Daily Times

Pakistan has a booming hunt on for trained media persons, which has been accelerated with the establishment of a huge number of private television channels. During the period 2006 to 2008, while officiating as the dean of the School of Liberal Arts at Beaconhouse National University, Lahore, I was informed that the department of theatre, film and television had estimated that the demand for a technically skilled cadre of people in the electronic media would require a work force of 35,000 within the next five years. With the media being largely an equal opportunity employer, we must welcome the node at which the two meet: education and the media can be formidable partners since new advances in the media and its uses continue to diversify roles in the learning environment, even as the media continues to create responsible and credible cinematic and video narratives.
That one is not the sole voice in the wilderness is amply demonstrated by an increasing number of Pakistani and Indian women who have inspired and supported a similar stance. One was fortunate enough to hear the wonderfully erudite Arundhati Roy when she visited Pakistan many years ago. Listening to her reinforced one’s belief that women today have built up enormous reservoirs of strength. Unafraid to go down that last one mile despite the loneliness encountered by the long distance runner, they pursue the truth with an unrelenting, single-minded passion.
Pakistani women too have also created inroads where none existed. Theatre, film, literature and public service have been well served by a coterie of women swimming upstream. That the state finally recognised the dogged determination of Madiha Gohar and chose to award her with a tamgha (medal) on the country’s Independence Day carries a small measure of irony and curious coincidence. That the recognition should come so late is sad but even sadder is the fact that Madiha’s Ajoka Theatre will continue to be marginalised and pant along on shoestring budgets. The award is not enough. Measures to encourage, support and ensure permanence must accompany the medal for it to be a meaningful exercise.
One recalls the fierce debate resulting from the nomination of Naheed Siddiqi for the Pride of Performance award a few years ago. When the exquisite dancer was finally selected it was yet another instance of too little too late. Fehmida Riaz turned the literary scene on its shaky head and her work cartwheeled itself into the hearts of the joyous women who read her. Not since Ismat Chughtai has any woman dared to write as explicitly and as overtly. Riaz’s poetry transformed the passive object of traditional male desire into a living, breathing creature that yearned, desired, rationalised and survived the savagery of her existence. But perhaps the greatest contribution that Riaz made to the cause of women was to present the woman as a thinking being as in the heart wrenching argument of ‘Aqlima’ exhorting God to ‘ask her’ something since she is more than just a mere body and has the capacity to think! Hounded for her talent and forced to go into exile, Riaz has stubbornly resisted efforts to ‘tame’ and ‘temper’ her fierce spirit.
Sabiha Sumar, Sharmeen Chinoy, Shireen Pasha, Samina Pirzada and Tanveer F Rahman chose another territory no less dangerous. Filmmaking is a truly marginalised activity bordering on the taboo. That educated women from respectable families should choose a medium of expression historically associated with a particular stratum of society required unprecedented levels of courage and faith. Of the five, three have distinguished themselves with work exhibiting a rare sensitivity and maturity. That their work has been seen by a small minority remains tragic.
Pirzada and Rahman have, on the contrary, chosen even more challenging paths. Commercial filmmaking in Pakistan is enough to faze the stoutest of male hearts yet, as producers, directors and set designers, the two women are a challenge to the chauvinism of socially acceptable careers. This is by no means the final headcount and the recent spate of Pakistani films, despite some of them being seriously flawed as cinematic narratives, prove that the spirit is alive and well.
Asma Jehangir and Hina Gilani have devoted themselves to the service of justice. Reviled and threatened with pain of death, they continue to challenge and be challenged by an insane society perpetuating itself barbarically through self-proclaimed dispensers of the law. That Jehangir has received international recognition is no comfort since it is at home that her unyielding spirit needs to be recognised and lauded. There are more. Nigar at Aurat Foundation, and Rani and Farida at Shirkat Gah with their modest, unobtrusiveness working towards the empowerment of the weak, the wretched and the forgotten. These are the voices of the new century. Some centre-stage, strident like Roy, others, gentler, sweeter but no less powerful.
Yet, despite these hopeful beginnings, the dilemma for us in Pakistan is whether we truly believe a new society can and should be created. If we do, then the next step would be to determine the extent to which we would be willing to stretch ourselves in the pursuit of the goal. Our greatest challenge lies in the fact that we are a society in transition and the change we are witnessing is not necessarily a desirable one. One cannot help but be appalled at the mindless, thoughtless exchange of vitriol on social networks that evidences the erosion of the intellect and that elusive quality called tolerance. It is entirely symptomatic of the enormous time and affluence that young men and women on both sides of the border enjoy. Endless diatribes on the dos and don’ts of cinematic narratives consume energy and time even as pornography and pedophilia raise their ugly heads. If we must foam at the mouth, let it be about the social ills that we need to address rather than the mud slinging that has become a hallmark of social networks.

(To be continued)

The writer is academic advisor Lahore Grammar School and can be reached at navidshahzad@hotmail.com