MUDABBIR Rizvi, who used to head the Scripts Department at Pakistan Television (PTV) passed away in the United States recently after having impressed just about anyone who interacted with him for any stretch of time. He was truly among the unsung heroes of the Pakistani media landscape. He made unfathomable contribution to the mini-screen with his vast knowledge of and command over literature. A formidable scholar with sharp intellect and unsullied professional integrity, he was a leading force in bringing our literary classics and treasures to the television screen.

As a person, he was miles away from the razzmatazz of the media world. Mudabbir Sahib, as he was known in the fraternity and literary circles, was a voracious reader with an encyclopaedic memory.

As a deputy to poet and scholar Iftikhar Arif, he first established the PTV’s script section in the 1970s at a time when selecting and vetting scripts both in terms of content and linguistic appropriateness had critical value in television programming. That approach enabled the state television to establish the image of a responsible network mandated to safeguard national cultural heritage. Mudabbir Sahib was an important character in the execution of that strategy.

Unfortunately, neither his own parent organisation nor the state authorities ever considered to acknowledge the meritorious services of a scholar who served for almost four decades as an unknown commodity. He remained an unsung and unrecognised scholar of our media industry. May God bless him.

Jaffer Bilgrami
Karachi

Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2022