Waiting...
Selling balloons at an age where he can very well play with them. Ejaz, 8, studies in class 3 and has five siblings. He contributes to the family income by selling balloons in the evening and refuses to accept alms.

issue
Graveyard of tolerance
When graves become a target of the wrath of
ideologues, one is forced to ask “what happened to the state?”
By Waqar Gillani

The armed men tied the caretakers with ropes and locked them up in the living quarters of the graveyard before they moved on to the graves. The destruction of tombstones went on for about 40 minutes.

It was a pre-dawn strike last Monday. Around one and a half dozen masked attackers, equipped with arms, broke into an Ahmadi graveyard in Model Town, one of their main cemeteries in Lahore.

After beating up the caretakers and guards on duty, they desecrated around 120 graves. They broke the tombstones as they were carrying the names of Allah, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), and Kalma Tayyaba.

Ahmadis in Pakistan were declared non-Muslims in 1974 by the then parliament during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s regime. Later, in the 1980s, General Ziaul Haq brought strict laws forbidding Ahmadis to pose as Muslim, read or recite Kalama, Aazan (call for prayers) and Quran, disallowing them to call their worship place ‘mosque’.

According to the guards of the desecrated graveyard, they were around 20 masked men who claimed association with the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba.

“The police were unaware of the incident till late Monday night and lodged a case against some unknown persons after keeping the community lawyers waiting for many hours,” says a community representative.

Hitting the Ahmadi worship places and forcing them to remove Islamic verses and names, which they are forbidden to use according to Section 298 A, B, and C of Pakistan Penal Code, has become a tool to harass and persecute them. According to investigations into some of the cases of vandalism in different parts of the country, such acts of harassment and persecution are systematically done by organised groups of clerics and locals having connections with anti-Ahmadi extremists groups.

In July, 2012, a local cleric Tufail Raza, claiming his association with the Khatme Nabuwwat Lawyers Forum, reportedly, approached Liaquatabad police station seeking the removal of Islamic inscriptions from tombstones at this particular Ahmadi graveyard which was established in 1980.

“The police did not follow up on the application,” says Shahid Ataullah, a local representative of the community. “Later, another group of these mischievous elements moved the local court and in October, the Additional District and Sessions Judge Lahore had disposed of this case, asking the police to follow the law.”

So what happens that the job of the state is taken up by some members of society and they don’t even get punished?

“A police case was finally lodged against unknown people for dacoity, breaking in, and desecrating graves and hurting the religious emotions of Ahmadis,” says Chaudhry Amir Rehman, the legal counsel of the community. “However, we don’t know about the outcome of the investigations so far.”

The Ahmadis resist following this law which, they say, is imposed on them. “These are the laws imposed on us because of certain pressures otherwise we were Muslims before 1974. Some of the desecrated mosques and graves are from much before 1974,” says a spokesperson of the community.

“We are facing a systematic ideological extremism. Wherever it is, whether this ideology is worldly or heavenly, the minority groups and the weaker sections of the society will be vulnerable and target of the wrath of these ideologues,” observes noted political analyst, Prof Hassan Askari Rizvi.

“In the case of Ahmadis, the state of Pakistan has created a basis for these extremist groups to pursue their agenda. However, the law does not warrant any group to take such action. It is only through court of law that the application of this law can be secured,” says Rizvi.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has demanded the arrests of those responsible. It says that the attackers’ success in overpowering several persons at the graveyard and completing the destruction in half an hour shows that the incident was well-planned. It appeals to the government to take swift action against the persecution of Ahmadis.

This was obviously not an isolated incident. Almost a year ago, around three dozen graves were desecrated in an Ahmadi graveyard in Dunyapur, district Lodhran, south Punjab. According to the community members, around six months ago, a private school run by a member of the Ahmadiyya community was also forcefully closed down by some residents. “People took to the streets to shut the school where many Muslim children were being educated free of cost,” says a community official.

A couple of months ago before Dunyapur incident, another Ahmadi graveyard in Haveli Majokan, district Sargodha, was dug up by some unidentified people, according to the community reports.

Last September, a similar incident was reported in Jaranwala, district Faisalabad, in central Punjab, where many graves were desecrated by some locals in the presence of police.

vaqargillani@gmail.com

  MOOD STREET
Musings of an ardent procrastinator
By Haneya H. Zuberi

Thank you, procrastination for taking precious productive hours away from me, and giving me bundles of useless joy instead. I exactly don’t remember when I was introduced to your highness but ever since you entered my life I am nothing but a slave to you. I happily give you all my time that you very sinisterly steal away. You keep me away from my real work and I stay away from it because you very causally indulge me into activities far more appealing and inciting than finishing my assignments and papers.

In an attempt to psychoanalyse why human beings procrastinate, Freud came up with a simple principle called the ‘pleasure principle’. Human beings are generally wary of any kinds of negative emotions and if handed over a stressful task, try to avoid it. If they have the option of delaying the task to a further date, they find it enjoyable and hence they procrastinate. Just like I am right now; not writing my policy memo for my foreign policy class that is due in a day and writing this instead.

My father, who belongs to Generation X, argues that it is because of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter that Generation Y that I belong to, procrastinates. I cannot agree with him more. But I totally disagree with him on the Generation Y part because whenever I open my Facebook homepage, my newsfeed is often full of posts made by him. This proves that procrastination is not a ‘generation’ phenomenon but a worldwide, mankind dilemma.

Sometimes, procrastination is an indispensable ally, especially when someone has the luxury of one whole day to complete a task. Sometimes it is simply impossible to maintain sufficient enthusiasm or energy for a longer time to complete one simple boring task. That is why you log on to YouTube and watch the latest funny video that has most likes. Then you share it on your Facebook wall. Soon your friends start liking and commenting on it and that red notification box on the top left hand side of your page keeps you busy in front of the screen for hours. This consumes so much of your energy that you decide to snack on something and then maybe take a nap. Your deadline is not until later at night. You still have more time to procrastinate.

The legendary art of procrastination started exactly when the universe started, which by the way is the biggest procrastinator of all times. It took billions of years for anything of importance to form after the big bang occurred. It took billions of more years for life to form; and then it took billions and billions of more years for life to get where it is today. If that’s not procrastination, then I don’t know what it is.

In Pakistan procrastination is our national hobby. We elect a government through democratic elections, and then procrastinate for the next five years to overthrow it and re-elect another one. We get unlucky the year when the military decides not to procrastinate anymore and imposes a martial law on us. Our government procrastinates when we demand a solution to our problems. It gives us frequent electricity failures so that we can procrastinate with more efficiency and ease. Our parliament loves to procrastinate; it will strive to avoid doing anything until it has to but then something will go wrong and it will decide to procrastinate again.

Leonardo da Vinci, it has been said, was a seasoned procrastinator. The genius was fond of doodling all day long and was not an expert at getting things done but still managed to change the world. This helps us to put things into perspective; maybe there is hope for Pakistan? Maybe if we start today we can still change things around us for the better? That sounds so inspirational but how about today we take a break and start tomorrow?

Tomorrow always sounds great but sadly never comes.

  Town Talk

* Exhibition titled ‘Together Alone’ by Herra Khan at The Drawing Room Art Gallery till Dec 10.

* Conference: College of Art and Design, University of the Punjab is organising an International Conference and a Workshop on Calligraphy ‘Sarir-e-Khama’: Art of the Pen from Dec 10-19.

* Play: Maas Foundation is going to present ‘47 Tou Baad’ on Dec 10-11 at Alhamra Arts Council, The Mall.

This play is based on true stories across the border

after partition 1947.

What people of both countries get and loose during this process.

* Landscapes and Cityscapes by Dr. Rahat Naveed Masud and Dr. Barbara Schmitz at Lahore Museum till Dec 10.

* Last Day of Faysal Bank National T20 cup between Pakistan’s domestic teams at the Gaddafi Stadium.

maestro
“Film-making is story-telling in pictures”
Talking about film and theatre at the National College of Arts
By Farah Zia

Having already done his two days of theatre, Tuesday morning, on Dec 4, was reserved for a talk at the National College of Arts Auditorium where Naseeruddin Shah was the guest of the Film and Television Department. His arrival slightly delayed, the atmosphere became electrifying with each passing moment. His entry in the hall was marked by a standing ovation, something Shah was quite accustomed to by then, having received a full five minute each at his performances at Alhamra.

Introductions and welcome notes were quickly read so that Shah could speak directly to the students. He, too, seemed quite keen. He began by clarifying some myths. “The kind of cinema that was developing in the 1970s was not actually the beginning. Before that, there were others; Khwaja Ahmed Abbas was making films that did not conform, were not formula, nor were they made with the intention of multiplying his bank balance. These were films which were made from the heart...

“In 1973, Shyam Benegal’s first film Ankur was a huge success but it was not the first step; Raj Kapoor Production House had also made some experimental films. V Shanta Ram had made progressive films in the 1940s on the subject of widow remarriage and the caste system and so on.

“I was lucky that I was available in 1975 as an actor when many film makers needed an actor who could look real, an ordinary human being, not a superman. I just happened to be there, an unemployed penniless actor, needing money to feed myself; I did not want to serve art...

“The conditioning of popular cinema is so deep that we don’t even feel it. This is very harmful, I am not saying that such films should not be made; obviously they have a function — to entertain the audience, to take them away from the reality. But since Bollywood has invaded Pakistan full scale, you must beware because Bollywood is an all consuming monster, it’s an addiction and not a healthy one. I am not absolutely negating entertainment. It is absolutely essential but the kind of dumbing down of the audience that Bollywood has done, the kind of mind-numbing impact they have had, the way they take out the essence of all your fantasies and fulfil them, this has played a large part in the apathy that Indian people suffer from. Just because these films don’t claim to represent reality does not condone the absolute shabby nonsense they provide in the name of entertainment...

“The second thing I want to tell the aspiring film-makers is to find your own idiom rather than ape the West. What we have managed to emulate is the superficialities of Hollywood. They did make great films from the 1940s right up to the 1960s and that is because people who loved the finances but they were also the people who loved cinema.

“We, in India are deluding ourselves that the whole world is watching our movies now. Actually, the whole world has stumbled upon Bombay cinema like they stumbled upon Indian/Pakistani food. That food will survive because it has substance; it will always be popular, not loved all over just as a fad. The same will hold true of Hindi movies. They will not survive unless they put their act together and produce something of substance...

“I don’t believe in cinema as art. I am not quite sure about cinema as an instrument of change or a medium of education. It can marginally serve this purpose. I believe in serious cinema because it truthfully reflects the times you live in. Cinema is the only art form which can do that without necessarily resorting to abstraction. Beware of abstraction, that’s another thing I’ll say to the young filmmakers. The essential purpose of cinema is to act as a record of its times. Cinema is the only medium which can capture life as it is which is why documentary film is very important. Consider making documentary films in order to be chroniclers of your times...

“You must not get obsessed with form; it can only be a medium to convey your world view, your beliefs, your philosophies, only after you have mastered the craft. First learn to tell a simple straightforward story through pictures. Don’t try to make a masterpiece. Don’t try and make your first student exercise into a masterpiece. First learn the vocabulary, learn how an idea is conveyed, learn the grammar and get into your heads that film-making is story-telling in pictures. If you can’t get that right, the deepest philosophical statements you will make will not hold any water.

“Tarkovsky or a painter like Picasso or even Salvador Dali, they all graduated to the surreal once they had mastered the real. You cannot draw a caricature unless you can realistically first.

“For documentary your task is cut out for you. For feature films, use your own lives as raw material; it is so rich. There are 16 screenplays in the newspaper every single day. Remember that film-making is a team job; it costs money. No actor is remembered for his acting; he is remembered for the films he has done. I was present at the right time in Mumbai city...

“I don’t accept myself as a theatre person because I had always dreamed of becoming a film actor and to earn lots of money. The magic of both cinema and theatre got me at a very early age. I was an unhappy, lonely child with no friend. At the age of 14, I got some friends together and did a play and showed it to the school. That was the day my life changed. From a nobody, I became that actor for the school. That is why I have such deep association with theatre and have never given up theatre.

“Over the years, I have realised that the kind of theatre done abroad, in Broadway and West End that relies too much on spectacle, is moving in a completely wrong direction. You don’t understand whether you are watching drama or cinema. It’s a wild goose chase because you can never create on stage the illusion that you can create in cinema. So why try.

“Does that mean that the function of theatre has come to an end? That is not correct. Theatre has its utility. We should stop cribbing about lack of venues, theatres and scripts. Whenever two people sit together and talk, communicate, that is theatre. All you need is an empty space, just as Peter Hall said, one actor, one audience and one text is all you need.

“To those who wish to work in theatre, do not feel limited. Get material from your own lives; you have brilliant writers who have written best short stories, try to tell those stories.”

The motley experience
Revelling in theatre of another kind
By Alefia T. Hussain

The performance was one of the best the cultural capital has seen in years. It left the Lahori audience revelling in the tradition of storytelling and the chastity of Urdu language.

Passions usually alight in the festive season of winter but this performance invoked a rare emotion.

This should not have come as a surprise, for those performing were maestros. Naseeruddin Shah’s theatre group Motley staged short stories by Ismat Chughtai on December 1 and 2, 2012 as a tribute to poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz. The event was organised by the Faiz Foundation to raise funds for the Faiz Ghar museum and cultural centre.

Naseeruddin Shah, his wife Ratna Pathak and his daughter Heeba put up a remarkable show, ‘Ismat Aapa key Naam,’ on day one, Dec 1 at the Alhamra Arts Council on The Mall. Directed by Shah, the play is based on three short stories by Ismat Chughtai. This, the first Urdu play by the Motley company, has travelled around the world, also to Pakistan once before in 2006 on the invitation of The Citizens Foundation to raise funds for schools for the under-privileged.

Another set of three plays by Chughtai were performed by the troupe on day two, Dec 2 at the same venue. Taking the form of monologues — Manoj Pahwa in Amar Bel, Loveleen Mishra in Nanni ki Nani and Seema Pahwa in Chooee Muee — the three actors focused on human relationships, tackling issues such as sanctity of marriage, irony in aristocracy and the life of rural women at the turn of the 20th century.

On both days, the actors appeared as narrators and characters, presenting the stories word for word, keeping the flavour and flow of the language intact. This lauded work reverberates the class in Chughtai’s writings that is about everything humane with compassion —yet she became one of subcontinent’s most controversial writers. The show reaffirmed that storytelling is the purest form of communication, which has over the years become victim to the frenzy projected on the electronic media, in cinema and generally to the hectic lifestyle.

In the role of a director, the white-haired Naseeruddin Shah appeared on stage at the rise of the curtain before an excited audience that gave him a standing ovation, to introduce the cast. His brief speech was interspersed with appreciation of Lahori hospitality and warmth. It was evident that the Shahs enjoyed the event as much as the Lahori crowd — that on the insistence of the Faiz Ghar, represented on stage by Adeel Hashmi, he nodded to the idea of another visit next year.

And why not? The audience comprised the educated, English-speaking who’s who of the city, varying from rights activists to educationists to literati to the few initiated. They were uninhibited in displaying their hunger for theatre — for them, it was also a rare chance to brush up their rusty Urdu!

Take me to the ballgame
T20 in Gaddafi Stadium that brought cricket teams from all over Pakistan to the city was so much fun, and not just because of the game
By Ali Sultan

As soon as there is a four, the ball running quickly through green grass contrasted by brown arms darting to catch it but to no avail, Abrar’s voice reverberates through the stadium. Interestingly, the three teenagers sitting in front of me, with gelled back pointy hair and dark sunglasses, bob their head to this particular song, mind you, not to Hadiqa’s song or the two other songs that are played during intervals or fours or sixes, but to this particular one. Seven times they bob their heads to Abrar serenading Preeto to marry him; they are young but I am guessing all of them want to get married very quickly.

Half an hour earlier the rickshaw driver I am with will not cross over to Gaddafi Stadium. “It’s a much longer route than I expected and you are paying me less,” he says. As I grudgingly get out, I am standing in front of a thin, small man wearing a blue shirt and black pants, something of a uniform. “Why don’t you walk with me to Gaddafi?” he says. “It’s not far away.”

The man’s name is Ashraf and he works as a waiter in a famous restaurant housed in the stadium. As we walk towards the stadium I ask him how the T20s are going. Ashraf tells me the first day was packed but now there isn’t much of a crowd. He also tells me he’ll get me into the stadium for free, which I agree to; who doesn’t want a free entry.

Outside the stadium it’s all cloaks and daggers. Ashraf talks to another man, who then talks to the dirty, fat head chef only known as Chacha who then talks to the policemen checking tickets at the stadium gate. Once this ten minute hush hush is over ,I am walking inside without a whisker of a gate pass, not a penny out of my wallet and feeling extremely joyous.

The match is already underway — the Lahore Eagles playing against the Karachi Dolphins. The atmosphere is not exactly what one would call electric. Two enclosures are packed with people, noise, flags, drums and a mixture of colours. The rest of the stadium is mostly empty with a scattering of spectators in other enclosures. Getting a free ride obviously has its consequences; the enclosure I am sitting in, I can see the action sideways and is filled with policemen except for the three teenagers sitting in front of me and a father with his two sons sitting in the back.

Seeing cricket in a stadium is a little strange if one is used to watching it on a television. But there is something to it, something very intoxicating. My eyes seemed to slow down; everything seems to slow down as you look at the bowler’s arms spinning out a ball, the follow through, the bat hitting the ball, watching it sideways, is all ballet.

While the older son is in love with his crisps, the sound of almost continuous loud munching during the first inning is proof enough; the smaller sibling is much more interesting as he is either astonished or in disbelief that the Karachi Dolphins are playing in Lahore. “Karanchi khel raha hai?” he asks his father every five minutes or so, this goes on for half an hour until the little boy is either convinced or pretty much tired. 

And while some heckle and whistle, some dance or raise their hands in dismay or anger, a policeman asks his subordinates and harasses a cameraman of why he can’t be seen on the big screen. I bid adieu to the match and the stadium. It’s getting cold.

Waiting...

Selling balloons at an age where he can very well play with them. Ejaz, 8, studies in class 3 and has five siblings. He contributes to the family income by selling balloons in the evening and refuses to accept alms.

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