Reference the letter ‘Acting stint’ (Nov 7). Two aspects invite comment. As the compiler-editor of Meet our friend JJ published this year allow me to do so. This book comprises recollections and tributes by 66 friends and associates from Pakistan and overseas countries.
The letter implies that Beyond the Last Mountain was the only film made by Javed Jabbar. The fact is that in 2008, as the producer (and as co-writer with Mohammad Ahmed) of Ramchand Pakistani, he won overseas as well as national awards for Best Film.
The film was superbly directed by his gifted daughter Mehreen Jabbar, who was honoured, in her own right , with the exclusive FIPRESCI Prize at the New Delhi Film Festival July 2008 given by the International Federation of Film Critics, the viewers who are the most difficult to impress. The same film won four other major awards in Europe and in Pakistan.
Earlier, as a free-lancing producer, Javed Jabbar also wrote and directed the documentary for PTV which won the first-ever international award for PTV in 1973, (the Silver Prize at the Asian Film Festival in Shiraz, Iran ) followed by three other awards. The documentary was: Moenjodaro: the city that must not die, narrated by Aslam Azhar. He also wrote and directed 10 other documentaries on different subjects and over 300 award-winning , trend-setting advertising commercials, including the famous Pied Piper spot and many others.
I am glad Mr Mehdi recalls Javed Jabbar’s acting in the stage play The Man Who Came to Dinner in 1965 at the Theosophical Hall, Karachi. He acted in three other stage plays which were also well-received: Julius Caesar (as Cassius) in 1963, You Can’t Take It With You staged in 1964 and The Promise in 1969 written by the Russian playwright Alexei Arbuzov. All of them were staged at Theosophical Hall and at KGS.
An interesting coincidence: almost 30 years later in 1995, his talented son, now a barrister , Kamal Kadeer Jabbar, then a student at Karachi Grammar School, also acted in the lead role of The Man Who Came to Dinner and received plaudits for his performance.
S. Abid Rizvi
Rawalpindi
Published in Dawn, November 13th, 2014
