Perhaps there is some rationale for trying to interpret Pakistani society from the way it celebrates its festivals, with Eidul Fitr being a ready instance. In a way this Eid with its Eid Milans is going to continue until the Eidul Azha. This is a way of saying how frivolous and extravagant we can be.
I wonder how relevant it is to bring in here the way we demonstrate extravagance and waste at weddings and valimas, notwithstanding the fact of growing poverty in our midst.
The Supreme Court has very recently banned meals at weddings and valimas and set aside previous decisions, and ironically one has not seen any appreciation of this ban, either in the electronic or in the print media. But this ban, in view of the way in which families in most cases undergo financial squeeze for cruel lengths of time to uphold the hollowness of the extravagant tradition, needs to be analysed and supported, one would imagine. One hopes that in the spirit of public service this will be done by PTV and the independent channels.
Now Eid that has come and gone. After all that emphasis on the spiritual and lasting overall impact and significance of Ramazan being focused upon in varying degrees by our channels, one was rather disappointed, to say the least, that music was perhaps the most pronounced way in which our channels were celebrating Eid. Our channels being those that the cable operators are providing us. I noticed that during the Eid festival even channels like B4U,from India, were wishing their viewers Eid Mubarak and having programmes with that focus.
One theme that seemed to have been almost ignored was that there are millions of people in this very society who are unable to celebrate Eid for a variety of reasons. Whether it is because of financial factors, or personal tragedies and family misfortunes and so on, they are unable to celebrate Eid in the customary ways. And our TV channels seem to pay either lip service to this point or handle it so inadequately that it only serves to expose the society that we live in. It is here that I wish to underline one particular programme that I saw on ARYOne on Tuesday night (16th November).
This was a dialogue between Dr Shahid Masood (who had gone off air for a while recently for reasons we don't really know) and a senior journalist, Baseer Naveed, whose young university going son was murdered. Tortured before being murdered. It is a shocking story, which has appeared in the print media and was the subject of the conversation between Dr Shahid Masood and Baseer Naveed.
It was a courageous decision to telecast that depressing conversation in the thick of Eid festivities and I am certain that the conversation must have depressed viewers. What the journalist must have undergone, and indeed his family, is something one shudders to imagine.
But society and its media must focus and reflect upon such crime.
The death of a university student, for no apparent known reasons, and the inability of the medico legal officer to conduct the post mortem, and the anguished feeling that his father was conveying: that he did not even know why his son was killed. And tortured before that, I wish to underline.
On Eid day, there was another saddening, disturbing, and above all, courageous decision to repeat (ARY One) a dialogue between Dr Shahid Masood and a noted columnist Hasan Nisar, whose brutally frank _expression of views was an excellent departure from the tame, timid talk that some intellectuals and writers indulge in. I had seen this Views on News conversation before Eid, in a Sehri transmission.
It was well worth repeating. There was not only a ruthless criticism of Pakistani society, its leaders and decision makers, but there was a strong emphasis on a certain phenomenon of hopelessness too. Hasan Nisar underlined the pain of the fact that now people have chosen the Minar-e-Pakistan monument in Lahore to commit suicide. As if they were converging a certain symbolism. Hasan Nisar, went on to say that the good people in this society were in fact "villains" as they were the people who enabled all the loot, the plunder, the heartlessness. He was suggesting that the good men need to stand up and do more. Stand up and resist.
I was moved by the anger in Hasan Nisar's voice, and the bitterness in his tone. He said that those who have turned Umrah into a status symbol are not even ashamed of what they have done. In another context he admitted that even though he had written all his life about the downtrodden and the dispossesed, he would not stop on the road to help a man in a traffic accident.
Reason: he was sure of how much he would be harassed by the unjust system manipulated and managed by incompetent dishonest, small individuals. I can carry on with this revealing conversation, but both the above conversations once again spotlighted the injustices of this society. That this was done during Eid made all the difference.
As music was a foremost format that channels employed to celebrate Eid, cell phone companies in Pakistan had special programmes and campaigns for the occasion. The competition was tough, and sponsorships and commercials were recurring and the repetition was rather annoying at times. And often the chatty conversations between young men and women (some of them being stars in many instances) were reflective of either poor scripting (if that is done) or mediocre stereotyped modes of spontaneity.
Two particular music programmes that were above the rest. perhaps, came from the Indus Plus channel. Both shows banked heavily, if not entirely, on the memory lane factor and perhaps to have done this on an occasion like Eid was a good idea. On Eid day itself came "A tribute to Madhubala", which was followed the next day by "A tribute to Ahmed Rushdi". Both names need no introduction. That's it.
Both shows were produced and directed by Najamuz Zaman, with Ghazanfar Ali being the executive producer, and Khalilullah Farooqui having handled the script and the research Both shows were formated in similar ways, and reminded one of the previous musical tributes that the channel had paid. The seating arrangement for the audience was lacking in taste and sophistication, and I thought that the idea of showing the dinner tables, after the meal was rather clumsy. Small issues really. The programmes were otherwise memorable. Their repeat telecast value high. One hopes that video cassettes or discs will be available eventually.
Madhubala. I am tempted to reproduce a short extract from a book on her written by Alpana Chowdhury, called "Madhubala, Masti and Magic": "More than three decades have gone by since the vivacious, sensuous, giggly Madhubala passed away. (she was 36 when she died) But with each new generation her legion of fans only grows larger. Even today, the male libido goes into overdrive when Madhubala swirls her skirts, flashes that million-watt smile and croons "Aaiye Meharban' in the dark, romantic ambience of the cinema hall.
"Women still emulate Madhubala. Compare any heroine with the alluring Venus of yesteryear and she is flattered beyond words. But few have been able to match her track record of almost seventy films in thirty years.
"Hers was the proverbial rags-to riches story, a touching tale of love, betrayal and disappointment. While Madhubala's career soared to heights of unprecedented success, the fun-loving actress was unable to marry the man she loved, co-actor Dilip Kumar. When she did succeed in picking up the threads of her life again, to start afresh with another co-star, singer actor Kishore Kumar, whom she married, a congenital heart disease struck a fatal blow."
Let us return to the Indus Tribute. It was a fairly good selection of the films songs that were picturised on Madhubala, and viewers must surely have found the lengthy programme enjoyable. The number of television commercials was tolerable! The producers employed both songs and dances to pay their tribute to the actress, and there was also the inclusion of excerpts from her films. Of course this does remind one of the days when this kind of latitude was impossible with Indian cinema being shown here. In fact, Geo TV telecast the famous Indian film "Baghbaan" on Eid day and that too was another favourite with audiences. Showing Indian and Pakistani feature films was another conspicuous feature of Eid TV fare this year.
Some of the songs that were selected for the Madhubala memorial tribute were "Mohabbat Ki Jhooti Kahani Pay Roe"; Guzra Hua Zamana Aata Naheen Dobara; Piya, Piya, Na Lagey Mora Jiya, "Janeys Waley Sey Mulaqat Na Honey Paee," Aey Dil Tujhey Qasam Hae Himmat Na Haar Na,"; "Dil Mein Sama Gaey Sajan"; "Seeney Mein Sulagtey Hain Arman", Aaeiye Meharban"; and Aey Ga Aney Wala".
And the singers and dancers who featured in all this included Fariha Parvez, Faisal Latif, Sadaf Munir, Sumbul Shahid, Farah Hasan, Khadija and Saima Qureshi.
The Ahmed Rushdi tribute was fairly well done and it was welcome to hear his daughter Rana Rushdi say that she was working on a biography of her father. Kamal, Nadeem and music composer Lal Mohammad were among those who paid lavish tributes to one of Pakistan's best playback singers, who died about twenty years ago.
This programme afforded the viewer an opportunity to hear once again some of the all time Rushdi hits, picturised on Kemal and Waheed Murad. This also afforded us the occasion to have glimpses of screen heroines like Shamim Ara, Zeba, and Sabiha Khanum.
To have seen that tribute to Ahmed Rushdi was also to have had a walk down memory lane and go through a bit of the history of Pakistani cinema.
Watching TV through the Eid holidays was also an occasion to have done more channel surfing. There was always the curiosity and the eagerness to try and see what the other channels were showing. One such instance was to see CNN with breaking news of the resignation of Colin Powell, alongwith four others. It was interesting and dramatic to see how CNN and BBC were handling this, and the analysis that was going on of how the world is going to be impacted by all this. Bring in the post Yasir Arafat factor here. The live telecast of the funeral of Arafat was yet another moment in history that electronic media brought alive to world audiences. So also to Pakistani viewers.
One is truly surprised and amazed, in fact, at the way in which the TV viewer in countries like Pakistan is able to see the changes that take place in the world, and the concept of breaking news is truly mind boggling. It seems that the world is actually under an x' ray machine or a microscope at times.
Channel surfing on Tuesday morning, around midday infact enabled one to sit through an ARY's live recording of an Abida Parveen concert. She is superb, and makes possible a sublime spiritual experience if one listens to her in the serenity that her music demands.
Channel surfing also enabled me to see more than a bit of Oprah Winfrey's prime time twice. Once when Oprah was talking to Jennifer Lopez and again when she was talking to the famed Valentino.
Channel surfing also made it possible for me to break away from the mediocrity and the monotony of some of the Eid fare, in many cases it was that Ufone commercial that brought relief. It's all about you, that one dear!