KARACHI: A somewhat unusual headline in a local daily read like this “Women protest against city transporters and police,” and had one contemplating and becoming grim. Why don’t they protest more and why don’t various women’s organizations take up an issue that working women, housewives, and girl students suffer daily? Drives one to tears, says one college girl.

It was, in a sense, even surprising (pleasantly I may add) that this problem was appearing in the press, and that the APP had circulated a story which most newspapers did not carry. Somehow it seems to be one of those problems that one takes for granted. Those frustrations that you resign yourself to and console yourself that nothing can be done about it. So suffer. Just suffer.

Now how have the women protested about is this. A story in Dawn on January 9 said “Women commuters using the local public transport facility have registered a strong protest against the presence of male passengers in the small portion reserved for them in omnibuses, minibuses and coaches.”

Now isn’t it rather ironic that for all the glamourization there is of women in this society, for all the projection there is of the working women, and the emphasis that women need to come forward and help improve the economy, and for all the moral stature that women have in our religious framework, look at the way they are actually treated when they come and seek public transport. The state of public transport being deplorable being of some relevance here. That local public transport is unable to cope with the growth of city’s population, and the sector is more ill-planned than anything else is also well-known, and pathetic.

The APP story reports that “women are complaining of being actually pushed and misbehaved with by disorderly male passengers, and it is regretted that the male drivers and conductors too often fail to extend any sympathetic attitude towards the plight of women passengers.” Without trying to dramatize the scenario let it be mentioned that the women passengers are both young, and old, and at times even sick, going to public hospitals where another humiliating experience awaits them.

The question that arises is why is there such a restricted provision for women in public transport vehicles? Is that the real proportion in which working women and housewives and female students travel by these buses and coaches? Those who can afford it travel by rickshaws and taxis, and then there is that class which is fortunate enough to have its own private transport arrangement. In fact that is what has happened to the transport sector: increasing number of private vehicles and a disproportionate increase in the number of public transport vehicles. A thought goes to the Karachi Circular Railway. What if the city had grown with the times? What if this was a city with a respectable public transport system? How much would it have contributed to the collective personality of the city and sense of pride of the citizen. Dream, dear citizen, only daydream!

The APP story says that “calling upon the local administration to take cognizance of the issue, they stressed the need to close the passage that allows men to enter the ladies portion under the pretext to seek entrance into the male compartment.” Bear in mind that the seating capacity for women is about four seats generally! And they are right in front, with the rude drivers playing film music, often suggestive and embarrassing. Women have complained of this too, but of course in vain.

It has further been pointed out by these complaining women that men occupy these seats at times, and do not vacate them when women enter their suffocating congested section. It is not hard to visualize the kind of scenario that must be taking place daily, in almost each public bus or minibus or coach. One can also imagine the kind of scary impression that it must be leaving on the minds of young girls as they take these transport vehicles daily, and the sort of insight they may be having into the psyche of the Pakistani male.

There is indeed a strong urgent need not just to take notice of the way in which some lecherous men behave with women in these vehicles, but there is a need for the authorities concerned (the Nazim or the Regional Transport Authority or whoever) to enlarge the seating section where women can sit respectably. Or if the economics is worked out assuredly then there is no reason why there cannot be women’s buses. If there can be women’s police stations and post offices, girls schools, colleges, and universities (?) or thought given to other concepts to make women feel safe and comfortable, then why not women’s buses?

The APP story says that women have also complained about the role of the traffic police in their predicament. But then as someone says spontaneously “who doesn’t complain about the role of the traffic police?” But perhaps the problem is larger than what the traffic police can deal with. It is a problem that the planners and decision-makers have to take up, and not just in Karachi alone, but elsewhere in the province, and in the country, too.

We are forever persuading, demanding, and expecting women to come out of the home, and join the workforce. It is a very simple question that needs to be answered: how are they expected to travel in most cases? Not every woman has a car, or can buy one on instalments...!

Obviously thought also goes out to children too, who rough it out daily when they travel unsafely by these overcrowded buses, where men even sit on rooftops: safety to the winds.

WHEN one thinks of the theatre, one is reminded of ancient Greece, where the activity used to be a great pastime. The statue of Dionysus, the god of wine, used to be carried through the streets of Athens leading a procession to the outdoor hillside theatre, where plays were staged. Several plays, religious in content and nationalistic in character, were staged every day. The spectators were charmed by the dramatic presentation of the stories of gods and heroes, and had the added excitement of witnessing a contest for the best playwright.

According to a consensus among anthropologists, the rural milieu in the Punjab is steeped in the long traditions of the theatre, the roots of which go back many centuries. What is now called the Lok Theatre, used to project the yearnings, hopes and fears of the people through dialogues suffused with rural images and metaphors. Some social historians also claim that the theatre has always remained an ineluctable ingredient of our culture ever since the advent of recorded history.

To many theatre enthusiasts, especially the city dwellers, theatre means entertainment associated with neon signs and phony glitter with the opulence and gaudiness that masks shallowness. Before its quality began to deteriorate, touring theatrical companies provided a better alternative, especially for the village folks, who were entertained by the million every year. Although a majority of theatre companies originated in Lahore, it was not a matter of location. It was a state of mind. If city theatre evoked images of shallowness and superficial slickness, the touring rural theatre brought to the mind images of dedicated artistes, who spent gypsy-like lives, always on the move, visiting places throughout the length and breadth of the Punjabi hinterland.

As has been the case elsewhere in the world, the Lok Theatre in the Punjab also had its osmosis in song and dance. Sung to the accompaniment of simple, indigenous musical instruments like the flute, chimta, lyre and the dhol these songs were meant to eulozise heroes. The dances depicted various activities and vocations of the people like sowing and harvesting, and their moods and sentiments in different seasons and the religious rites that were performed by the followers of different faiths living harmoniously in a multi-religious and multi-ethnic society.

Theatre, nautanki and swang of those days were not performed in large auditoriums as they are now presented in urban centres, but staged under large shamianas (tents) pitched outside villages, where people went for inexpensive entertainment.

In villages and small towns, fairs were (and still are) the main attraction for the poor. Touring theatres did a lot for the villagers in those fairs by providing them with enduring, inexpensive entertainment with a variety of items that tickled their sensibilities. Epics and ballads such as Heer Ranjha, Mirza Sahibaan, Sohni Maheenwal and Sassi Pannu were used as major crowd pullers.

The form, style and presentation of the rural theatre were moulded by an understanding of the images which permeate the hinterland, its culture and customs, and the comprehension level of the people. A theory of performance value was evolved, which combined the aesthetic responses of the villagers and their understanding of the crafts of the playwrights, and the art of play-acting. Thus, the theatrical language of gestures, customs and costumes, movements and musical interludes (providing breathing spells to the actors and change of dresses between two acts) were understood by the spectators.

Before the advent of the cinema and radio, large theatre groups were based in Lahore, did not have a municipal or metropolitan corporation. In those days, the theatre was the only source of community entertainment. Located at different places in the Circular Garden (which once ringed the Walled City), especially outside Bhati Gate, these theatre companies later fanned out into the countryside, visiting small towns and villages, where their presentations were lustily cheered by village folk.

In the beginning, actresses were not easy to find, and male members of the cast had to enact female roles as well. However, the hawkish owners of theatre companies lured women (mostly from Hira Mandi) with tempting offers. As all performers in those days were required to sing songs in a given play, nautch girls from the Bazar-i-Husn (who were trained in the art of singing and dancing) formed the only sources for the owners of theatre companies to tap. They put attractive, good-looking singing girls from that area on their payroll, and assigned them the roles of heroines in the plays. No wonder, a number of popular heroines of the theatre era ended up as real life wives of the owners of the companies.

During its heyday, rural theatre in the Punjab was a much sought after entertainment of the village folk. Associated with it were a number of talented artistes, who played their roles with much gusto. Those crowd-pulling artistes were highly paid and well looked after, especially when they went on a tour. A congenial environment was necessary to get the best out of them. However, the inroads made by the cinema and the consequential drain on the traditional sources of acting talent, took a heavy toll of rural theatre by severely depleting its manpower and repertories.

The advent of television in 1964 created more difficulties for the rural theatre, which tried to put up a brave resistance for a while, but failed to hold its own in the wake of massive onslaught by the visual electronic medium. A few theatre groups still float in the vastness of the Punjabi hinterland, and the people associated with them derive a modicum of creative and artistic satisfaction, but not much income.

There seems to be a glut of theatrical activity in more than a dozen halls in Lahore. A large number of producers/financiers are promoting the theatre in different areas of the city, albeit on purely on commercial basis. However, from the standpoint of quality there is not much to be written about. With the introduction of amorous dances, vulgar double-meaning dialogues and repartees among different characters, people with sophisticated tastes have stopped going to these theatres. Despite strict vigilance by the departments concerned, impromptu dialogue and vulgar exchanges among members of the cast creep in the already-approved scripts. This happens with the collusive support and acquiescence of both the producers of stage plays and the owners of theatre halls. Thus a creatively satisfying activity has been vulgarized by those who promote the theatre with the sole purpose of making easy money.