PESHAWAR: The All Pakistan Badar Munir Federation (APBMF) and the Culture Journalists Forum (CJF) will jointly arrange a seminar at a local hotel today (Saturday) to mark the sixth anniversary of the death of Badar Munir, the legendary action hero of Pashto films.

During the daylong event, speakers, including artists, colleagues and critics, will throw light on Badar Munir’s life and work and services for Pashto film industry.

Pashto film star Asif Khan told Dawn that he had spent most of his life with Badar and learnt a lot about acting from him.

He said Badar was a born actor and that he had no replacement.

“The departure of such a great person and hero was the most unfortunate day for the Pashto cinema, the vacuum created by his death could never be filled. Badar Munir was a hero par excellence,” Asif Khan said. Film actor-cum-director Ajab Gul said Badar was an icon of the silver screen and that he was a national hero, who left behind a legacy of commitment, devotion and humility.

At Peshawar seminar, artists, critics to highlight legendary film actor’s life and work

He said it was unfortunate that the provincial culture department was not doing much to honour great literary and cultural figures, including Badar.

“Pashto film industry does not have any representative organisation, so there is no one to transfer the legacy of the great actor as well as human being to the youths. Badar was more than just an actor,” he said.

All Pakistan Badar Munir Federation president Javed Khan Yousafzai said his organisation would arrange a mega function in Mardan on Oct 13, where Pashto film actor Asif Khan would be the chief guest and senior actors and actresses and fans of Badar would be in attendance.

“We are going to hold a daylong seminar in collaboration with the Culture Journalists Forum today (Saturday) in Peshawar to highlight contributions of the legendary actor. It will be just a commemoration ceremony, where services of Badar for Pashto cinema will be highlighted,” he said.

The life of Badar popularly dubbed as ‘king hero of Pashto film industry’ is more than real life drama. He worked as a milkman, timber fetcher, daily wage earner, waiter, dishwasher and light man before becoming the leading man in films.

Badar was born to a religious family of Miankhel Yousafzai Pashtun tribe in 1943 in Shagai town of Swat district.

His father, Mian Yaqoot Khan, was a religious scholar and prayer leader at the village mosque.

After Badar failed to pass the grade II examination at a government school, his father sent him to a seminary in Charsadda to become a cleric.

However, the young man played the truant. He used to watch Lala Sudhir’s films in cinemas prompting his mother to send him to his maternal uncle, Miashullah, in Karachi, where he worked as a donkey cart runner and earned Rs10 a day.

Afterwards, another relative got him employed at a hotel as waiter.

In search of greener pastures, Badar later went to Dubai, where he spent two years working at a hotel. He even went to England, where he stayed for a year.

After arrest by the police for being without legal documents, he was deported to Pakistan via Mumbai. It was during his second tenure as a waiter at the same hotel in Karachi that the lady luck smiled on him and Sadeeq, an assistant of film director Sheikh Mahmood, took Badar to the film studio and got him a job as a light man.

Legendary actor Waheed Murad gave him a minor debut role in film, Armaan, in 1966. The rest, as they say, is history.

After a while, Badar suggested film director and filmmaker Nazar Hussain to finance a Pashto film. Ali Haider Joshi was hired to write the story for the first-ever Pashto film. It was based on the popular Yousaf Khan-Sherbano folk tale.

Director Aziz Tabassum decided to cast Badar as hero after screen testing other candidates, while Yasmeen Khan was given the role of Sherbano. The film released in December 1970 and was a box-office hit, marking the launch of Pashto cinema.

Badar acted in around 600 films, including 418 Pashto, 33 Punjabi, 88 Urdu, 11 Sindhi and one Hindko. He also performed in a Bengali-language film, Darundo Putak. Many of his hit films had silver, diamond and platinum jubilees.

Badar along with other colleagues in the film industry also earned a bad name towards the end of 80s and early 90s when Pashto cinema was plagued with vulgarity, something unbecoming of Pashtun society.

It was to purge the industry to this evil and to revive the golden era of Pashto films that he directed and produced Ajab Khan in 1995. Although the film flopped, it was the return of quality Pashto cinema.

Badar’s last film was ‘Lewnay’, which was released in 2007.

Badar Munir died of cardiac arrest in a Lahore hospital on October 11, 2008 leaving behind two widows, five daughters, five sons and thousands of fans to mourn his death.

Published in Dawn, October 11th , 2014