LAHORE: The panelists of the Faiz Festival’s session on ‘story from book to television’ were of the view the story has not lost its importance in book and television.

Actor Ahsan Khan and writer Neelum Bashir were the panelists and actor Noorul Hasan was the moderator.

Talking about the short story writing, Ms Bashir said she had starting reading stories during her childhood. She said the interest to read stories in the current generation was not picking up pace and they seemed busy in social media. She said technology had brought about revolution and the people could not only read story but also could watch it on television in form of film, drama and TV.

While commenting on the aspects of a story, she said everything could be elaborated in a story and some people would get its positive and other negative sides. She said the writers were writing on the issues of society which could be solved by writing on all type of topics.

Ms Bashir said she did not believe in any boundaries in writing and television had revolutionised the society through drama and film. She said the stories about child abuse in Kasur and other areas of the countries should be highlighted to end this menace from society.

“Our drama industry is mostly focusing marriage issues only and are not working on other issues,” she said.

Ahsan Khan said there were writers in film and TV industry who were writing good stories. “Most of the people compare PTV serials and its stories with the current time, which is not good.” He said there was a single TV channel in the country in the past and now there were hundreds of channels.

“I believe one should filter things for oneself as channels cannot produce quality product all the time,” he said.

Mr Khan said playing negative roles in drama could affect actor’s family and friends when the people started labeling actors with those characters.

Recounting a personal incident, he said he had played a negative role in a play and his mother, living in London, had started receiving calls from her friends against him.

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2019