Art and culture in early days of Pakistan used to be the domain of intellectuals, literary personnel and exquisite educated artists who knew the requirements of their artistic fields along with the boundaries of their respective self respect and esteem as well. Veena kept on repeating during this program that what unique thing she has done in that so called reality based show of Indian channel which has not been done repeatedly before by her predecessors and contemporary colleagues in Pakistan?
I think when it comes to the supposed role models for her in entertainment industry of Pakistan then she should have seen the primary examples of Zeba Muhammad Ali for instance who was as much beautiful as Veena is and believe me she was more talented than her in emoting skills but still she managed to perform in India with a highly controversial film personality (Raj Kapoor) of India’s main stream film industry by not exposing her self and kept her dignified persona and self respect intact. Raj Kapoor is by the way widely considered as one of the pioneers of Indian commercial cinema who for the first time tried to expose his female artists (In both lead and support roles) in various movies.
Zeba Bakhteyar is an another gleaning example for the likes of Meeras and Veenas in the current showbiz industry of Pakistan to look up to for some inspiration who worked in more than one film production banners in India at the prime of her brief acting career in 1990’s. Muhammad Ali (actor) is an another prime example for the female and male artists alike that in what dignified manner he worked in India (Only in one movie of Manoj Kumar) and later made his commitment never to work there again after the premeditated & unnecessary editing of the major chunks of that movie (Clerk) which contained the vital performances of that talented actor of Pakistan.
Nowadays most of our artists don’t even care that how diminutive they might look by getting the same sort of treatment from the hostile Indian filmmakers and entertainment industry’s bigwigs. They simply seems to just care about their pay checks, to get the scant disrespecting opportunities and cheap publicity in the Indian entertainment industry in order to become famous in a transitory manner. In return for these disgusting compromises they don’t seems to care about the amount and scale of taunts, criticisms and rebukes from the serious and aesthetically refined viewers and critics of this region in particular.
In the end I’m just gob-smacked to see the presence of a so called Aalim e Deen and trying to rationalise his needless presence in this talk show. What was he trying to prove there by the way, to teach the morals and ethics to the unscrupulous and characterless representative of an entertainment industry? Mufti sahab should have avoided participating in this useless debate and might have tried to focus on other more serious issues in media or in other forums.
The Interior ministry and the ministry of cultural affairs (If they exists in real terms) should draft a clear cut policy for the future to screen and profile the cultural groups and concerned personalities of Pakistan and strictly control their conducts, performances and movement, as it was the norm in the past, to curtail such shameful incidents to occur both in domestic and international forums. In this way only the best of the best, educated, well cultured and refined personalities from the fine art fields will be sift through and would get their well deserved opportunities to represent the image of Pakistan in abroad be that in film industry, cultural shows or other philanthropic and charity campaigns.