International Childrens Film Festival India Concluded

ranian film 'Alafzar' (Meadow) bagged the Golden Elephant for the best feature film in the international category at the 17th International Children's Film Festival India which concluded here on 20 th November 2011. Hindi film 'Chillar Party' was adjudged the best feature film in the category of Indian films.

'Alafzar', directed by Mohammad-Ali Talebi, captures the struggle of two children, Ali and Nargis, who leave their childhood behind when their family falls into difficult times, while 'Chillar Party', directed by Nitesh Tiwari and Vikas Bahl, is about a gang of boys in a Mumbai colony.

The 'Great Indian Circus' got the second best feature film award in the India competition category, while it was 'The Ugly Duckling' which got the second best feature film award in the international category. The child jury adjudged 'The Crocodile Strikes Back' as the best feature film in the international category.

The International Children's Film Festival was on from November 14-20 in Hyderabad, the main venue being Shilparamam. Governor ESL Narasimhan, who spoke at the closing ceremony, made a plea to big directors and producers to keep some money for producing children's films. The colourful valedictory ceremony had performances by renowned artistes. State minister for I&PR D K Aruna and CFSI chairperson Nandita Das congratulated the winners and gave away some of the awards.

The Album of Life

There was once a world without you. Someone was celebrating your expected and awaited arrival and some bore hardships and pains to bring you into this world. With the first click you land into this place which is a beautiful masterpiece of the creator. You are an adorable baby, a joy to your parents who bear those sleepless nights and support your helplessness with unconditional smiles on their faces. Just with a few more flicks, you are a daring toddler of your proud parents who cherish the first steps of your independence and confident walk. Your mind tells you that you can do it but your body disagrees. This still developing co-ordination between your brain and body makes you stumble. But there is always a pair of gentle hands to pick you and tell you, ‘You can do it’. Those hands and reassuring hugs make you fearless and failures do not scare you. Falls and bumps don’t stop you from experimenting new challenges.

You talk silly and they kiss you. You do not make sense and they hug you. You trip and they lift you high. You scribble lines and they appreciate you with raised eyebrows and dropped jaws. You do most silly things to catch their attention and make your presence felt. You go cross if ignored and they try to please you with hugs and kisses, hide and seek, ‘horse-rides’ on their backs etc. You can’t share them with any other child as you are too possessive about them.

With a few more flicks you are a confident school going child. Exams are the most difficult days in one’s life, you think. But, they support you and celebrate when you get down the stage after a performance or winning a race. Their world revolves round you. Their sleeps, social life, work and holidays; you are one factor that affects all of these.

Life is changing for you. You feel you are big and smart enough to know everything; a teenager filled with energy. Something in you tells you that you can conquer the world. Your ideals begin to change. ‘No’ is the word you don’t like to listen but would use often. You see colours in your life and with a few more flicks you have another beautiful person to fit in frame with you and soon the cycle repeats. You have a little one of your own and you are overjoyed with this little cry and chuckle in the house.

This album of life is strange; an overlapping connected series of circles where we all are in different stages of the track.

The lovely hands which cuddled you are now wrinkly and those bright faces are now sagging. The legs, which ran with you on the shoulders, are now weak. They trip and topple. Despite their physical weakness, their support makes your life and career successful. They are entering into the last phase of their lives. They have started talking silly. They sometimes make no sense at all. Laugh, cry or shout for no logical reason. Sometimes their ‘childish’ and attention seeking behaviour disturbs you. They need someone to talk to, sit with them and hold their disjointed wrinkly hands without even asking for a word, or sometimes just a word of love and a gentle smile exactly like you did when were young and silly but adorable to them, remember?

‘And whomsoever We bring to an old age, We reverse him in creation (making him go back to weakness after strength); so do they not understand?’ [Al-Qur’an 36:69]

Life goes on and a day comes when they reach their finish line in the circular track of life. (The circle doesn’t stop for anyone). The beautiful hands, the shady trees under which you felt safe, the warm hugs that gave you confidence are no more.

If you had any sleepless nights because of them, and you got a chance to feed and clean them like they did when you were young, consider yourself as an extremely lucky person, although no one can return the debts of parents’ love and hardship; not even a single scream of the mother when she cried and tried to bring you to this world and smiled immediately after you came in her arms.

Another flick! You’re a weak elderly with your children running for a ‘successful’ life and you are sitting in an armchair, reading newspaper with those glasses on and a walking stick by your side. Your mind is still young and keeps reminding you the highly energetic life you spent which involved struggle, joy, grief, and celebration, disappointment and hopes. But your body doesn’t agree. You know everything that the world holds with people around you who think you know nothing, but they don’t realise they are just a few steps behind in the big circle of life.

The circle of life never stops. We don’t have a special eye to look at the future but our parents are a mirror of where life could take us. Our boasting energetic bodies and minds do not allow us to see that we’ll be in exactly the same state of feebleness, frailty and dependence if we live up to that age. Life is too fast and unpredictable and we are all running after ‘God-Knows-What’ with too little time to love each other. It’s the love and the loved ones who make life worth living. Let’s give our parents their rights, our love and respect. We can try to return at least 1% of what they’ve given us; sit with them, listen to them, obey them in Allah’s limits, smile at them, hug them often and feel the contentment and blessings of Allah that come our way. If we have this treasure and guaranteed entry to paradise and God’s pleasure, we shouldn’t waste our chance.

‘And your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him. And that you be dutiful to your parents. If one of them or both of them attain old age in your life, say not to them a word of disrespect, nor shout at them but address them in terms of honour. And lower unto them the wing of submission and humility through mercy, and say: “My Lord! Bestow on them Your Mercy as they did bring me up when I was young.” (Al- Qur’an 17:22-24)

‘Koel’- Stirring Emotions

‘Koel’ written by renowned pioneer of modern Urdu fiction Dr Enver Sajjad and directed by Kulsoom Aftab was presented at the ongoing NAPA Performing Arts Festival held in Karachi. This play was also produced for television under the direction of Saira Kazmi. Koel’s storyline was a beautiful blend of conflicting emotions, and the fusing of various shades of love, logic, rationality and loneliness.

The story revolves around a famous scientist, physicists Dr Waheed played by Adnan Jafar and an emotional, love struck student of science, Zarina played by Farheen Zehra and his butler, Saleem, who has been with him for 15 years and who has learned to work like a robot controlling his emotions as the doctor has ordered him. Saleem is only human and sometimes his feelings and attachment to Dr Waheed slip out for which he apologizes.

But the major character of this play is the koel bird, who predicts the changes in the emotions during the storyline. Dr Waheed has formed a bond with the bird, although he never mentions this. The way he interacts with it, sometimes talking to it, sometimes just by looking reveals how important she has become to her. Somewhere in the play, he also says he will not let her go….stepping out of his character. And then when he in a fit of emotion sets her free, he seems quite sad and disappointed. This reveals that he is human and has emotions no matter how latent.

But since to the logical and rational almost cold Dr Waheed, emotions have no place in his life, and would only hamper his path of work if he ever succumbs to them he fights with them and tries to keep within his shell.

Zarina, who is a highly emotional girl, believes she and Dr Waheed are made for one another; she claims that he just doesn’t know it yet. She stalks him but he refuses to acknowledge her, shunning her existence at the few meetings they have. Zarina tries to seduce him into the world of emotions by pleading to him and telling him that he is breaking her heart. Even this doesn’t melt Waheed’s heart.

Her desperation is seen when she tries to connect with spirits of other great scientist like Einstein and Isaas Newton through a Oujia board to ask for a solution but fails there as well. Despite all these failures, she is determined to make Dr Waheed fall in love with her.

Waheed who is completely devoid of emotion is unaware that she has made an impression on his subconscious and unbeknownst he develops feelings for her, which are alien for him and he feels frustrated. He seeks psychiatric help from an expert played by Nimra Bucha, who tries to unravel this complex cold personality.

Throughout this, the doctor’s bird the Koel sits quiet in her cage in his study, but with the entrance of Zarina and emotions in his life, the bird breaks its silence and starts singing. This is a beautiful depiction of changing of seasons or situations. The koel’s song is considered one of the most beautiful songs in this part of the world. Her voice is not only sweet, it is said that she sings out when the summer is becoming sweet with the blossoming of flowers, ripening of mangoes and everything is caught in a web of emotionality and sensuality.

The koel also plays an important role Dr Waheed’s life. Her sudden song surprises him, and it is at that moment that he realises that a change is near. And he is right, he evolves emotionally and his life is thrown into a different dimension of feelings. And his whole life changes…

Waheed’s life and work is affected by this new unexplainable phenomenon that Nimra Bucha tells him is love. Waheed is extremely upset since he considers love to be equivalent to death and tries to fight it but fails. The play ends with his death, and the spirit of Zarina, who died while pursuing the object of her love in an accident, telling his butler that now he couldn’t tell her that the doctor is not at home.

The butler insists, as he has been programmed by Dr Waheed, to tell the spirit of Zarina, ‘But the doctor is not home!’

The strong script, the wonderful acting skills of the actors and the use of lighting to highlight the different moods of the play was visually extremely interesting.

The title of Dr Enver Sajjad’s play – ‘Koel’ –brings back memories of lazy, delicious summer days, when the beautiful melodious voice of this bird reverberated from far away and one felt a strange sense of calm and happiness, snug in the comfort that life is simple and serene.

There are many myths and folklore attached to this melodious bird and many have held it in great reverence. People use to predict that a seasonal change would follow the chirping of this bird. Others held that the koel was calling out to its mate, and would play a game with her calling out and ‘asking’ her ‘Who is your mate?’ To which the bird would reply ‘Tu, Tu!’ (You, you.)

The play ‘Koel’ ends with the death of Dr Waheed, who fought love and succumbed, only to be transported to Zarina’s world where she claims no one can keep them apart now.

The threatre where the play was performed was jam packed revealing that a good performance supported by a good script will pull viewers away from the variety aired on TV

Pawnay 14 August – A Ray of Hope

Critics claim that theatre in Pakistan have lost its touch, men feel that the last place they would take their family would be to a theatre whereas this scribe felt that watching theatre is a waste of time as long as it is held on Pakistani premises. All perceptions fell flat as soon as I entered the Arts Council in Karachi to view Anwar Maqsood’s Pawnay 14 August, which is by far the most creative play ever written for theatre in Pakistan.

Unlike other plays, this one is all about the Pakistan we live in, where minorities don’t have proper rights, where corruption is the norm of the day, where the rulers don’t care whether the public survives or not. Anwar Maqsood’s play has a story that will touch the heart and mind of all those who witness it, as it is better than the bhashan the politicians give – be it Imran Khan or Nawaz Sharif, be it Pervez Musharraf or Yusuf Raza Gillani. It comes straight from the character we all love – Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah who visits Pakistan for four days and is accompanied by Allama Iqbal and Maulana Shaukat Ali.

The play revolves around these characters who talk about Pakistan all the time. While Maulana Shaukat Ali claims it as a failed state, Allama Iqbal is dealt blows by the passers-by who don’t recognize him but claim to be working as per his poetic instructions. Quaid-e-Azam stands tall in all this and as the play ends, he delivers a speech which brings all to tears. He says he is still hopeful of a better Pakistan and the new generation will steer the country away from corruption and into a brighter time.

The actors Umer Sultan, Talal Jilani and Aamer Agha must be commended on their impressive acting, as the three founding members of Pakistan. The director Dawar Mehmood also needs special mention since he came all the way down from Islamabad to deliver the message we all wanted to hear. Be it Quaid-e-Azam criticizing the Army Colonel for taking advantage of his position or Allama Iqbal having a stroke on watching Ali Azmat singing Khudi on TV, the play is full of moments that will make you cry and laugh. Although Pawnay 14 August is about to end this week, it has given people a ray of hope for better theatre in general, and a better Pakistan in particular.