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Lucknow?s fiza: Islamabad?s serendipity
NOT CHIKAN or zardozi, Lucknow has drawn attention this time for its Muharram rituals. And panning the camera is a two-man crew from Serendip Productions, a television software company in Islamabad.
NOT CHIKAN or zardozi, Lucknow has drawn attention this time for its Muharram rituals. And panning the camera is a two-man crew from Serendip Productions, a television software company in Islamabad.
“The inputs we are gathering from here are for a documentary on this annual feature and the way it is observed in the sub-continent,” informs Haroon Shuaib, who interviewed the city’s youth, covered majlis, recorded marsiah and captured the mourning period in all its heart-wrenching detail, the various kinds of maatam, et al.
It is the first time he and his teammate Rizwan Ahmed Bhatti, who handles the camera, are visiting India. “We made it a point not to miss the opportunity to visit our neighbouring country when the assignment came our way,” says Rizwan, who has left Pakistan a number of times to film life and events in various parts of the globe.
Haroon springs a surprise when he tells you that he is qualified in Fiqh and has practised consultancy in matters related to the Shariah (Islamic Juriprudence). “My brothers are both in the Army and I was the one who strayed for a career as offbeat as in media,” says Haroon, the youngest member of his family, who has been into TV production for the last over nine years. He has executed several global projects including one that required him to stay in the UK for three months sizing up the diaspora of Indian and Pakistani Muslims there and their conflict with the mainstream.
“Closest to our heart is our ten-minute documentary on victims of the Kashmir earthquake,” choruses the duo. “There was no play of words. Plain depiction of the plight and predicament of the quake-hit. It brought tears to the eyes of Kofi Annan who had been invited to a Donors’ Conference at Islamabad.”
Their job throws up challenges as varied as from setting up a forum to bridge the gap between disaster victims of 1960 Kashmir who migrated to UK and their roots back home to encapsulating all the vibrant hues and moods of Punjab in all of four days. “We get marching orders and within hours find ourselves exploring terrain we have never seen in our dreams,” says Rizwan, whose grandparents migrated from India at the time of Partition.
“Obviously, the Indians don’t know as much about the goings-on in our country as we do about India,” says the erudite Haroon, who loved the “subtle and effectively undertoned” Rang De Basanti and found Veer-Zara predictably “lousy”.
The surprise is his praise of the bohemian Salaam Namaste. “If something (refering to growing trend of live-in relationships) is happening, what’s the harm in depicting it?” says the happily-married-father-of-one who makes a living out of documenting fact.
Their mega project, a light and sound show ‘Anarkali’, got Punjab CM Amarinder Singh to invite them to India to stage it in New Delhi. “We are working out the modalities with ICCR in Dilli and hope to stage it jointly with Indian artistes sometimes in April,” says Haroon, signing out with “It would be great to be back in India and perhaps Lucknow too!”
