| March 2, 2002 | Saturday | Zilhaj 17, 1422 |
The culture vultures: TV Review
THEY did have some sort of a function at Islamabad, but the death anniversary of Josh Malihabadi which fell on Feb 22 went unnoticed in Lahore. He had a large number of admirers but many more enemies. He was maligned and condemned mostly because of his liberal views and the none-too-discreet way of projecting them. I still remember one of his articles appearing in the weekly Musawwir of pre-partition Bombay in which he said that only he who had the fear of God in him could be a poet. Evidently, it raised many eyebrows. He was clearly an iconoclast and yet wrote ‘marsias’ with an intense feeling. No one can deny his mastery over words and his inexhaustible vocabulary. Even when writing songs for films he showed his class. I remember a few lines from one which he composed for a sensuous sort of dance:
Mairay jubna ka dekho ubhar
Jaisay Ganga ki mauj
Jaisay Turkon ki fauj
Jaisay gaddar anar
Dekho dekho ubhar
And how can I forget the long poem which he wrote to mourn his youth.
Thaki Jamna ko jab Ganga kaleijay say lagatei heh.
Mujhay beysakhta apni javani yaad aati heh.
In this poem he even invented some rhyming words.
I have been a Josh fan ever since he came to be known as Shair-i-Inquilab. Those were the days when I actually purchased books to read and he used to be on top of my shopping list. One verse of his ghazal has been haunting me since then:
Phir qashqa bar jabeen koi nikla heh deir say
Ahang-i-azmaish-i-eeman kiye huey.
I personally believe that had Faiz not been there, Josh would definitely have been accepted as the greatest poet of the last century although Hafeez Jullundri is also a strong contender for the slot. Iqbal, of course, is not in the race as he is on a different plane altogether. He cannot be equated with any of the conventional poets.
The only thing I have against Josh is his bias against the poets of the Punjab. The rubai he wrote about Hafeez Jallundri when he went to Hyderabad Deccan to collect donations for his Shahnama was highly derogatory. And then I have heard him in person at the Mohni Road residence of Sufi Tabassum when he came to Lahore together with Ravish Siddiqi and Sahir Ludhianvi. The remarks he made about Hafeez and Faiz at the sitting, though jokingly, were not in good taste. To round off this piece, I’ll narrate my personal, and interesting, encounter with Josh Sahib. Once while travelling from Bombay to Poone by a train with an appropriate name, Deccan Queen, and passing through a most scenic terrain, Josh happened to be the only one in my compartment. Knowing that he snubbed anyone pronouncing an Urdu word incorrectly, or at least made faces when someone did so, I decided to play safe. I started talking to him like an illiterate Punjabi. “O Josh saab ji, ki haal heh tuhada ji. Sanun pata heh tusi baray wadday shair ho ji... Hoar sunao ki haal heh ji...” and so on. The result was that he rested his head against the window and kept dozing for the rest of the journey.
I HAVE just seen two beautifully, rather artistically, produced books by Tajdeed Isha’at Ghar of Lahore/Islamabad. Titled Ik Umr Chahiye and Jheel Jheel Udasi, these are poetic collections of a father, Asghar Mehdi, and his talented daughter, Sheba Taraz, who also happens to be an artist. So far as Asghar Mehdi is concerned, he has appeared for the first time as a poet and not done badly at all. That is despite the fact that, as he says himself in his introduction, he never gives a second look to what he has written nor does he seek advice about his verse from anyone. I wish he could curb both these habits. He would then emerge a much better poet.
Sheba, however, has been known earlier as well, mainly as a poet of haiko and co-editor of the monthly, Tajdeed-i-Nau. In this collections, however, she has presented her short poems in free verse. In the preface to the book, the veteran poet, Razi Tirmizi, has gone all out, and rightly so, to praise the young lady. Who would not after reading such poems as:
Tum bhi apni zindagi mein mubtala ho jao gay
Mein bhi apni zindagi mein beytarah kho jaoongi
Eik lamha wasl ka
Yaad kay gumbad mein latka ... jhoolta reh jaeyga
I don’t want to spoil the poem by giving an English translation.
ONCE while speaking at the launching of a book in English I gave credit to the author and the publisher for daring to write and produce a book in a language which is completely on the wane in the country. Even teachers of the so-called English-medium schools, while asking for a day’s leave, write in their application, “Please leave me for one day.”
But now I have another example. The other day, I saw a young boy studying in a highly expensive English-medium school with a badge on his uniform reading KESTRAL. Not familiar with the word, I looked up the dictionary. And, lo, it was spelt as KESTREL, a kind of small falcon.
EVERY Eid Pakistanis get to see the same old boring stuff on PTV, PTV World and Channel 3. There are your usual boring music shows, where Abrarul Haq/ Jawad Ahmad/ Fakhir/ Haroon/ Shahzad Roy/ Sajjad Ali (take your pick) sing — rather lip-sync — songs that have already been shown a hundred times before. Behind each singer is a most garishly decorated stage with a band, complete with a drummer, pretending to play his or her instruments. And behind the ‘band’ is a banner of the corporate sponsor, since musicians in Pakistan cannot seem to do anything without corporate sponsorship, even to raise money for charity.
And, since the Indian channels continue to be banned — the only plausible reason that comes to mind is that the PTV and our private channels are more than happy not to have this competition — people who want to watch desi fare have no choice but to watch local channels. Apart from a drama directed by Mehreen Jabbar that a colleague says was quite refreshing, there’s wasn’t much new stuff really, unless of course your idea of fun is watching some would-be Lollywood wannabe heroine trying to sing and dance on stage, with a group of scrawny men prancing about behind her with no rhythm or relation to the music whatsoever.
Other than that, there were the much-hyped Lux Style Awards which had already been mired in semi-controversy because of various incidents. A lot has already been said and written about this event but one is constrained to point out two glaring examples of bad judgment as far as the jury is concerned. The award for best new talent went to Ayla Husain of Sundari. Now most people have never heard of her really and in fact, if memory serves me right, I remember reading about her in a fashion magazine. Ms Husain was said to be a US-based Pakistani woman who had started a line of beauty products in a business venture with well-known model Christy Turlington and another partner. Sundari’s products are not available in Pakistan, certainly not on a mass scale for the venture to be nominated as ‘best new talent.’ The award is even more perplexing if one looks at the other nominees in this category: singers Shazia Manzoor and Rahim Shah, and TV personality Angelyne Malik. Perhaps, the jury thought Ms Manzoor and Mr Shah were a bit too passe. In any case, Shazia Manzoor has been around for quite long, has established her name and can hardly be placed in the ‘new talent’ category.
That said, the good thing about recording for television is that most such faults that come up in the organization of an event will be glossed over or edited out. True, it is the first time that we have seen these kind of awards but why must the same faces come up repeatedly. As most readers who follow the so-called ‘style scene’ would know that Pakistan suffers from a terrible dearth of good fashion designers, photographers, hair stylists, make-up artistes and models.
The shortage has reached such a proportion that whenever you pick up and open a fashion magazine, or go through the style pages of the Sunday editions of some of our English newspapers any given week, you will find the same names cropping up again and again. In fact, not only will you find the same designers, photographers, models, make-up people or hair stylists appearing again and again, you will also find that it’s the same people who write such articles. Clearly, such a small circle is bound to have incestuous tendencies. The following example will (hopefully) illustrate this point. A designer or photographer is asked during his interview for his favourite model. He names Ms X. Sooner or later, Ms X is be interviewed and asked to name her favourite designer or photographer. One can easily guess the answer. This will go on and on until readers are fed up of seeing and reading about the same faces all the time.
This, unfortunately, extends to television too. In fact, it’s applicable not just to programmes that have to do with culture, fashion or music. We also find a lot of recycling going on in current affairs programming. The same former ambassadors, retired generals, discredited politicians and columnists — most of whom love to hear the sound of their voices and talk as if the whole world was well and truly listening and hanging to their each and every word — come on current affairs shows again and again. Perhaps the only refreshing thing about PTV’s flagship current affairs show News Night is its host, Syed Talat Husain, who at least has a good screen presence, is articulate and asks pointed questions even from government ministers. That they deflect these questions or side-step the real issues is another story for which we cannot fault Mr Husain.
This is addressed to producers of such shows for PTV and the various private channels. Would it hurt you if you tried to be a bit more innovative and creative and tried to include new talent in your programming on culture, music, fashion and the arts or must Pakistani audiences be resigned to seeing the same