KARACHI: It seemed as if the entire media was waiting for actress Mahira Khan to step on to the red carpet at the trailer launch of her film Verna at a local multiplex on Tuesday. The moment she got off the lift and turned towards the area where the cameras were resting on tripods, lights began to flash. Mahira and the other protagonist in the film Haroon Shahid were surrounded by showbiz hacks. Microphones were pushed towards their made-up faces and a barrage of questions was hurled at them. Both answered them with poise.

Despite the razzle-dazzle, the absence of the writer and director of the film Shoaib Mansoor was conspicuous. That’s the way he is. He avoids attention. Perhaps more than that, he avoids the media (not a bad approach to keep your privacy intact). Interestingly, later on, at the formal press meet Hum TV’s Sultana Siddiqui quipped that Shoaib was somewhere sitting in the audience and it’s up to the media to seek him out. A couple of pen-pushers believed her.

After half an hour of the red carpet pleasantries, everybody went into the hall to watch the trailer. For some reason the girl who was assigned to moderate the event invited the two actors and Ms Siddiqui in front of the screen before the promo; but things were set right by Mahira who said they’d see the trailer by sitting like the rest of the audience — normally.

The trailer was shown. It was pretty intense. The only thing one was left wondering was whether Verna has some lighter moments. That will only be revealed on Nov 17, the release date of the film.

The launch was followed by a Q&A session. The first question put to Mahira by the moderator was as predictable as they come: the actress’s experience of working in Verna. She replied, “It was amazing,” adding her first job as an actor was in the movie Bol directed by Shoaib Mansoor, so the director was her first teacher. She said she followed it up with other acting assignments [with other directors] and now doing Verna felt like coming back home.

Sharing his experience Haroon, who started his career as a musician, said it was wonderful both as an actor and a musician. He said his “first exposure” to Shoaib Mansoor’s work was not as a director but as someone who wrote songs for Vital Signs. He first met the director in 2011 at a time when he (Haroon) thought he was just a pop star, but Shoaib asked him to wait for a while, after which he gave him the opportunity to act. He termed his role in the film very challenging.

Mahira said she supported Haroon as a co-worker because she felt like a senior actor. She had always worked with experienced actors looking with a sense of amazement at them, so in Verna she decided that’s how she’s going to be like with Haroon. And Sultana Siddiqui endorsed that Mahira likes to help her colleagues.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2017