For his upcoming web-series, the actor, director and producer, Shamoon Abbasi has taken up a topic that promises novelty, freshness and class. “A novelist whose original area of expertise is fantasy decides to employ techniques of realism to cater to the modern readers. He does so in order to keep his name alive in an era in which socio-political activities are thought of as unavoidable even by the literati,” tells Shamoon Abbasi while narrating the web-series’ story. “However, he is not able to materialize his plans successfully and grows schizophrenic as a result, not being able to differentiate between reality and fantasy.” Abbasi has planned to execute this unique story-line in the form of a limited web-series titled “Akela”, translated as “Alone”. Each episode of the series will be 10 minutes’ long, which according to the artist, is the standard concentration span of human beings. “I don’t want the viewers to get bored and leave in the middle, and that is why I have kept the duration of the episodes short,” he says. While the story of ‘Akela’ is Shamoon Abbasi’s own, it has been written by Shahid Nizami and directed by Sherry Shah along-with Sohaib Khalid, while Asif Durrani has handled the music While the story of “Akela” is Shamoon Abbasi’s own, it has been written by Shahid Nizami and directed by Sherry Shah along-with Sohaib Khalid, while Asif Durrani has handled the music. “Two directors have been chosen because two stories run simultaneously in the series. We divided the stories between two directors to give each story its uniqueness.” Abbasi plans to release the web-series after the 15th of September, either on YouTube or on a local platform to make it accessible to the majority of the Pakistani viewers. “Our local web-based platforms need to be promoted even if they are working at a small level for the time being. Good content with strong viewership will definitely make them bigger platforms in the days to come.” The writer is a freelance journalist and can be reached at m.ali_aquarius85@yahoo.com. He Tweets at @MuhammadAli_DT