You, the people of Pak!

Sometimes it gets very intimidating for me to carry on with the way the life suddenly changes. At some moments, things are too daunting to carry on, or at times you just don’t have what it takes. Personally, several of such moments I faced, they have been quite the reagents about how strong I am now today. Keeping personal affairs aside, when it comes to the relative world, I think all of us from Pakistan have faced too many moments that are just too much for our nerves. Let it be the political turmoil, the mercurial rise in the cost of living of a fickle economy, the utterly depressing security situation, all of them are just the nuances of a frustrated society descending, I fear, into a failing state.

Presently, I’m more concerned for the tiny traces of tolerance and tranquillity that are left in our society. First, the assassination of Salman Taseer and today the assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti are just the hints to how much intolerable degrees of sentimentality our land has reached with issues as prickle as minority rights. I cannot begin to underscore that such murky motives of intolerances shouldn’t prevail in any society! Resilience was a word often used to describe the people belonging to this wonderful land; I fear we are testing this attribute beyond its limits with this continuous cycle of loss and destruction. There is a world enveloped in intolerance. Sadly, Pakistan ends up raising the bar from time to time.

Today for a breather, I was just reading through the poetry of Edgar Guest, which is out of fashion in our sophisticated age; it’s unambiguous, unsubtle, too moralizing, not enough vivid images and fine-drawn metaphors and understated suggestions. While reading this, I’m compelled to think as if we as a nation will stand up against this un-permissiveness and bigotry, or scum to the comminating extremism,. In Guest’s words:

“You must decide in the face of the test,

Whether you’ll shirk it or give it your best.”

You

You are the fellow that has to decide
Whether you’ll do it or toss it aside.
You are the fellow who makes up your mind
Whether you’ll lead or will linger behind
Whether you’ll try for the goal that’s afar
Or just be contented to stay where you are.
Take it or leave it. Here’s something to do!
Just think it over — It’s all up to you!

What do you wish? To be known as a shirk,
Known as a good man who’s willing to work,
Scorned for a loafer or praised by your chief,
Rich man or poor man or beggar or thief?
Eager or earnest or dull through the day,
Honest or crooked? It’s you who must say!
You must decide in the face of the test
Whether you’ll shirk it or give it your best.

Nobody here will compel you to rise;
No one will force you to open your eyes;
No one will answer for you yes or no,
Whether to stay there or whether to go.
Life is a game, but it’s you who must say,
Whether as cheat or as sportsman you’ll play.
Fate may betray you, but you settle first
Whether to live to your best or your worst.

So, whatever it is you are wanting to be,
Remember, to fashion the choice you are free.
Kindly or selfish, or gentle or strong,
Keeping the right way or taking the wrong,
Careless of honor or guarding your pride,
All these are questions which you must decide.
Yours the selection, whichever you do;
The thing men call character’s all up to you!

–          Edgar Guest

Mr 10% Embezzling Pakistan’s Presidency

We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.

-Martin Luther King, Jr

 Viewing the live Presidential Speech transmission on the TV, I kept asking myself “When will this madness end?”  God heard my agonistic longing, and all came to an end with the third ‘scheduled’, in fact self assessed, power outage of the day.

 Bust seriously, is there any end? Or will the people keep getting themselves scoffed by a leader or a government which is not really they preferred or can trust.

 To start with, I must commend the stake holders who ran the selection campaign of the most powerful man in the country almost ‘single handedly’. The victory of the party was in effect someone’s personal victory. That various heavy weights of the party felt like nine pins during this selection thus proving more than what my words can say.

 I hope in saying this I have not offended anybody in any way because I also happen to be an offshoot of this so called democratic ‘freedom of speech’ bandwagon.

 For almost all of this year, we have seen them cry themselves hoarse about improving the quality of life and terms of Judicial contracts to revolutionize the social order. In this way, we have hoped that things will altogether be right for the people of this country. However, before anyone gets down to do something for the people, I am sure they would want to know who, where and how those people are.

We are the people who are in a constant sense of loss and uncertainty; let it be our lives, properties, our future or our country. We are the weathered people who stand in miles long queues, let it be for food or else, not knowing if it will be fruitful at the end of it or not. We dream, we dare, we fight and we loose. This has been our course for the past sixty-some years. But we never stop hoping and we never give up.

We are the countrymen who are exhausted of watching recurring talk shows, fumbling compares and ill-informed experts of the trepid constitution with such an enormous frequency. Not only these discussions are trite but the appeal part has gone down steeply, as the experts tell us nothing that we don’t know or cannot judge on our own selves. Sorry, but its common sense.

 Will the history repeat itself? I dread and hope not. But to all who have our fate (and some faith) in governing the country, I advise them to keep in mind the Italian proverb: One who builds on the mob, builds on sand.

 I say this not with malice or to smear any propaganda that may let lose as major adversary, but with a feeling of sadness and a silent prayer that they will, by their future acts, shake off the inglorious past, while serving the poor people of this country with a new verve.

 Nevertheless, we the infinitely hopeless nation, congratulate and look forward to the government that is far more powerful than of its predecessors.  Yet another chance for serving a full and most powerful term of them all, let’s see how much they ‘bag in’ this time. Pakistan Zindabad! 🙂

Uss Bewafa Key Sheher Mein

As quoted by the Tlism website, “This was to be the first ever Festival of its kind taking place in Karachi” and I so wanted to check out what that hype was about. I thought that since we were facing such disheartening circumstances and apprehension for our future it could be a breath of fresh air to go and check out this so called “truly unique and enthralling week of exciting and magical entertainment”. And frankly speaking, I really wanted to unwind after watching the gruesome parades and speeches about the Judiciary Restoration and the Long March (not that I oppose it at all, I was just overly introspective of the whole act J )

 

This Festival was basically a retrospective of some of our most acclaimed and well-loved theatrical productions, under the commandment of Sheema Kermani.

 

The play that I ‘accidently’ chose to watch was “Uss Bewafa Key Sheher Mein” (first performed under the flagship of Tlism in 1999).  Accidental I say because I had never planned to catch this particular one, I wanted to go for “Birgees Kadar ka Kummba” but somehow never got the time to snap it. My friend and I were going out for a bite that night and decided in the midway to drop by just to make sure that we had ‘really missed it’. So we drove to the Arts Council de Karachi to kill the eleventh hour and found loads of parked cars, bringing obvious speculation that the play must have raised its curtains by then. Nonetheless, we thought we were late by a jiffy so we went for it, bought the tickets and surprisingly got the best-view, unclaimed “reserved” seats right in the 3^rd row from the front and got free goodies as well J Our lucky stars were really shining that night J

 

The play “Uss Bewafa Ke Sheher Mein” was an adaptation in Minglish, of Somerset Maugham’s ‘The Constant Wife’, this witty and hilarious comedy brings to life the story of a seemingly docile housewife who decides to pay back her philandering husband, that too, in kind! The star cast comprised of Dr Mervyn Hosain, Shehnaz Ismail, Aamir Masood, Sheema Kermani and my favourite Arjumand Rahim.

 

The play was not more than a Roundabout Theatre. You know, the genre with straight plays, all with satisfyingly full casts of actors dressed to the nines, detailed sets (not so rich in this particular one) and dialogue crackling with witticisms. Three, four acts and an intermission, each with a situation designed to effectively bring down the curtain, was the norm.

“Uss Bewafa Ke Sheher Mein”, the story unfolds in the elegant drawing room of Wafaa (Sheema Kermani) and her surgeon husband, (Dr Mervyn Hosain) who appear to have been blissfully married for fifteen plus years and enjoy their upper crust life style. But there would be no play if the Wafaa’s charmed life were quite as rosy as it seems, so no sooner does the curtain rise than the truth about their marriage comes to light as Wafaa sister (Lubna) and her mother (Wafaa) discuss the pros and cons of telling Wafaa that her husband has been having an affair. To make this betrayal doubly shocking as well as socially embarrassing, the other woman is Wafaa’s best friend (Arjumand Rahim). As the perfect marriage is something of a masquerade, so Wafaa’s unawareness about what’s been happening. Despite broad hints from her outraged sister she is insistently and cheerfully blind-eyed about the affair. What’s more, when confronted by Arjumand Rahim ‘s jealous husband (Aamir Masood) she saves the day with an alibi for the lovers.

Sheema Kermani tapped into her fine sense for comedy as Wafaa, the Constant Wife. Dr Mervyn Hosain brought enough likability to the inconstant husband to avoid the risk of his coming across as either a buffoon or a villain. Shehnaz Ismail was a delightfully cynical, status quo endorsing dowager mother. Arjumand Rahim was ideally cast as miss ditzy and Aamir Masood made the most of his short but droll part as her cuckolded husband.

Actually, the entire play was constructed on the word constant for the original English version- which was Wafaa in our Minglish case- and from the name of its heroine comes the underlying theme of marriage as a constant in our lives, but one in which the partners must constantly adapt to changing expectations and situations (including inconstancy).

Karachi’s non-seasonal theatergoers, with a rickety taste for live-acts and lavish staging obviously forgave the slow spots when the sparkling interchanges lost their fizz and were in danger of being drowned in overly drawn-out discussions. To my utter surprise, every generation was widely represented in the audience throughout the theatre. It was a House-Full performance and if I’m not wrong, fairly around 500 representatives of literally all ages were really keeping up with the play. There was a family sitting right behind us and they had an eleven-ish year old with his supposedly grand-mum, both keeping up with the play, as they munched to their Family packs of the “Party Biscuits” we got as goodies.

And looking at the full house I thought, that this play was probably most untempting act to the masses, as compared to the fairly large contribution to the stage that was possible in Karachi Arts Council, and still it appealed a full house. It’s sad to see that not as much “a constant presence” as similar works within this genre occur all over our Karachi City, as often as they should. Given the enthusiasm of the audience at the Tlism and other festivals that I have attended, that may well change – in fact it should change and I can see it changing. I’m sure some of the Arts-starved idlers out in Karachi are probably rummaging through the Events directory on Facebook as I post this review.

Keep Enjoying, Be Happy J