When the history of Pakistani television dramas is written, three of the most iconic serials of all times will inevitably be featured. One will be Ankahi, scripted by Hasina Moin and directed by Shoaib Mansoor; the second will be Chand Grehan, written by Asghar Nadeem Syed and directed by Tajdar Alam; and the third will be Humsafar, written by Farhat Ishtiaq and directed by Sarmad Khoosat.

With a nearly 50-year-history, it was heartening to note (and depressing at the same time) that for the first time in a local arts and literature festival, television dramas were discussed. In a session titled ‘Prevalent Themes in Pakistani Television Dramas’ at the Khayaal Festival, Khoosat moderated a conversation between Hasina Moin, Sarmad Sehbai and Asghar Nadeem Syed.

Khoosat started the discussion by asking the panel about the present status of television. Syed replied by expressing his disapproval of the small screen’s current content, saying that in his interaction with college students he has been told that they feel their problems are not being represented: “We are not concerned about our mayun, mehndi and shadi but about finding work after we get our degrees, they say.” Moin said that most dramas show female characters either being subjected to violence or thrown out of their houses. “All the men are shown as zaalim and all the women depicted as mazloom,” she pointed out.

“With the explosion of channels, the focus is now on generating revenue,” said the pragmatist Sehbai. “Television channels are not interested in software but in the product.” He seemed frustrated by his colleagues’ chest-beating over the declining standards of television and tried to explain the “multinationals’ take over”. “They have propped up an artificial façade of happiness,” Sehbai said, adding: “First it was Zia’s jabar and now it is the market’s jabar.” His suggestion was that television creators come up with a strategy to deal with this.

However, Syed and Moin remained oblivious to Sehbai’s observations, with Syed recalling his drama serial Chand Grehan. “Earlier the writer used to have a point of view but these days I see no such thing in the drama writer’s content,” he complained. This was followed by Moin condemning the popular comedy drama serial Quddusi Sahib Ki Bewah, currently on air on ARY Digital, for its content and language.

One felt like pointing out to the creator of Ankahi’s timeless characters that Quddusi Sahib is arguably one of the most significant serials of recent times as Faseeh Bari Khan, its writer, has, among other things, used rare Urdu proverbs and idioms in the dialogues.

Thankfully Sehbai veered the discussion away from the lamentations and prodded Khoosat to talk about his experience of directing the hugely popular serial Humsafar alongside Jalpari (penned by Sehbai) that hardly garnered any attention. “It was interesting for me to note the reactions to the serials that played more or less around the same time,” Khoosat replied. “When I got the script of Jalpari, I found it to be way superior in terms of dialogue and characterisation but it didn’t get the attention that I thought it would. But no one expected the reaction Humsafar received.”

Perhaps Sehbai wanted to emphasise that the writer is not always at fault. At one point during the discussion he said the real culprits are the channel owners who are responsible for the content being aired.

The discussion then skimmed over the digest ‘culture’ and the adaptation of novels serialised in digests for television (one wishes the organisers had invited digest and scriptwriters such as Umera Ahmed and Farhat Ishtiaq for a detailed discussion on this topic). It also touched upon the popularity of Turkish soaps. Khoosat said that television channels aim to increase their ratings and hence have started showing Turkish soaps where earlier they were showing Indian soaps and programmes. Meanwhile, Syed felt that “viewers are drawn towards the diversity offered in these soaps with better treatment in terms of locales, recording and content.”

Khoosat seemed disappointed by the popularity of dubbed Turkish soaps, which he said were bought cheaply and shown on prime time, even blaming the audience for popularising them. Moin presented a gloom and doom scenario, saying, “why bother writing, who is going to buy it.” Syed, however, disagreed and said that he continues to write on relevant themes such as about the four women who were buried alive in Balochistan in the drama Tum Ho Kay Chup. It received decent ratings. Sehbai remarked: “That’s what I mean by creating a strategy. You have to find loopholes to create space for your work.”

As the session drew to a close, an audience member asked Khoosat about directing regressive serials such as Humsafar. Khoosat did not agree with Humsafar being labelled regressive, arguing that it did not propagate an ideology and was more of a cinematic fantasy. “As a matter of fact, Shehr-e-Zaat had a strong ideology,” he said. “I am fine with a character having an ideology but not the overall script. I disagreed with the idol-smashing and even rewrote some scenes which did not go down well with the writer [Umera Ahmed] and there was a witch-hunt against me because of my disagreements.”

The writer is a Dawn staffer