Simi Raheal
By Afia Mansoor
Simi Raheal is one of the most sought after actors in the Pakistani media today. She has been a part of television, theatre, radio and advertising since more than three decades and interestingly that’s not all about her. She is a teacher, a gender activist and the mother of super model Mehreen Raheal. Her charisma exudes from her genuine expressions and spirited conversation; it is reflected in her heightened aesthetic sense if you see her tastefully done house. Her close knit circle of friends in the media hold her in remarkable respect which is perhaps why she has worked with nearly everyone to their satisfaction. You meet Simi and realize that she is trying to live every second of her life to the fullest and radiates her energy onto you instantly.
HUMSAY had a tête-à-tête with her on what she has been up to recently.
Q: You and Mehreen make the most successful mother-daughter duo in the Pakistani media today. To what do you attribute this success?
A: (Laughs) Lots of blessings of Allah really. And then I think a lot of diligent hard work. We are extremely conscious of our commitments and of being punctual. I guess when you work like that your credibility follows you around. That’s pretty much the mainstay of our supposed success.
Q: You have been involved with television, radio, theatre, film, music videos and commercials. Which genre do you prefer the most?
A: I have been asked that before. And the answer remains the same. I can’t pinpoint which is better. Each genre of work for me, whether it is radio, television or advertising has its own energy and spirituality. I have loved doing theatre because of the instant gratification and adrenalin rush it gives you. I have loved radio because you could be talking to the world sitting in your pajamas and pretend you have the best ball gown on. Every genre has its own novelty and if you ask me that is perhaps the ingredient to success. If you keep feeling novelty in your work you enjoy it tremendously.
Q: You’re also a gender activist. Tell us what you are up to these days on that front.
A: I believe in gender balance within the limits of a social and religious framework. I teach Gender and Ethics at the Kinnaird College because I feel Media has a great responsibility in bringing this balance. Teaching is the love of my life. It’s the most exciting thing for me. I teach at an institute called South Asian Media School, which is being monitored by the South Asian Media Committee, where a contingent of students from SAARC countries is brought in every year and given intensive classes and workshops on various media issues. This year we have students from Srilanka, Afghanistan, Maldives and Pakistan and I teach Media and Development. On the Development side I teach Gender and Human Rights and conduct thrice a week workshops on applying the learning tools practically in media. I have also read papers internationally and done workshops locally.
Q: How did this media school come about?
A: In 2007, SAFMA a network of journalist and media practitioners from South Asia decided to start a teaching initiative which would cultivate a new generation of media persons in the region who would be aware of the socio political nuances of the region and would pitch in their share in it responsibly. The school is an initiative to equip participants with latest knowledge on media and the social responsibility that goes with it. It’s a great grooming platform for the region and we also have a theatre festival on feminism coming up in August.
Q: What have you been involved in with HUM TV recently?
A: I recently did a serial for Hum called Najia. It was based on Razia Butt’s novel. I acted as a motherly Anglo Indian housekeeper living in Mauritius. It was a really good experience. The cast was good the production was professional and Mauritius was fabulous needless to say. Another project with Hum is lined up but lets keep it as a surprise. It is also based on a Razia Butt novel though.
Q: Which has been your most enduring piece of performance till now?
A: It was one of the most popular plays of PTV called Khwahish that was aired in 1991. I played the part of a gypsy woman who had a deformed child. I also loved Asfhaque Ahmed’s ‘Na man milay na peeh’ in which I played the part of a spirit living in a grave. The experience was so profound it re invented me as a human being. I think that is what young actors need to realize. That you need to be selective with work. That a powerful script has to be simulated in the mind and soul and so the strengths of a character can have a profound impact on your life and so can its weaknesses.
Q: You worked in Shoaib Mansoor’s acclaimed Khuda Kay Liyay. How does it feel now that the film has made history?
A: I feel Blessed. I had always wanted to do a good film. I had never imagined that one day Shoaib Mansoor would himself come to me and say I want you to be part of this film. I never asked him a single question. Because that is the track record he carried with him. I feel proud that I became a small part of history with that film. It was a great experience.
The film was a very brave endeavor considering the times we are going through. It was a passionate journey of love and patriotism.
What would you like to see changed in the Media?
A: I would like the media to reflect the reality. I would like that media represents people as who they are versus what they are perceived to be. It should potry our laughter, our tears our emotions as they are. I must say that the new generation of talk shows being aired have a lot to learn about ethics. Journalists and actors need to go back to school to learn a thing or two about ethics and morality.
What do you want to say to the educated young women of Pakistan?
A: My favourite line has always been from Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in the Wonderland’, “If you don’t know which way you’re going, any road will do’.
And as Shakespeare says in Hamlet:
‘This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man’.
I would say don’t put barriers to yourself. Open yourselves to education, enlightenment and allow yourself to learn.
This interview was published in HUMSAY; a magazine of HUM Television in September 2008
Showing posts with label Simi Raheal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Simi Raheal. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
