Your weekly stories of Pakistan
What you missed last week.
We released a new podcast episode with award winning Pakistani film director, Saim Sadiq, which you can find on your favorite podcast app, YouTube or IGTV.
This week we thought back to our younger days watching Pakistani TV, and the actors and actresses that graced the TV screens. With the passing of Sean Connery , a Hollywood legend, just yesterday, we take a look at a few of our own.
We started with learning about some of the comedic legends of Pakistan.
Moin Akhter
Deemed the king of Urdu comedy, Moin Akhter was a man of many faces. He rose to fame in the era of Radio Pakistan.
Akhter was born in Karachi and began his acting career as child actor at the age of 13, playing Shylock in Shakespeare’s Mechant of Venice in theatre. He made his television debut in 1966, in a variety show on PTV to celebrate the first Defence Day of Pakistan. He started as a comedian in 1966 by impersonating the Hollywood actor Anthony Quinn and mimicked one of the former USA's president John F Kennedy’s speeches, and went on to perform several roles in television stage shows, over a career spanning 45 years.
With a keen observation and a natural knack for acting, impersonation, characterization, singing, and writing, he learnt several languages, including English, Bengali, Sindhi, Punjabi, Memoni, Pashto, Gujrati, and Urdu.
Akhter rose to the national spotlight and gathered critical acclaim for his performance in the drama Rosy, in which he played the role of a female TV artist. Rosy was an Urdu adaptation of the Hollywood movie Tootsie.
In the talk-show, Loose Talk, he appeared as a different character in each episode with a total of over 400 episodes interviewed by the TV host Anwar Maqsood. Akhter also briefly hosted the game show Kya Aap Banaingay Crorepati, the Pakistani version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. He hosted shows involving major personalities and performed on stage alongside legends.
After his death in 2011, his son, Sharjeel Akhtar writes about him, ‘from going to a fundraising show for children with cancer just 20 days after his own heart surgery; to selling his car to ensure his colleagues got their due payments; to borrowing from others to help strangers he had never met before; to spending many a night out on the roof talking to the stars, to downplaying his legacy so new faces could be elevated; to replacing burning tears with uncontrollable laughter, Moin Akhtar’s is a grand story.’
Anwar Maqsood
Anwar Maqsood is a scriptwriter, television host, satirist, humorist, and infrequent actor. Born in 1940, in Hyderabad, he studied at the Gulbarga Trust School in Aurangabad. In 1948, his family migrated to PIB Colony in Karachi. Following their move to Pakistan, Maqsood’s father died at 41, leaving ten kids behind.
Maqsood recalls that he once had to drill a hole in his wall so his grandmother could hear the daily news bulletin from the neighbor’s radio, because they couldn’t afford their own. Maqsood and his siblings started working at an early age to support themselves, where one of his sisters worked at Radio Pakistan, one taught, and another started making dolls.
He says, “We knew that these testing times will eventually pass if we continue to work hard. Our parents taught us to not lie and cheat and just be honest in our dealings. After that, it didn't matter to them what we did, be it writing, painting, sewing or radio. And this is exactly what ended up happening.” Interestingly, he derived his first income from selling kittens where he cut out some ribbons from his sister’s pink gharara, to tie to the kittens and sell them for Rs. 10, a hefty amount at the time.
Salvaging old clothes from the flea market at Lighthouse, he made cufflinks and ties and sold it to renowned figures from the entertainment industry. Later, Maqsood taught himself to paint and his canvases are part of many galleries, including at the National Art Gallery in Islamabad. A wearer of many hats, he has served the television industry for 55 years, producing works like Aangan Terha, Fifty Fifty, and Loose Talk.
He is also the recipient of awards like the Pride of Performance, Hilal-e-Imtiaz, and two Lifetime Achievement awards.
Maqsood’s whole family rose to fame, where his older sister Fatima Surraya Bajia was a well-known South Asian writer, whilst his sister Zehra Nigah grew to become a poet. His brother Ahmed Maqsood became the former Chief Secretary Sindh, and his sister Zubaida Tariq was the first celebrity chef of Pakistan. Bilal, Anwar Maqsood’s son, is a rock artist, lead guitarist and vocalist of the band Strings.
Bushra Ansari
Bushra Ansari was born in 1956 at Lady Dufferin Hospital, Karachi, to Mehmooda Begum and Ahmad Bashir, a famous journalist and filmmaker. At age 9, she made her television debut as a fairy on a live children’s program, ‘Kaliyon ki Maala.’ Mentored by the music teacher Amir Haidery, who she lovingly called Uncle Amir Haidery, she later started singing regularly and participated in college singing competitions, with encouragement from her father. After convincing her parents, Ansari performed as a singer and actor in a TV program, ‘Kaliyaan’ in Islamabad, where she was given the opportunity to showcase her talent for singing, acting and puppetry, where her puppetry performances as ‘Sharmeeli’ and for ‘Maasi Museebtay’ were a major hit.
In 1978, she acted in her first play, ‘Rishtay aur Rastay,’ where the director and later, husband, Iqbal Ansari, encouraged her to perform despite restrictions from family. After their move to Karachi in 1979, she delved into theatre acting and performed with well-known actors like Javed Shaikh and Talat Iqbal.
Her big break took place in 1980, for her performance in Fifty Fifty – ‘Bashira in Trouble,’ and, ‘Pyaar ki Aas Main Mann Doley,’ was critically acclaimed. After 1980, Ansari juggled multiple roles as a actor, singer, and writer of jingles (Naz Pan masala), plays (Neeli Dhoop), telefilms (Makaan) and drama serials (Mere Dard ko Jo Zubaan Milay, etc.). She also frequently partnered with Anwar Maqsood and Moin Akhtar – ‘Showtime’ co-hosted by all three was commended by audiences, and where Ansari produced the majority of her parodies of actors and singers like Madam Noor Jehan.
Ansari has won numerous awards during her career, including Best Actress (1986) and the Pride of Performance award.
We also thought to look at what we, in Pakistan, admire most of all.
Wrestling
Wrestling (کشتی) has been practiced for a very long time in Pakistan, mainly in the Punjab regions (Pehlwani), and in Sindh (Malakhra).
Pehlwani is a form of wrestling mainly based in Punjab. It was developed during the Mughal Empire by combining varzesh-e bastani (a traditional system of athletics originally used to train warriors in Iran) with malla-yuddha (a traditional form of combat-wrestling originating from the Indian subcontinent). Babur, the first Mughal emperor, was a wrestler himself and could reportedly run very fast for a long distance while holding a man under each arm.
Malakhra is the Sindhi form of sport wrestling. The match begins with both wrestlers tying a twisted cloth around the opponent's waist. Each one then holds onto the opponent's waistcloth and tries to throw him to the ground.
Pictured above is famous wrestler Ghulam Mohammad Baksh Butt. He was born in Amritsar in the Punjab Province of the colonial India in 1878, into a Kashmiri Muslim family of wrestlers. Known as The Great Gama, he was first noticed at the age of ten when he entered a strongman competition held in Jodhpur. Gama competed amongst 400 other wrestlers, was among the last fifteen and then named the winner of the completion by the Maharaja due to his young age. Later, he was awarded the Indian version of the World Heavyweight Championship, and went on to defeat freestyle wrestling champions across the world. Undefeated in a career spanning more than 52 years, he is considered one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. During the partition, the Great Gama saved the lives of many Hindus and then spent the rest of his days until his death on May 23, 1960 in Lahore, Pakistan. Bruce Lee was an avid follower of Gama's training routine and included his exercises into his own routine.
Cricket
Cricket is the most popular sport in Pakistan, and predates the creation of the country in 1947. The first ever international cricket match in what is now Pakistan, was held in Karachi on November 22, 1935 between Sindhi and Australian cricket teams. The match was seen by 5,000 Karachiites.
Cricket was introduced by the British during their colonial rule of British India, which covered the area of Pakistan. In the area that became Pakistan, the game remained almost wholly European until the end of the century and, even at independence in 1947, it was still relatively weak, with just two turf wickets in the whole country. Pakistan was not allowed to play full official test matches until 1952. Yet it then won the second test match it played, against India in India, and went on to beat England at the Oval in London in 1954, and Australia at home in 1956. Pakistan did not lose a test on home soil until 1959 and, over its first eight years, won eight out of 29 matches, losing nine. The first star batsman, Hanif Mohammad, broke records for slow scoring and was one of the early bonds of nationhood.
Pictured above: Wasim Bari and Hanif look on as England all-rounder D. Oliveria smashes one to the boundary during the 1967 series.
Since the 1950s, Pakistan has produced cricketers more gifted, and certainly more exciting to watch, than those early pioneers: Shoaib Akhtar, the "Rawalpindi Express" who is reckoned by some to have bowled faster than any man in history; Imran Khan, an all-rounder as good as Ian Botham; Shahid Afridi who has hit more sixes than anyone else in one-day internationals.
We leave you with a beautiful Dastaan by Qurban Niazi, recorded by our friends over at The Dream Journey.
PS: Save the date, Volume 4 will take place at 8pm PKT on the 15th of November.
Bohat sara pyar,
Dastaangoi Team.