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June 30, 2005
PROFILE: Huma and Farooq Baig – Exuding creativity
Immersed in the business of creativity and obsessed with producing documentaries and films on important subjects, it would seem when you meet Dr Farooq Baig that he was born for no other profession.However, it may come as a shock to many that the Lucknow-born Baig did his higher studies in medicine from the UK and is a qualified practising doctor, with his specialization being in women’s cancers.
So why, one wonders, did he move away from such a vocation towards the arts? Baig says, “When you work in such a sensitive field it can get very depressing. I always had a leaning towards the arts and even in my early days of practice I was famous for holding pantomimes for the hospital.”
The doctor drifts down memory lane, as he talks of his very first video film, “As a cancer specialist, I soon realized that the women who would come for treatment were so devastated with their diagnosis that they could not think beyond whether they were going to live or not, and how mutilated their bodies would become.
“Invariably they would leave the clinic with half the questions in their mind unasked, which would compound their frustration further. So I suggested to my consultant that we should do a video survey of the questions in patients’ minds and then answer them and show the video in the waiting area, so they could have the answers.”
Grinning, as he recalls the video that was responsible for making him change his profession, Baig says, “Technical people would laugh if they saw the film now as I knew absolutely nothing about film-making then, but surprisingly, when we put that film on the response we got was tremendous.
“It was titled, Concern yes, panic no, and it has been my most satisfying film to date and no other film has drawn the kind of reaction this one did. It was like I had become a celebrity. It just showed how hungry people are for knowledge and what bad communication skills doctors have.”
The second film that he did was a follow-up to his first one, as the former was about a patient who discovers she has a lump and the agony she goes through till she is given a clean bill of health by her doctor. The second was about a patient who is diagnosed with cancer and dwells on how to cope with it effectively.
Baig says, “When we had the preview, the hall which could only accommodate 200 people had 400 to 500 people in it and we had to hold a second screening. The interesting development was that different departments of the hospital demanded that I make similar films for them.
“As a result, the health department actually got me to start making films. For a year and a half, I was paid for being a doctor on the faculty who made health related films. Then one day I was informed that the situation was becoming very embarrassing for the hospital and they would have problems with the auditors, so they helped me to set up my own company instead.”
The rest, as they say, is history. Baig claims that he doesn’t miss being a doctor at all, although he does miss interacting with people who are honest as they normally tend to be with doctors.
However, in spite of the change in his profession after seven years of practising medicine, he has not severed ties with cancer patients and was involved in the launch of Imran Khan’s hospital and its fund raising in the UK.
He has done a lot of pioneer work, in fact, and when the Aids epidemic broke out in Europe he did the first HIV film in the UK called Badaltay Rishtay, which focussed on the Muslim community. It won eight international film awards that year. It was pirated and shown in
Pakistan in its first seminar on Aids held in 1991 and has continued to be shown since. Says a proud Baig, “The first award that I got in London was for the first ever foreign language film in a Grand Prix, and it served to mark my entry into television for the Asian community.” Reminisces Baig, “I must admit that when I was first called by
Yorkshire TV to do a programme on the Asian community, I had refused, because having lived there for 20 to 25 years I was used to looking at them from the eyes of the goras and didn’t want to get involved with the community. But, I am glad I was made to see the light.”
So much for Baig’s life without his better half. He met Huma, the woman who was to later become his wife, and as he proudly announces, “his boss” in Islamabad while on a trip to do a television series.
Huma was doing a morning transmission for PTV at the time and was asked to help out in dealing with the visiting goras. Recalls Baig, “I mentioned to her that I wished to make a film on special children, highlighting a home that treats such a child normally, as the tendency in those days was to hide mentally challenged children.
“She immediately invited me to her home as she has a sister suffering from Down’s syndrome. After I went back to the UK, she came to do her internship in film making in London in 1991, and began to work for me.
“My whole office was up in arms when I hired her, for they felt she was a nobody from Pakistan, but she was so good that within two months she had made a film that won an award and everyone was eating out of her hands.” A decade into marriage, Baig and Huma have been in Pakistan for the last eight years. Baig says that the reason they came back to Pakistan was that he wanted his children to be with their grandparents and be brought up in a Muslim environment.Huma, too, was keen to come back and be instrumental in changing the world’s perceptions about development in Pakistan. She says, “I want to be part of the development process and reflect the best in Pakistan. As far as I am concerned, if you are a confident, educated female, there is no glass ceiling in the country. I want to fight the case of the downtrodden women and now that I am back, I have no intentions of running away.”
However, they still have their company running in London and speak with great pride about their totally Pakistani team, which has won numerous awards for their projects.
The couple seems to enjoy a unique relationship for unlike many
Pakistani men who have an almost in-born macho streak in them and who consider it a threat to their manhood to accept their wife’s strengths,
Baig has no hang-ups acknowledging that Huma is superior to him in a number of ways.
He says, “She is a better organizer than I am, which is why I had told her from the outset that she would handle the management aspect of our work. As long as they respect each other’s strengths there is no reason why a man should feel threatened by his wife.”
Huma collaborates to this view and adds, “We are two souls that work well together and respect each other for our individual talents. When at work, I don’t regard him as my husband.”
According to Huma, she handles the finances while Baig handles the production side of the business.
Often, days go by without the two getting time to chat with each other.
Baig has some very valid grouse with the government and media.
He says, “We have made hundreds of issue-based films and a large number of them have focussed on development, environment and advocacy, but strangely enough even the award-winning documentaries are not given any prominence here.
“And then someone comes out of nowhere with a film on a non-issue, and suddenly it is all over the press.
When we did the sound and light show in the Lahore Fort, our original plan had been to do it in the Jehangir Quadrangle, but Yasmeen
Lari who is working on the conservation of the fort pointed out to us that it would be detrimental for the fort’s safety, so we underwent great personal expenses and effort to convince the government to move the sets, but while the show was praised a lot no one appreciated that this was a worthy step that others should emulate.
“How will such acts have a domino effect if they are not highlighted?”
Baig’s only regret in life seems to be that he is not getting enough time to do what he really wants to — make a documentary film on the martyrdom of Imam Hussain.
He says he has been working on it for the last 15 years, but still hasn’t completed it.
Having already tried his hands in so many different creative fields, Dr Farooq Baig is now ready to make a feature film. In fact, he already has two planned out — one based on a story from Balochistan and the other on the life of Edhi.
Huma, on the other hand, is looking forward to setting up a channel. She wants to establish a development channel subsidized by the government, and convert development issues into entertainment issues. She says, “It will give an opportunity to stakeholders in development, who don’t have a platform to come before the general public.”
There is no doubt that we will be seeing a lot more from this creative couple.
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