instep pick
The good, the bad and the ugly
Directed beautifully by Haseeb Hasan and written with a raw passion by Mona Haseeb, the unpredictable Nanhi became one of the most popular and definitely the most controversial play this year 
By Mehreen Hasan


Amidst the glut of bad men, wronged women and weepy family lore - you know, the lousy marriages, M.I.L-orchestrated divorces, torment-inducing infidelity and/or infertility, and other domestic dilemmas - that occupy our television screens, has emerged Nanhi, a wide-eyed girl with a doll's face and smart mouth, who also happens to be the unwitting accomplice to her kidnapper mother's crimes. Shammo Dai, as she is called, is the go-to midwife of Kharadar, who nabs newborns from the hospital on the side, with a little help from her venal friends in the police. Nanhi, a child herself, loves the babies Shammo brings home, although they soon leave her embrace to be mollycoddled by wealthy begumaat in posh bungalows in Defence. Much bitterness ensues between mother and daughter, until Nanhi decides she will marry and have children of her own. The burning question is who will she marry - her young and over-eager wooer, Shahid, or the neighbourhood elder, trusty old Allah Deeno, M.A. Sociology from Jamshoro University?

Meanwhile, Chanda, Nanhi's best friend, has marriage plans of her own, plans that will wreak havoc in the lives of her neighbours. Chanda has gone rogue, bewitching the neighbourhood's Zaman Bhai, wresting him from the domestic bliss of wife and baby. This sub-narrative runs parallel to and eventually intertwines with Nanhi's seventeen-episode long quest for a baby.

Sound familiar? Didn't think so. Haseeb Hasan, of Bol Meri Machlee and Tum Ho Kay Chup fame, has brought to screen a truly innovative script penned by his wife, Mona Haseeb. Nanhi may be Mona's first serial as a writer, but she is no stranger to the craft. Hailing from a literary family (her father and sister are both journalists), Mona has had a 15-year long acting career in the heydays of the PTV. Mona's debut script displays maturity and a strain of conscientiousness, which is unfortunately absent from much of television screenwriting that happens today.   

In the age of television tropes, in which hits become rehashed within months of their success, few in the industry can boast about the originality of their productions. Like the formula fiction trend in publishing, television channels produce a series of dramas with the same storyline and character archetypes that correspond with audience expectations. Humsafar's clean sweep at the recent Lux Style Awards gives a clear indication of the current preferences of the local audience: love, marriage and couples with chemistry.
“One of the greatest challenges of making Nanhi,” said director Haseeb Hasan, “was making it a success in the absence of a conventional hero and heroine.”

Writer Mona Haseeb has cleverly integrated our awaam's favourite themes in a narrative that is largely based on a social issue of graver importance.

So, Nanhi is not only packed with drama; it is also chockfull of social messages, deftly delivered without the usual dose of didacticism that is the failing of every other TV soap. Using the media coverage of one of Shammo's kidnappings as a framing device, Mona has explored factors that contribute to child kidnappings in Pakistan, ranging from the police inefficiency and doctors' negligence to the economic dynamics of the news media itself. Embedded within the engaging narrative are dialogues that obliquely comment on everything from load shedding and strikes to low salaries and legal rights. On the forefront of such themes is education, brought to life by the character of Allah Deeno. Mona deliberately created his character as an exponent of open-mindedness to demonstrate how “education changes a man and teaches him how to properly treat a woman”. But her main focus always remained with Nanhi.

Mona's impulse to write Nanhi's story sprung from her curiosity about how a household is affected if the mother is a criminal, particularly one who walks off with the infants she delivers. Thus was born the complex character of Shammo with a maternal quality that is fragmented by her multiple roles in life. As a midwife, she brings children to life; as a kidnapper, she takes them away from the life intended for them - an irony that is further complicated by her own position as mother to Nanhi. Like a mirror to this split existence, Nanhi, a child herself, is fixated on having a baby, much to the chagrin of her mother. In a masterful stroke, Mona has Nanhi take after her mother's ways to get what she wants, lending a realistic quality to her fantastic mission; after all, a child raised by wolves will behave like a wolf. Naturally, meddling with matters of God won't go unpunished, so subjects like fate and karma also entered the thematic makeup of the drama, softening its focus on social issues.

Mona's affinity with rounded characters doesn't end there. There are no clear-cut villains in the story, and Nanhi's heroes have moments they wouldn't be proud of. That's the best part of Mona's story: a little lesson in humanity. She shows us both the good and bad in her characters, making them relatable, believable, and a lot more human than black-and-white stereotypes. Sure, the neighbourhood hakim had a secret affair, but he is also one of the most helpful people, always ready to advise, console, and even conspire with his neighbours. We all have vices, weaknesses, skeletons in our closet - this doesn't make us completely bad people. Mona checks our society's dangerous habit of making snap judgements, subtly encouraging the viewer to be more accepting of the faults of others.

Nanhi is very much a character-driven story, propelled by Nanhi's desires and buoyed by the reactions of the other characters. It is more than a 'pretty-girl hits it off with pretty boy until the zaalim samaj throws a spanner in the works' story. In fact, Nanhi demonstrates great strength of will in going against the grain in her final choice of husband. There is a lot more that society can mess up than just marriages, and it will do everyone some good if we focus on the real problems plaguing our society. 

Still, some find it hard to absorb the shock value of the plot - clearly stolen babies strike a nerve that marital discord does not - and much hue and cry has been raised about the supposed inconsistency of the storyline with Pakistani culture. But Haseeb Hasan sweeps aside such allegations, pointing to the hypocrisy of the detractors, who much prefer to get lost/immersed in the trappings of the Ottoman monarchy (in Mera Sultan) than face our reality. Nanhi has a plot that is firmly grounded in extensive research gathered through personal visits made to government hospitals, and even the least news-savvy of us know that rape and kidnappings are crimes that commonly occur in Pakistan.

So how does such an unusual and controversial script make it to the screen? By the vision and commitment of channel higher-ups. When Mona shared her idea with Iqbal Ansari, Head of the recently disbanded Special Projects team at Geo TV, he immediately approved it and personally mentored Mona, guiding her through the script's development. Haseeb also gives credit to Geo TV President, Imran Aslam, who saw potential in the script and was willing to take a risk with its unconventional subject matter. And the channel reaped rewards for its experimentation: Nanhi maintained its position as the slot leader throughout its running, and is hailed by the industry as a trend-setter.

One expects that Nanhi's success has paved the way for others to follow, but current circumstances suggest otherwise. At the end of the day, television continues to mainly exist as a business, and higher authorities still tend to reject innovative ideas in favour of tried-and-tested formula formats that are rapidly delivered but mediocre in quality. Mona's greatest regret in this project is that she wasn't given more time to develop it into a longer serial of 25 episodes, although she had a lot more to say. Nanhi was produced within the same time and budget constraints as any other project of its length, proving that innovation is possible if only higher authorities give the green signal.

In Nanhi, we find a consistently gripping drama - not one episode can be skipped - and an expose of the bodies responsible for a social evil. Therein lies the magic of Nanhi, doing what television ought to be doing all along. And arching over all of this is the great achievement of any artistic endeavor: Nanhi gives us an actual slice of life in Karachi, showing us more of the real world than any monotonous saas bahu tit-for-tat.

Nanhi
*ing: Sajjal Ali, Shahood Alvi, Asma Abbas, Javed Shaikh, Anoushay Abbasi, Uroosa Siddiqui, Shamoon Abbasi and Shehroz Subzwari Director: Haseeb Hasan


Haseeb Hasan knows how to pair contrasts together. In a climactic scene, the audience is thrust into the dark brooding night of Shammo's first kidnapping, and the essential downpour is stalling the return of the baby's father, off to fetch blood for the mother in labour. Will he reach back in time? He doesn't, the baby is gone, the TV guys hound the man, feeding off his misery, and the anguish is almost too much to take. From this tense atmosphere, the audience is eased into the magical world of Nanhi, with warm hues and the soft, lilting sounds of a carousel. Here, it's nice, the action slows down, the baby is safe, and we have plenty of time to admire Nanhi, the looped brains, her colourful frock-like kameezes. But our hearts are still beating fast because we know something is amiss. A baby has been kidnapped. We're engrossed because they hooked us with the action-packed sequence and kept us engaged because they didn't overdo it with the rona dhona. The writer made the smart choice to keep the mother's suffering for the next episode. This sense of proportion is the main reason for Nanhi's gripping narrative. Mona has maintained a delicate balance of light moments, heated arguments, and nerve-wrecking escapes throughout the script.

Many things work in the drama serial's favor: in addition to the atypical storyline, it also boasts a star-studded cast, featuring veteran stars Javaid Sheikh as Allah Deeno, Shahood Alvi as Zaman, and Asma Abbas as Shammo Dai,  alongside the impressively versatile Sajjal Ali, who has won over audiences with her convincing rendition of the titular role. We see our favourite actors in a new light: Javed Shaikh in safari suits and with a Sindhi accent, an almost unrecognizable Asma Abbas (she got shoved around on the hospital set because people actually thought she was staff), and Sajjal as not quite the leading lady she usually is. 

Popular actors have been cast for even the minor roles, so we see Shamoon Abbasi as the corrupt cop and Shehroz Sabzwari as Shahid. And that's not the only reason the drama is a visual treat.

Haseeb Hasan has painted the quaint charm of the homes and streets of Kharadar with shots and sequences equalling cinematic loveliness. It's high time that local television leaves the grand spiral staircases and immaculate drawing rooms for the magazine spreads.

Shot in Kharadar, Burnes Road, and Keamari, Nanhi lays bare the “texture of poverty” in all its beauty, offering a richer visual experience than the picture-perfect mise-en-scene of the typical domestic drama. The opening shot of the rangoli-esque motif on the compound floor prepare us for the suffusion of color in the sets of Nanhi; this is not a Kharadar we've seen before on TV. Zaman is a walking stroke of color in his frames, with his flamboyant choice of shirts and truck art-laden Vespa. Nanhi and Chanda prance about in the brightest hues, striking a contrast with Shammo's sombre saris. The art direction is another reason why Nanhi will be difficult to forget.

I'm not a fan of the saccharine OST; somehow it doesn't gel well with the Picasso-inspired title sequence. Nanhi may be a drama about a child, but it's not targeting a child audience; it would have been best to lay off on the sweetness in the title track. But perhaps the makers wanted to keep a reminder of innocence in a play that became the most visceral reality check on Pakistan's airwaves.

After a hugely successful run on Geo TV, Nanhi will  be out soon on DVD.