On the 28th of September I read an article in Instep written by Ms Saba Imtiaz titled 'Shaan and Ali Azmat: Shooting themselves in the foot' The scribe in her pursuit of thrashing the two celebrities went far too ahead and over looked quite a lot of facts and realities. As the article had its share of accusations separately targeting Ali Azmat and Shaan, so I will also reply to them likewise.

Ali Azmat
The scribe criticised Ali Azmat for criticising the television industry (in her opinion). Now first of all the scribe should get herself clear on this front that Mr Ali Azmat's criticism was only targeted towards the sensationalised reporting of certain news channels and not towards the medium of television. At no point in his interview (the ones that have been referred to by the scribe) did he say that he was against the medium of television so please don't put it like that in order to strengthen your argument. Ali Azmat was open about his criticism of the sensationalism of the news networks and that is an opinion shared by quite a lot of Pakistanis. In no way does a certain leader leaving his house qualify as 'breaking news'.

The scribe is right when she said that "we are living in difficult times” - agreed, and that is all the more reason that news channels should be responsible enough while running their 'breaking news' logos with the (made to order) terrifying music in the background. Incidentally, the logo stays the same for a bomb blast, a political personality landing in a certain city or holding a news conference.

Secondly the scribe referred to a certain article published in Instep about music sales in which, a survey was done across a couple of shops in Karachi. Well here is some "breaking news”, Pakistan goes beyond Khadda market and while writing such an article one should do research in cities like Lahore, Rawalpinidi, Hyderabad, Faisalabad or Peshawar as well. I am sure they also have their share of music stores.
The scribe mentioned that Ali Azmat's popularity as a solo artist is in great part due to the music channels. Now as far as I know he never criticized the music channels so don't intermingle the news channels criticism with this. Now on the flip side, Ali Azmat has been making music since late '80s and in 2001 (when the first music channel came out) he was already a star and yes it happened when none of these music channels were around. As it is, it's a matter of "you scratch my back and I will scratch yours”. The music channels are also being run on the free software that they get from various bands and musicians and with this they fill up their 24 hour programming. Why don't they pay royalty to all these artists? (Now why would they do that?) This argument about musicians being in awe of music channels should be sold to new age bands or musical acts and not to stars like Ali Azmat, Sajjad Ali or Abrar ul Haq because they were there long time before the birth of these music channels… and were stars even then.

Shaan
The other target in that article written was film actor Shaan, who unlike Ali Azmat has always been criticized whenever an article is written on Pakistani cinema. The scribe quoted Shaan when he said "As far as Salman and Akshay are concerned, I just feel that they are less gifted but luckier, whereas I am more gifted and less lucky. I saw Asoka and also discussed with Shah Rukh Khan that he should have at least read a book on the historical character before doing so.”

Now if you ask anyone who has been a regular viewer of Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar movies and has also witnessed Shaan's body of work (not just in Khuda Kay Liye; he has done films like Sangam, Nikah, Mujhe Chand Chahiye, Ghoongat and Daku Rani as well) they can easily tell you who is a better actor. And what's the big deal if the biggest star of Pakistani cinema said that to a fellow superstar? After all doing research as an actor is something every actor should do before doing an epic movie.

The scribe went on to say that "the film industry has only been kept alive by old films that are still running in cinemas or work being done in the past few years by Shoaib Mansoor, Javed Sheikh and Mehreen Jabbar”. And this according to me is the biggest misinformation that she has.

Pakistani cinema is alive because of the so called "gujjar films” that they make. The so called torch bearer of the revival of cinema Khuda Kay Liye has been off Pakistani screens since the last 8-9 months (it released in June 07) and Ramchand Pakistani was taken off from more than 60 per cent of screens across the country after the first six days of its release - so much for revival! It is because of films like Majajan (which has been running in the cinemas for almost three years now) that the industry is still breathing. But why is it that so much is not written about Majajan? Maybe because it has not come out from the holy distribution network that "revives cinema” or why is it that no one has asked Shoaib Mansoor about the criticism he has made on the actors of his film while he was sitting in India, why only point the gun at Shaan?

And why is it that so much was being written about Ramchand Pakistani even before it was released but when writing about Shaan's film Zille Shah, the first sentence is "a typical Punjabi film” (Instep 02-10-08)? Shouldn't both unreleased films get an equal footing in publicity, especially when one has not seen Zille Shah as yet? If lack of knowledge concerning Pakistani cinema, its history or its reality is an ailment half the journalists writing about Pakistani cinema suffer from then they should not pass sweeping statements about it.

Conclusion
The idea behind writing this article was to point out the misinformation attached to the two respective personalities. If the scribe would have focused her criticism on the issue of Ali Azmat commenting on the lawyers movement or Shaan's statement concerning Mehreen Jabbar or Javed Sheikh, it would have been understood. But a wrong perception should not be given. I also have my share of disagreements with what they say or do but that does not mean that I take a dig at them for things they never intended or said.