MOVIES, Muneeza Hashmi believes, have to be watched in a cinema hall to capture the ambience. “When I was young, Sunday Matinee was a very special event. We even had new outfits to wear on the opening show. And of course there were all the attractive young men that one wanted to exchange glances with. Oh, to be young and available again!”
She enjoys watching “romantics and films whose stories carry some substance.” Thrillers, she says “are usually beyond me as it takes me too long to figure them out.” She also loves watching costume and historical films.
Michael Douglas and Richard Gere have been her favourite actors for a long time now, but she is also very partial to Robert Deniro and Al Pacino. She adores Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, Julia Roberts and Catherine-Zeta Jones, but says no one can beat the oldies such as Gina Lollobridgida, Anthony Quinn, David Niven, Audrey Hepburn and so on, “That list is endless.”
Across the border, she is a great fan of Amitabh Bachchan and Dilip Kumar. Among the leading ladies, her all-time favourites were Nutan, Waheeda Rehman and Kamini Kaushal. More recently, Ashwariya Rai tops the list.
Muneeza is not an avid music listener because “there is no time.” But given a choice, she prefers slow ghazals or Punjabi folk. “I do not collect music but prefer to borrow from my family who has a huge collection, specially my husband.” Her favourite singers are many depending on the mood, but she prefers Urdu over western music. “Listening or finding the time to listen to music is the difficult part. I buy CDs and then discover them again a year later in my bed-side drawer,” she confesses.
Muneeza used to read a lot about 15 years ago. “Maybe I had more concentration then, I got less tired during the day, or maybe I just had more time.” She is looking forward to retirement to take up reading and watching movies again. She says, “I miss doing both a lot.”
Karen Armstrong’s Muhammad — A Biography of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) is the book she is savouring these days. Having recently performed Haj, she says, “I am re-educating myself about the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him).”
She prefers biographies or historical books. “Novels also interest me. John Grisham, at one time, intrigued me. Poetry I listen to, but don’t read.” Surprised, one cannot help asking to what extend she has read her father, Faiz Ahmed Faiz? “Not as much and as extensively as I should and wanted to,” she confesses. “Partly because my Urdu is and never was good enough for me to understand all that he was saying. And partly because I am not a person who is very much inclined towards poetry or the finer aspects of literature.” She finds it amazing how poets can say so much in just a handful of words. “I find it incredible.
“I am a very practical person and more of a doer,” says Muneeza, “and not someone who would sit down with a book and chill out.” But whatever she does understand of Faiz’s poetry (the more simple parts) she finds them immensely moving and so very full of vivid imagery. She finds his diction very ‘lyrical’ but very ‘difficult’ because he uses ‘the most sophisticated and polished’ Urdu. “And for someone like me who has been taught to think, write and communicate in English, it is very difficult to grasp the entire meaning of his work.”
About her father Muneeza says, “I never knew his greatness, if I can say that, until we lost him. His immense stature and his many dimensions came to me slowly over these past years, as I have matured and grown older. I miss him every day because now, as I grow older, there are so many dimensions of life that I would like to discuss with him. There is so much now that I need to unburden myself of and I find it a lonesome road to travel,” is the daughter’s confession.
FAVOURITES FILMS: Ben-Hur and The Bridges of Madison County
MOVIES, Muneeza Hashmi believes, have to be watched in a cinema hall to capture the ambience. “When I was young, Sunday Matinee was a very special event. We even had new outfits to wear on the opening show. And of course there were all the attractive young men that one wanted to exchange glances with. Oh, to be young and available again!”
