KARACHI, June 19: Noted TV producer and director Qasim Jalali’s work was hailed at a ceremony held recently at the Arts Council Karachi to celebrate the Pride of Performance award (tamgha-i-husn-i-karkardagi) the government has conferred on him.

Fatima Surayya Bajia presided over the programme.

Speaking on the occasion, actor Talat Husain said Qasim Jalali should’ve been given the award much earlier because he had achieved great feats in his career. He said he’s one of those few producers/directors whose plays were seen because they were made by them. He’s a star director, he said, who worked hard all through his life. He said he (Talat Husain) had written two plays for Qasim Jalali – Tariq bin Ziyad and Typist — both of which were experimental ventures.

He said journalists couldn’t acknowledge some of the historical facts that they tried to present in Tariq bin Ziyad. He said Jalali was famous for having a big cast in his plays and would never get tired during work, so much so that the horses he’d use for his dramas would invariably be seen heavily breathing, but not Jalali.

Actress Durdana Butt heartily congratulated Dada — as Qasim Jalali is fondly known — and said he had a flair for comedy as well. She said: “Live from moment to moment so that when you sit down to count those moments you’ll realise he’s (Dada) given you a lifetime.”

Poet and playwright Amjad Islam Amjad (who spoke via telephone from Lahore) said it was long due that Qasim Jalali’s efforts were appreciated. He said their friendship with the producer spanned more than three decades. He said Jalali belonged to the second batch of TV producers and whenever PTV’s history would be written his name would be mentioned with distinction.

Actress Mishi Khan said Qasim Jalali and Fatima Surayya Bajia were like his TV parents. She said it’s because of the two seniors that she became a known performer. She said she missed the atmosphere that she experienced while recording the serial Uroosa, which was why she tried not to take part in the kind of plays that were being made these days.

Prof Sahar Ansari talked about Jalali’s ability to speak in Urdu with a Bengali accent.

Jalali’s colleague Bakhtiar Ahmed went down memory lane when in 1969 both were batch mates and Jalali would often make everybody smile. He said Jalali’s basically an artiste.

Director M. Zaheer Khan delivered a fiery speech saying there was a time when ‘merit’ was considered first and foremost for hiring someone for any position. He said PTV not only helped its producers get technically trained but also imparted to them training for their ‘mindset’. He said in four-and-a-half months everything would be taught to them and they’d be made to meet people like Faiz Ahmed Faiz so that they could know what culture meant. He iterated that in those days they (producers) knew what Pakistan was all about.

He said Jalali’s talent was first recognised across the border through viewership after which our government endorsed it. On the current state of the media, he said the media could never be ‘commercial’; it should know what to tell their audience and what not to tell.

Qasim Jalali said the speeches made by his friends and colleagues had made him recollect the past intensely. He said it was his duty that whatever he achieved or learned in his life he should give it back to others.

Criticising the modern state of affairs in the media, he said most of the material being produced was trash. He said whoever had the money became an authority on the media. He then spoke a few lines in a Bengali accent which amused the audience.

In the end, Fatima Surayya Bajia congratulated Qasim Jalali. She said when she chose him to direct her adaptation of an A. R. Khatoon novel, it surprised many people at PTV, but she knew Qasim Jalali had the requisite talent in him.

Agha Masood Husain, Aniq Ahmed, Anwar Iqbal, M. Warsi, Raheel, Munawwar Saeed, Ghulam Mohyeddin, Mustafa Mandokhel, Mehmood Ahmed Khan, Shehnaz Siddiqui, Farid Khan, Wakeel Farooqi, Hadi Raza, Salahuddin Tunio, Prof Ajaz Farooqi and Ahmed Shah also spoke. Iqbal Latif conducted the event.