SOME names reveal everything about a personality — such as bajia, a variant for the respected, loved (and in command) elder sister in Urdu. It is impossible to separate Fatima Surayya Bajia, the individual, from family — both hers in real life and the one she breathed life into on television screens all those decades back.

And as the search for microcosms goes, her personal struggle can be equated with that of her adopted city — and this country after the demise of its founder in September 1948. Bajia’s family arrived in Karachi a week after the passing of the Quaid.

Also read: Bajia — the lady with old-world charm

Faced with challenges, this resolute lady was, in time, to lead her siblings’ search for a new life, she herself graduating through various stages to ultimately emerge as a playwright of merit — and a much-loved, respected sister and an in-command mentor.

She was able to portray a culture with all its intricacies, fallouts and conflicts that defined the contours of her drama.

This was in the tradition of the so-called social novels written in the era of Partition, like the ones by A.R. Khatoon that she was apparently inspired by.

The reader — and later television viewers under the guidance of Bajia — was taken on an exhaustive round of a complex world filled with interplaying family connections exposed to pressures brought about by new influences including education and a collapsing feudal structure.

It was a life that was attractive but that also encouraged reform. Bajia wove her stories around the scenes she must have first come across before her migration and that, post-Partition, were transported to her new home Karachi in bulk. She contributed richly to a vibrant cultural stream and without trying to expand her canvas too much.

She covered the one robust parallel she was well versed in and did it with quiet grace and pride, and what is paramount for a communicator, effectively and in a distinct style. There has been no one like her. She remains incomparable in her field.

Published in Dawn, February 12th, 2016