Lollywood and Zee Cine Awards

Part of the fallout of the peace process as it gingerly moves forward, is going to be reflected in the severe disparity that many areas will throw up before long. Almost as a curtain raiser, the Zee Cine Awards held in Dubai last month cruelly exposed the limitations of the few stars we had sent to represent our film industry. After their somewhat shaky appearance with the likes of Shahrukh Khan, there followed a spate of letters in the newspapers moaning about the quality we exported for the star event. The general consensus — the only consensus we have had since 1958, was that rather than send the clowns who represent our tottering, ragged film industry, it was better to send no one at all. If this was Pakistan’s cream, it obviously smelled.

I mercifully missed out most of the show, but was able to see the bit where a red Resham nervously swiped at her hair for almost all the time she was trapped on the big stage with Shahrukh. She was just as much at home they’re under the lights as a hippo at the Bolshoi Theatre and nervously twitched as Shahrukh gently picked her without really intending to, exposed her naive and amateur status. The loud and rather pointless claim of 100 films in 8 years was banal as all it drew from the Indian icon was the rather cutting remark whether the country did anything else. If Ms Resham of the flicking hair thought that her 100 films would put her on the same pedestal as the Indian actor, she should have thought twice, but that I guess would be putting too much pressure on the lady who has not thought for quite some time. Probably what Shahrukh did not know was what exactly are the 100 films she has done. He can ask us and also forgive us if we tell him that of the 100 none are worth mentioning. All are blood-curdling dramas that glorify gore, killing and mayhem, made by men who all hail from the tribe of Gujjars. Obviously, the milk business is paying.

Resham showed some sense in keeping her mouth tightly closed. Had she spoken more, she would have only exposed herself more. Mercifully, Shahrukh cracked a few jokes, one slightly off colour, all more or less at the expense of the hapless sex siren of our disabled film industry and then it was all over. Mr. Umer Sharif, an original name if ever there was one, dallied forth with his Indian counterpart and the public reports suggest that he managed to hold on a bit and gave about just as good as he got. He is a great favourite of the local scene and draws quite a gathering when he performs which is about thrice a night. Most of his jokes are aimed at ridiculing women and putting them down, an effort that draws great response from the largely male, audiences that throng to his shows. On the one occasion that I was trapped to listen to him, it was pretty obvious the man had a problem with women. There are only so many sexist jokes you can make and with Mr. Sharif there seems no stopping. After a while, they begin to drag and what follows should best be confined to the dustbin. The other luminous star we sent to the Zee Awards was someone called Javed Sheikh who is supposedly rated high amongst the male stars most in demand, a sort of local Tom Cruise. He has jowls, is clearly overweight. If he spoke that evening, I didn’t see. Hopefully, he stayed glued to his seat where he must have lowered himself at some point in the long evening. That sort of summed up the Pakistani contingent. If there were more stars out there, I missed them, which might just about be the one lucky break I have had this year.

Had we not sent these bright things to Dubai, whom else could we have sent? Had Meera arrived there, she would have insisted on speaking English and that would have brought the house down (and killed many people). There are many who believe that it was Meera who uttered the famous one liner about M.C. Donald being her favourite restaurant. Likewise, it is reported that Nirma who is a dancing starlet or a starring dance let, said about herself that she had a ‘ground to earth personality.’ Another Pakistani screen siren commented that she always shopped at ‘S.T.Mitchells.’ The fact is that there is hardly anyone who can be exposed overseas and emerge looking good. Over the years, our film standards have continued to plummet to new depth and with it the quality of the stars we churn out in the stables that feed the industry. There was a time when we actually had stars with star quality. In their hey days Mohammad Ali and Zeba cut a dashing figure, Waheed Murad was clearly an icon, as were the Nadeems, Shabnams, Sabihas and Santosh Kumars, but that was then. What has replaced them is tinsel and very cheap tinsel at that. It is not a sin to be clueless in the English language, but when you abandon your own native idiom and go swimming in the big wide ocean, then you are going to drown, often without a trace. All those who come from the wrong side of the tracks and work hard to overcome their shortcomings, have to ensure that they can at least speak passable English — not because it is the language of the elite but because it is the language of modern communication. Ian Chappell cannot be expected to speak in Punjabi so that Inzi can understand what he is saying, but Inzi can learn enough English to get by. The Reshams, Meeras and Nirmas have to firm up their dodgy English speaking skills and actually engage tutors to ensure they don’t make asses of themselves every time they open their mouth. What they have to comprehend — I understand fully well that it is a difficult thing to comprehend, is that they also, willy nilly represent their country and the mess they make on stage, has a direct bearing on our image, which we all know is severely in need of Botox treatment. There is enough new technology around to teach anything, even to a grown up, ignorant turnip. Simply yelling, ‘No you shut up,’ or the other evergreen favourite, ‘You bloody,’ is not going to get you very far. On a stage like Dubai, you float or you sink and Resham sank like a sack of potatoes.

The system, which throws up the current crop of starlets and other species, is rotten anyway. A visit to any film studio will put the fear of God in most people. Crawling with last century’s sets, the broken, ramshackle, ruins of floors, with peeling plaster, dangling sound insulation, archaic wiring and lights and human beings on their last unhappy legs, the very sight chills the soul. How can beauty, art, quality and sophistication ever emerge from here? How can these dank, dark and forlorn halls produce riveting cinema? The industry has been dead a long time, snuffed out by its own poisons and what comes out of those rusted gates is all the star power we have. No Charlize Therons here, no Johnny Depps. Just bimbos and jocks hopelessly lost on the world’s stage.