Daily Times

Utter the name ‘Bee Gul’ and think of anything that is classy, any aura that is soothing. You won’t regret. Think of a hard-bound, old book lying on a wooden table, its cover’s hue changing from brown to golden and golden to brown under the pale glow of a lamp. Think of puddles after rain, turned mauve owing to the reflection of an exhausted sky. Think of the clear, bright February sky or of a crying window of a misty December. The spell which Bee Gul’s dramas cast over the viewers are no less bewitching. One of the reasons for it is that aesthetic pleasure is very important to this writer, who does not take risks and is fully aware of the knowledge that the medium through which she tells stories is a visual medium.

Bee Gul sits with her directors and discusses minute details with them, and is equally active when it comes to the production designing of her plays. She takes everything in her hand, be it the setting, the location, the make-up, the wardrobe, the looks and creatively transfers the ideas in her mind to the screen.

‘We go together to shop, and decide with mutual consultation what colour the bedsheet will be, what kind of wallpaper will be pasted, which lamp will be placed and what and how is to be worn. The saarhis which Sanam Saeed wore in ‘Talkhiyan’ were mine and I would tell her how to wear them. I also carry things from my own house for the required setting,’ says Bee Gul.

This drama writer, who starts her day with a cup of tea accompanied by a book of poetry, started her career with a telefilm for HUM TV written in the year 2011, for which she won the best writer award. This telefilm ‘Kaun Qamar Aara’ was directed by Sakina Sammo and was a part of HUM TV’s telefilm festival.

This rebellious writer, who has faced a lot of hurdles in the pursuit of her career owing to her creative and artistic pieces, the sense of which is not considered worthy of being inculcated among Pakistanis, is passionate, determined and bent upon creating and telling stories

Bee Gul, the writer behind ‘Talkhiyan’, ‘Pehchaan’, ‘Zid, ‘Jashan ka Din hai’ and ‘Darr si jati hai Sila’ spent her early childhood with her maternal grandparents who were educationists and back in those days, were heading some of the prestigious institutions of Lahore such as NCA, GCU, APWA and Lahore college. An atmosphere rich in education became one of the stimulants for bringing out the writer in her. She says,

‘My grandmother, a social worker and the strongest woman I ever came across had had a great influence on my thoughts. She would read a lot, and gave much to learn from. Pushed by this literary environment, the first novel I read was Munshi Prem Chand’s novel ‘Maidaan-e-Amal’ which revealed a number of life’s aspects to me. The novel is still dear to me, the proof of which is that I still have the same copy of it, though in a tattered condition. Inspired by Munshi Premchand’s progressive approach, I continued to read similar writers such as Ismat Chughtai and Manto, and I had read quite a lot in a very young age.’

Besides telling about her love for books, her favourite being Charlotte Bronte’s ‘Jane Eyre’, Bee Gul has this interesting thing to tell that music has been her biggest inspiration, partly due to her parents’ love for it, who would keep themselves updated with every genre of music and the house furnished with every kind of music player.

‘Music inspires me to this day and I cannot write without something playing in the background,’ she says.

Since Bee Gul writes for television, she was asked how she manages to keep the flow of emotions intact while focusing on the technicalities of drama writing. To this, she responded by telling about her masters in English Literature, which made her acquainted with the genre and its technicalities in a proper, formal manner.

‘Besides, I have a habit of gluing myself to things I like. Be it a movie or a book, I watch it or read it several times once I fall in love with it, eventually internalising the aspects and learning them in an unconscious manner. Now that I have an experience of 5 to 6 years of writing for television, it also flows naturally now. I am not always conscious of the genre following a certain pattern.’

One ineluctable fact related to this writer is her Pakistani adaptation of the popular Indian novel, ‘The God of Small Things’, known as ‘Talkhiyan’. Aired on Express Entertainment and casting Sanam Saeed, this play is a specimen of the real craft of the writer, who does not let the essence of the original story get lost even once. Here is what she has to say about the novel:

‘The God of Small Things’ is a novel I lived through. It was really inspiring. However, a lot of things in the serial were not a part of the original story but were my own experiences, which blended so finely with its plot. When I was asked to write for that channel, I initially refused, for I was disappointed at being rejected by many producers. But Razi-ud-din Ahmad and Seema Razi were brave people who were ready to accept whatever I gave them. I was also rebuked by my director, Khalid Ahmad, who too had reservations about this controversial novel being adapted for Pakistan. But he eventually got convinced, for he loved the novel himself. My love and Khalid Ahmad’s passion gave life to it, and to this day, ‘Talkhiyan’ remains my dearest project.’

Khalid Ahmad is someone with whom Bee Gul has worked the most. Be it ‘Talkhiyan’, ‘Pehchaan’, ‘Laal o Laal.com’ or ‘Firdous Ki Dozakh’, Khalid Ahmad’s name is there along with Bee Gul’s. Gul believes that the director has faith in whatever she writes.

‘He gives time and passion to whatever I write. Even when he is not directing my scripts, which seldom is the case, he is so supportive so as to go through them and give suggestions. He is my mentor. Although we disagree at certain points at times, which results in fights and heated-up conversations, all of it constitutes brain-storming sessions in which we sit together for hours, developing characters, creating scenes and working on everything with mutual consultation. I am lucky to have him as the director of majority of my works.’

‘Laal o Laal.com’, mentioned above, was Bee Gul’s film written for India, a part of the unity project for which six directors from Pakistan and six directors from India collaborated to make films. The film, like other non-commercial works of the writer, was an artistic one, screened thrice in India and once privately in Pakistan.

‘The film being non-commercial becomes an unfortunate fact for it, for in its private screening held in Karachi, not much people were present. But I am never disappointed because I believe in what I write,’ says Bee Gul.

This same dedication was the force behind Bee Gul’s ‘Pehchaan’, aired on Aplus, and which happens to be the writer’s personal favourite work. She believes that through ‘Pehchaan’, she was able to empower a simple housewife.

‘Our housewives are blackmailed in the name of financial dependency and honour,’ she says. ‘Under this dependency, they face a lot of injustice and bear emotional as well as physical abuse. These constraints force them to submit to their manipulative husbands. I rebelled against this in ‘Pehchaan’ and propagated the idea that women do not have to bound themselves to these constraints and stay dependent throughout their lives at the cost of their happiness and self-respect.’

This rebellious writer, who has faced a lot of hurdles in the pursuit of her career owing to her creative and artistic pieces, the sense of which is not considered worthy of being inculcated among Pakistanis, is passionate, determined and bent upon creating and telling stories – and is not ready to take any discouraging attitude as a set-back. This faith in herself continues to make her popular and respectable, and this is why we have another upcoming drama serial of hers, titled ‘Dil Aara’ which she says has been written out of much love and designed out of much care and scrutiny. It will be aired on ‘Bol’, an entertainment channel to be launched in March.

Bee Gul, a matchless screenplay writer and someone who tells that she is a short story writer too, has some beautiful verses as well to her name, on which I would like to conclude this article.

and when the shooting star sparkles through my night sky

let me not feel the ache of a lost wish

and when the colours of rainbow fade in the blink of an eye

let me not feel the fire that my tears unleash

…………..and let me not think of you in the silence of the night

let me not languish the seasons gone by

aching in your absence with every soft sigh

relieve me from the odes of the lost love.

The writer can be reached at m.ali_aquarius85@yahoo.com

Published in Daily Times, February 18^th 2018.