LAHORE: “I cannot comment on a solution to the Kashmir issue between Pakistan and India nor can I say anything about its future,” said Basharat Peer, the script/screenplay writer of Bollywood film Haider, at Faiz Ghar, Model Town, on Tuesday.

Peer visited Faiz Ghar and talked about the film at length while answering questions from the audience. The talk was moderated by Dr Ali Hashmi.

Haider is directed by Vishal Bharadwaj, and co-written by Peer and Bharadwaj. The film also has a few scenes borrowed from Peer’s memoir Curfewed Night.

To a question on how Bharadwaj contacted him to write the movie, Peer said Vishal’s wife Rekha had read his book and mentioned it to her husband. He said Bharadwaj had emailed him about writing an adaptation set in Kashmir and he decided to take it up.

While drawing a comparison between writing a book and a film script, Peer said nothing was as difficult as writing a book, however writing a script had its own mechanisms. A fan of Charles Dickens, Peer said even a blockbuster movie stood nowhere when compared to a Dickens novel.

Some clips from Haiderwere also screened during the talk, including the rendition one of Faiz’s popular ghazals, ‘Gulon Mein Rang Bharay’.

To a question that in both Pakistan and India many people were unhappy after watching Haider, Peer simply said it was up to them. When an audience member pointed out that Haiderwas not screened in Pakistan, Peer regretted the film was not even submitted for censor.

Earlier, Russian writer Vladimir Lesovoy, who has written a poem on Faiz, addressed the gathering in Russian and held Faiz in high esteem. His speech was translated in English by another Russian writer present, Vladimir Mikheev.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2015

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