putlis (puppets) locally died some 10 years ago only serves to drive home this point.
In a desperate bid to save this art form from extinction, the Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop (RPTW) in collaboration with the Royal Norwegian embassy, recently held the fourth National Folk Puppet Festival coinciding with the World Puppet Day on March 22. The festival spread over four days was held at the Museum of Puppetry, Lahore, and dedicated to folk puppeteers and their craft. The audience was treated to the legendary folklore of Emperor Akbar’s courtroom in rustic Punjabi, to the beat of the dhol and popular filmi numbers in Madam Noor Jehan’s voice.
On a tangential note, the Museum of Puppetry is a commendable effort housing puppets from 28 countries in a three-storey structure. The collection of puppets is impressive with marionettes ranging from tiny finger-manipulated dolls to huge six-foot string puppets. Besides offering classes to aspiring students on different forms of puppetry, the museum also offers residence programmes for foreign puppeteers to come and live in for two to three months, conduct workshops, perform puppet shows, collaborate with local artistes in creating new pieces and design puppets among other activities. About 90 per cent of the puppet shows performed is free of cost, and the museum arranges free tours for schools and NGOs.
Faizaan Peerzada, the curator of the museum and RPTW president says, “Part of our work is financed by the Norwegian embassy’s assistance. To further generate funds, we have Café Peeru on the premises for a fine dining experience as well as live entertainment such as sufi, rock and ghazal nights apart from drama and puppet performances.
“I plan to get puppeteers from Rajasthan to teach the families of folk puppeteers. I want these families to learn the craft from their own people so that the art remains intact. We don’t want to modernise the art form as that license should only be with the new generation of folk puppeteers and not us,” he adds.
In a documentary called Puppeteers in the Dark, directed by Faizaan to highlight the bleak times faced by the dying craft, a folk puppeteer says, “As cities are getting larger, they are driving us out. Nobody has any interest in us anymore.” Another adds that as the craft of putli-making died with his father’s generation, he can only carry out repair work on his puppets and stitch their costumes, changing them once a year due to paucity of funds. All the folk puppeteers said they only perform if someone invites them and do not roam the streets looking for an audience as the exercise is futile.
But Faizaan is keen to make folk puppetry a viable entity once again. “People object to the rustic clothes and rural dialect of these puppeteers; I tell them it’s our culture. We take great pains in being eloquent in English while disassociating ourselves from our roots. I plan to keep at least two of these folk puppeteer families on my payroll, making elaborate costumes for them and their puppets. We have already made them popular through the World Performing Arts Festivals by keeping the tickets to their shows at a low price to encourage youngsters to watch the performances. We are also working out a plan for them to perform at private birthday parties, etc, so that they can earn a decent livelihood through their craft.”
With the new generation of folk puppeteers adding newer tales to their repertoire to reflect the moods of an ever-changing society, here’s hoping that with the efforts of the Rafi Peer team, this ancient art form will survive, evolving with time to reclaim its rightful place in our society as a popular form of entertainment.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Interview of Zeba - The veteran film artiste
Till death do them part
The late veteran film actor, Muhammad Ali and his wife, actress Zeba’s marriage was the stuff that fairytales are made of. Together, they made quite a couple, with the tall and handsome Muhammad Ali falling in love with the young, beautiful Zeba at first sight and the two getting married and living happily ever after … that is until Muhammad Ali passed away this time last year. The two were married for four decades.
I meet Zeba at her residence, AliZeb, situated on a broad avenue of Lahore bearing the same name. Contrary to the image of a grieving widow I have in mind, I find Zeba dressed in a fetching ice-blue silk shalwar kameez with matching shoes worn over pedicured feet with painted toenails. With sparkling diamonds earrings and solitaires flashing in her slender fingers, she puts to shame women half her age with her captivating beauty.
The moment we start, she makes it absolutely clear: “I will talk only about Muhammad Ali sahib.” With her past obscure, and she has consciously kept it so during the length of our conversation, the reference point in her life remains her meeting with Muhammad Ali. “When he joined Radio Pakistan, his father who was a religious scholar, opposed his decision. But Ali told him: ‘I’ll never bring disgrace to your name in this profession’ and he proved it so.”
She also remembers how they ended up on screen together: “Our first film together was Chiragh Jalta Raha (released on March 9, 1962 and directed by Fazal Karim Fazli). Its first shot picturised us together. Ali sahib told the press much later that he had decided to marry me the day he first saw me.” Chiragh Jalta Raha also marked the big-screen debut of Deeba and Kamal Irani. Zeba and Mohammad Ali got married some four years later in 1966. Says she, “It took us a while as I am not the kind who trusts someone out rightly or falls in love at first sight.”
So what made her decide to marry him? “His integrity and goodness. He belonged to a deeply religious family and despite being good-looking, he was sharif and would shun the advances made by other women. Muhammad Ali sahib had a generous heart and treated everyone with nothing but respect. He treated me like a queen and loved fulfilling my whims. It was hard not to take the decision to marry him. He would hand over all his earnings to me without a question as to how I spent it.”
Zeba goes on to add that in the later part of his life, Muhammad Ali was actively involved in philanthropic pursuits, specially pertaining to the AliZeb Foundation which treats the underprivileged patients of hemophilia and thalesemia free of charge.
It is commonly perceived that Ali was immensely possessive about Zeba working with other heroes of the time. Zeba, however, has this to say about the issue: “Ali once asked me ‘Would you like it if I accompanied you on your shoots like you do on mine?’ and I thought to myself: What is the point of being married if your work keeps you away from each other? So I decided to act in films that only cast him opposite me. Also, I think our society does not accept a married actress working opposite men other than her husband. Today, I don’t have any regrets as we made super-hit films together. In fact, we worked in 75 films which is an unmatched world record, even in Hollywood and Bollywood.”
Says Zeba, “We always made it a point to have lunch and dinner together. Muhammad Ali sahib also loved to entertain guests at home and never went anywhere without me.” On being asked how Ali was as a father to her only daughter from her previous marriage (they did not have any children of their own), Zeba cuts me short. “I don’t remember anything prior to meeting Muhammad Ali. He was an exemplary father to not only our daughter but also our grandchildren. He would get them expensive gifts from abroad and where I would admonish my grandchildren at times, he would spoil and pamper them to no end.”
With tears in her eyes, she says that life without Muhammad Ali is difficult for her. “I cannot even begin to explain the anguish I have suffered with Ali’s passing away. I have tried to pull myself together with difficulty but I still feel incomplete. The shock of his death has been unbelievable and I still suffer from the stress of it all. I would visit his grave and it would just not register that he is in there. But one can’t do anything against the will of Allah. For four months after his death, I did not read a single newspaper carrying the coverage of his funeral or watch a single TV programme made in his memory. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. My grandchildren urged me to see the articles they had saved with them, saying I should see how he left this world in the grand manner that he had lived his life. I think it is only when you are so loved and admired by people that you receive the tremendous show of respect that Ali got on his last journey.”
Finally, Zeba says, “I ask Ali’s admirers to pray for his maghfirat and my forbearance to overcome the loss. I hope and pray that when my time comes, people will show me the same love and respect that they have shown to Muhammad Ali.”
Published for Images, Dawn Newspaper
The late veteran film actor, Muhammad Ali and his wife, actress Zeba’s marriage was the stuff that fairytales are made of. Together, they made quite a couple, with the tall and handsome Muhammad Ali falling in love with the young, beautiful Zeba at first sight and the two getting married and living happily ever after … that is until Muhammad Ali passed away this time last year. The two were married for four decades.
I meet Zeba at her residence, AliZeb, situated on a broad avenue of Lahore bearing the same name. Contrary to the image of a grieving widow I have in mind, I find Zeba dressed in a fetching ice-blue silk shalwar kameez with matching shoes worn over pedicured feet with painted toenails. With sparkling diamonds earrings and solitaires flashing in her slender fingers, she puts to shame women half her age with her captivating beauty.
The moment we start, she makes it absolutely clear: “I will talk only about Muhammad Ali sahib.” With her past obscure, and she has consciously kept it so during the length of our conversation, the reference point in her life remains her meeting with Muhammad Ali. “When he joined Radio Pakistan, his father who was a religious scholar, opposed his decision. But Ali told him: ‘I’ll never bring disgrace to your name in this profession’ and he proved it so.”
She also remembers how they ended up on screen together: “Our first film together was Chiragh Jalta Raha (released on March 9, 1962 and directed by Fazal Karim Fazli). Its first shot picturised us together. Ali sahib told the press much later that he had decided to marry me the day he first saw me.” Chiragh Jalta Raha also marked the big-screen debut of Deeba and Kamal Irani. Zeba and Mohammad Ali got married some four years later in 1966. Says she, “It took us a while as I am not the kind who trusts someone out rightly or falls in love at first sight.”
So what made her decide to marry him? “His integrity and goodness. He belonged to a deeply religious family and despite being good-looking, he was sharif and would shun the advances made by other women. Muhammad Ali sahib had a generous heart and treated everyone with nothing but respect. He treated me like a queen and loved fulfilling my whims. It was hard not to take the decision to marry him. He would hand over all his earnings to me without a question as to how I spent it.”
Zeba goes on to add that in the later part of his life, Muhammad Ali was actively involved in philanthropic pursuits, specially pertaining to the AliZeb Foundation which treats the underprivileged patients of hemophilia and thalesemia free of charge.
It is commonly perceived that Ali was immensely possessive about Zeba working with other heroes of the time. Zeba, however, has this to say about the issue: “Ali once asked me ‘Would you like it if I accompanied you on your shoots like you do on mine?’ and I thought to myself: What is the point of being married if your work keeps you away from each other? So I decided to act in films that only cast him opposite me. Also, I think our society does not accept a married actress working opposite men other than her husband. Today, I don’t have any regrets as we made super-hit films together. In fact, we worked in 75 films which is an unmatched world record, even in Hollywood and Bollywood.”
Says Zeba, “We always made it a point to have lunch and dinner together. Muhammad Ali sahib also loved to entertain guests at home and never went anywhere without me.” On being asked how Ali was as a father to her only daughter from her previous marriage (they did not have any children of their own), Zeba cuts me short. “I don’t remember anything prior to meeting Muhammad Ali. He was an exemplary father to not only our daughter but also our grandchildren. He would get them expensive gifts from abroad and where I would admonish my grandchildren at times, he would spoil and pamper them to no end.”
With tears in her eyes, she says that life without Muhammad Ali is difficult for her. “I cannot even begin to explain the anguish I have suffered with Ali’s passing away. I have tried to pull myself together with difficulty but I still feel incomplete. The shock of his death has been unbelievable and I still suffer from the stress of it all. I would visit his grave and it would just not register that he is in there. But one can’t do anything against the will of Allah. For four months after his death, I did not read a single newspaper carrying the coverage of his funeral or watch a single TV programme made in his memory. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. My grandchildren urged me to see the articles they had saved with them, saying I should see how he left this world in the grand manner that he had lived his life. I think it is only when you are so loved and admired by people that you receive the tremendous show of respect that Ali got on his last journey.”
Finally, Zeba says, “I ask Ali’s admirers to pray for his maghfirat and my forbearance to overcome the loss. I hope and pray that when my time comes, people will show me the same love and respect that they have shown to Muhammad Ali.”
Published for Images, Dawn Newspaper
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Interview of Simi Raheal - Actor & Social Activist
She’s all that and more
Common perception has it that celebrities take great pains to maintain carefully constructed public images for themselves. A pleasant exception to this stereotype is Simi Raheal.
Simi is supremely confident about herself. When she speaks, her eyes and smile radiate an unmistakable warmth and meeting her, it is hard not to remain impressed by the various facets of her dynamic personality. Of late, the veteran TV actress has again become a face of familiar reckoning on television, thanks to a diverse repertoire of advertisements, music videos and dramas in which she has been featuring frequently. But she has carefully refrained from being overexposured.
I meet her at her home in Lahore where she has just returned from an intensive ad shoot in Karachi. Prior to this, she was away for a long spell of shooting in Mauritius for a drama serial. Dressed in faded jeans and an overcoat, she holds back her dogs while I make my way into her cosy, artfully done up lounge. A centre table displays beautiful sea shells that she as collected “from every shore of the world” that she has been to.
Simi has been associated with showbusiness since the past three decades, while she was still studying in the textile design programme at the National College of Arts, Lahore, in 1976. She made her debut with Ashfaq Ahmed’s magnum opus, Aik Mohabbat Sau Afsaanay, two years after which she got married and her husband’s army job postings took her travelling to various military stations across the country. She talks about her marriage and motherhood (her daughter, Mehreen Raheal, is a successful fashion model today). “Thanks to my husband’s job, I got to see so much of Pakistan that I would not have otherwise. Mehreen was born in Kharian during Zia’s regime. Being an army man’s wife, I needed an NOC to work for television (read PTV). I therefore decided to take a break from acting and pay full attention to raising my kids.”
Simi returned to the tube with her serial Khwahish, in which she played a gypsy woman, wherein she delivered the gypsy vernacular and lifestyle to perfection. The attempt proved to be hugely successful and since then, there was no looking back as acting projects came forth steadily one after another.
But Simi soon realised that “there was more to life than just being a face on the camera. I am a hermit; I do not attend parties or award ceremonies and yet I love to travel. I love connecting with people through my work; it helps me know myself. I believe in what Lewis Carroll wrote in Alice in Wonderland: ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will do’. During my mid career, I was lucky to have met Muneeza Hashmi, who is my husband’s aunt, and she put me on track in life and gave me a new bearing.”
Joining her NGO, Simi got interested in gender studies and became a reproductive health and human rights activist. She is a fellow of the Harvard School of Public Health and the International Institute of Education, USA. Part of her work entails conducting workshops and representing Pakistan at national and international forums.
“I am not a feminist,” she elaborates, “I believe in gender balance and encourage women to realise their status in a religious and social framework.” She tells me that her field of interest is developmental communication which integrates social, economic and industrial channels to help mainstream communicators deal with gender issues in the development construct. She also teaches gender and media at Kinniard College where she encourages young minds to dwell on how women should be projected through media to maintain gender balance.
She likes to follow through this philosophy of hers in her acting career as well. For instance she refuses to do scripts that have discriminatory overtones. “Thank God I am now at a stage where I can redo my own scripts if they contain dialogues that might send the wrong subliminal message to the masses. I would never say a dialogue to the tune of ‘betiyaan bojh hoti hain’ (daughters are a burden). Language is important in maintaining gender balance, and slight innuendos can have huge implications.”
A recently televised talk show by the name of Hot Seat was notable for its candid approach to social issues, with Simi being its host. She comments: “I scripted and researched the 38 programmes on taboo issues myself and got them aired specially from ATV as the channel is viewed by mainstream audiences. The programmes were well appreciated for they aimed to speak about issues like incest, rape and discrimination rather than sensationalising them.”
Simi is proud of the fact that her values have naturally permeated through to her children as well: “Mehreen is a very successful model. Her colleagues often tell me that she is very professional and committed to her work and she has perhaps featured in the widest variety of ads ranging from cellular services to shampoos and cooking oils. Yet she has never compromised her principles. For instance she decided on her own never to wear revealing clothes or do ramps.”
She ruminates further: “How we lead our lives and speak through our work is very important. TV has indeed taught me more than any college could have had. While on projects, you get to live with people of all classes in perfect harmony; you share your food and even the bathroom at times with the boom operators, the camera boys. You learn the simple realities of life with people around you. Being a communicator, I do not judge people on the basis of their social status or any orientation they have as long as they are good human beings.”So what are her thoughts on the over glamorised affair that drama has become today? “Acting is not about painting yourself up like a mannequin. I do my roles with minimum required makeup. In my recent role of a Christian housekeeper, I had to wear a uniform throughout the serial and I thought it was very interesting. Unfortunately, we have made a mess of drama with soaps. I refuse point blank to do any soaps for they have no story, no direction and the acting is terrible. The lifestyle shown creates frustration among the majority who cannot afford it and the stories are full of intrigue and malice.”
She feels that through these soaps, our media is perpetuating an ideology that is widening the gulf between the classes. “What these quick buck makers don’t realise is that they are shaping the norms of society by their ventures. If you show obscenity, it gradually becomes the norm. If you show intrigue and conspiracy repeatedly, people start accepting it as part of their lives.”
On a more positive note, she talks about what she feels lies in store for the future. “I think youngsters like Jami, Saquib and Sarmad are talented and realising that their survival lies in being original. They are the future; I see this in a lot of youngsters today. My own son, Daniyal for instance, is into filmmaking. He left Canada to work here rather than for goras.”
She gives the example of Shoaib Mansoor’s film, Khuda Ke Liyay where she played the role of a mother to the two heroes. “It was a fantastic experience. Shoaib sahib comes up with one project and gets the whole nation thinking.
“Time is like a window and sometimes in that window, only one person can appear and project a needed change. We only had one Iqbal and one Faiz who got millions of people thinking. Change is brought on by only a few minds,” concludes Simi Raheal.
Published for Images, Dawn Newspaper
Common perception has it that celebrities take great pains to maintain carefully constructed public images for themselves. A pleasant exception to this stereotype is Simi Raheal.
Simi is supremely confident about herself. When she speaks, her eyes and smile radiate an unmistakable warmth and meeting her, it is hard not to remain impressed by the various facets of her dynamic personality. Of late, the veteran TV actress has again become a face of familiar reckoning on television, thanks to a diverse repertoire of advertisements, music videos and dramas in which she has been featuring frequently. But she has carefully refrained from being overexposured.
I meet her at her home in Lahore where she has just returned from an intensive ad shoot in Karachi. Prior to this, she was away for a long spell of shooting in Mauritius for a drama serial. Dressed in faded jeans and an overcoat, she holds back her dogs while I make my way into her cosy, artfully done up lounge. A centre table displays beautiful sea shells that she as collected “from every shore of the world” that she has been to.
Simi has been associated with showbusiness since the past three decades, while she was still studying in the textile design programme at the National College of Arts, Lahore, in 1976. She made her debut with Ashfaq Ahmed’s magnum opus, Aik Mohabbat Sau Afsaanay, two years after which she got married and her husband’s army job postings took her travelling to various military stations across the country. She talks about her marriage and motherhood (her daughter, Mehreen Raheal, is a successful fashion model today). “Thanks to my husband’s job, I got to see so much of Pakistan that I would not have otherwise. Mehreen was born in Kharian during Zia’s regime. Being an army man’s wife, I needed an NOC to work for television (read PTV). I therefore decided to take a break from acting and pay full attention to raising my kids.”
Simi returned to the tube with her serial Khwahish, in which she played a gypsy woman, wherein she delivered the gypsy vernacular and lifestyle to perfection. The attempt proved to be hugely successful and since then, there was no looking back as acting projects came forth steadily one after another.
But Simi soon realised that “there was more to life than just being a face on the camera. I am a hermit; I do not attend parties or award ceremonies and yet I love to travel. I love connecting with people through my work; it helps me know myself. I believe in what Lewis Carroll wrote in Alice in Wonderland: ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will do’. During my mid career, I was lucky to have met Muneeza Hashmi, who is my husband’s aunt, and she put me on track in life and gave me a new bearing.”
Joining her NGO, Simi got interested in gender studies and became a reproductive health and human rights activist. She is a fellow of the Harvard School of Public Health and the International Institute of Education, USA. Part of her work entails conducting workshops and representing Pakistan at national and international forums.
“I am not a feminist,” she elaborates, “I believe in gender balance and encourage women to realise their status in a religious and social framework.” She tells me that her field of interest is developmental communication which integrates social, economic and industrial channels to help mainstream communicators deal with gender issues in the development construct. She also teaches gender and media at Kinniard College where she encourages young minds to dwell on how women should be projected through media to maintain gender balance.
She likes to follow through this philosophy of hers in her acting career as well. For instance she refuses to do scripts that have discriminatory overtones. “Thank God I am now at a stage where I can redo my own scripts if they contain dialogues that might send the wrong subliminal message to the masses. I would never say a dialogue to the tune of ‘betiyaan bojh hoti hain’ (daughters are a burden). Language is important in maintaining gender balance, and slight innuendos can have huge implications.”
A recently televised talk show by the name of Hot Seat was notable for its candid approach to social issues, with Simi being its host. She comments: “I scripted and researched the 38 programmes on taboo issues myself and got them aired specially from ATV as the channel is viewed by mainstream audiences. The programmes were well appreciated for they aimed to speak about issues like incest, rape and discrimination rather than sensationalising them.”
Simi is proud of the fact that her values have naturally permeated through to her children as well: “Mehreen is a very successful model. Her colleagues often tell me that she is very professional and committed to her work and she has perhaps featured in the widest variety of ads ranging from cellular services to shampoos and cooking oils. Yet she has never compromised her principles. For instance she decided on her own never to wear revealing clothes or do ramps.”
She ruminates further: “How we lead our lives and speak through our work is very important. TV has indeed taught me more than any college could have had. While on projects, you get to live with people of all classes in perfect harmony; you share your food and even the bathroom at times with the boom operators, the camera boys. You learn the simple realities of life with people around you. Being a communicator, I do not judge people on the basis of their social status or any orientation they have as long as they are good human beings.”So what are her thoughts on the over glamorised affair that drama has become today? “Acting is not about painting yourself up like a mannequin. I do my roles with minimum required makeup. In my recent role of a Christian housekeeper, I had to wear a uniform throughout the serial and I thought it was very interesting. Unfortunately, we have made a mess of drama with soaps. I refuse point blank to do any soaps for they have no story, no direction and the acting is terrible. The lifestyle shown creates frustration among the majority who cannot afford it and the stories are full of intrigue and malice.”
She feels that through these soaps, our media is perpetuating an ideology that is widening the gulf between the classes. “What these quick buck makers don’t realise is that they are shaping the norms of society by their ventures. If you show obscenity, it gradually becomes the norm. If you show intrigue and conspiracy repeatedly, people start accepting it as part of their lives.”
On a more positive note, she talks about what she feels lies in store for the future. “I think youngsters like Jami, Saquib and Sarmad are talented and realising that their survival lies in being original. They are the future; I see this in a lot of youngsters today. My own son, Daniyal for instance, is into filmmaking. He left Canada to work here rather than for goras.”
She gives the example of Shoaib Mansoor’s film, Khuda Ke Liyay where she played the role of a mother to the two heroes. “It was a fantastic experience. Shoaib sahib comes up with one project and gets the whole nation thinking.
“Time is like a window and sometimes in that window, only one person can appear and project a needed change. We only had one Iqbal and one Faiz who got millions of people thinking. Change is brought on by only a few minds,” concludes Simi Raheal.
Published for Images, Dawn Newspaper
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