A banker by profession, Salim Ansar has a passion for history and historic books. His personal library already boasts a treasure trove of over 7,000 rare and unique books.
Every week, we shall take a leaf from one such book and treat you to a little taste of
history.
BOOK NAME: Pakistan Cinema - 1947-97
AUTHOR: Mushtaq Gazdar
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
DATE OF PUBLICATION: 1997
The following excerpt has been taken from Page: 22-23/85-86
A DECADE OF ENDURANCE 1947-56
“Economically and socially Pakistan is a heterogeneous community, a conglomeration of tribal, feudal, and urban values that occasionally interact, but otherwise each sustains itself within its own sphere of influence. This multicoloured society is enriched by a common historical and geographical background that dates back to two and a half millennia before Christ; yet its political sovereignty, confirmed only half a century ago, is expressed through orthodox ideology, displaying interesting paradoxical characteristics. The masses however, have always been prone to the tolerant and unbiased sufi traditions rather than the strict fundamentalist outlook of the puritans.
“Linguistically, each of its four provinces (five to begin with; in 1971 East Pakistan became the independent state of Bangladesh) has its own distinct features with Punjabi, Sindhi, Pushto, Balochi and Seraiki as the five major developed languages, embellished with poetry and literature. But circumstances and political expediency adjudged English, a legacy of the colonial British Raj, as the official language and Urdu, a symbol of Muslim identity, as the national or link-language. Neither the official nor the national language is the mother tongue of the vast majority of inhabitants.
“Prior to the division of India, the region from Peshawar to Patna along with Delhi, Haryana, and Punjab was known as the ‘northern territory’ in film distribution circles. The area comprising East and West Pakistan had a population of seventy million, with the more urbanized western wing having a larger cinema network. Most cinema houses were in cities and townships where Urdu was the main language of communication between different communities. In 1946, a year before Partition, altogether 144 films were released in the region which later became Pakistan. Of these 144 films 107 were from Bombay, twenty-four from the UK and USA, four from Calcutta and only nine were produced in Lahore. Since the indigenous Pakistani film industry was too small to cope with the demand of local theatres, the prevailing film exhibition pattern continued in the post-independence period as well. However, social strife and personal hazards forced many well-established Hindu and Sikh film distributors to flee Pakistan somewhat hurriedly. Major distributors, expecting to return on normalization of conditions, left their business, in the hands of employees or minor associates.
“Unrestricted imports of Indian films kept cinema houses running, thereby providing a big chunk of business for Bombay producers and their local distributors such as Eid Mohammad, Agha G. A. Gul, J. C. Anand, Nisar Murad, Bari Malik, Hakim Ali Sheraz and others. As expected, the distributors’ lobby of Indian films soon clashed with the filmmakers who had migrated from India and were striving hard to finance their productions. Normally, film distributors underwrite a good part of the production budget; but for the importers of Indian films, this meant risking their own business besides annoying their principals in Bombay. For the filmmakers the only course of action was to assert themselves by persuading the government to impose some sort of restriction on Indian imports. However, the timing was not quite propitious for this particular lobby. The Press, which was getting advertising revenues from Indian films, gave lukewarm support to their cause. Some Urdu papers did try to help but made little progress. The financial power of the distributors was felt everywhere.”
S. M. YUSUF - ACTOR, DIRECTOR & PRODUCER
“S. M. Yusuf, a successful film maker who had a long list of successful ventures to his credit, came onto the Pakistani scene with a bang. Born in 1909 at the suburb of Thane in Bombay, he was attracted to stage drama and the cinema. His early career started in Shakespearean theatre, playing side roles in Hamlet, Merchant of Venice, and Romeo and Juliet with other young toiling actors of the time like Prithvi Raj, Jagdesh Sethi, Sonalni Devi sister of Sarojini Naidu, a notable anti-colonial activist and exponent of Hindu-Muslim unity. His debut as stage director was in Agha Hashar Kashmiri’s Nek Parveen. He himself played the role of a woman as no girl was ready to act in his play. His film career took off as director of Rangeela Mazdoor, an action-packed ‘B’ class movie, with Harish Chandara as hero, an Anglo-Indian actress, Violet Cooper as the heroine, and Agha and Shahnawaz in supporting roles. His salary increased from Rs 75 to 125 per month for Rangila Jawan with the same cast except for the heroine, Asha Lata, who was the first wife of well-known music director Anil Biswas. Later Yusuf earned fame as director of family tear-jerkers like Darban, Nek Parveen, Pak Daman, Grahasti, and Gumashta. His last film in Bombay was Mehndi with Jaishree (of Shakuntala fame) playing the heroine against Ajit.
“Seeing the emerging market in Pakistan forced Yusuf to bid adieu to Bombay fourteen years after independence, but in Pakistan, the consummate film makers came out with flying colours in his very first undertaking - Saheli. It was based on the oft-repeated eternal love triangle. Two women fall in love with the same man as a result of sheer coincidence.
“Normally in such cases, one of the women would exit from the scene. Saheli had an atypical but true to life ending for this part of the world. The threesome resolve their problems through a polygamous agreement to live together happily thereafter as wives and husband. It was a well thought-out proposition, well within the limits of Shariat (religious tradition) and permissible by the Censor Board as well. Saheli was a tremendous success and won five President of Pakistan medals of appreciation in different categories. Such official recognition of the country’s film has never been a regular feature.
“Pakistani cinema has sustained itself with the endeavour of those who learned their lessons the hard way, through the factories of studios, working with master craftsmen like S. M. Yusuf. Yusuf made another fourteen films in Pakistan, including Aulad (film in which Yusuf introduced Waheed Murad as an actor), Dulhan, Ashiana, Eid Mubarak etc. His last film Nek Parveen made in 1974 was a re-make of his 1944 box-office hit and family melodrama by the same title. The old formula was out of tune with the changing social realities, the film could not make it to a box office hit and with this came to an end the career of a pragmatic film maker. Much before this his son, Iqbal Yusuf, established himself as a potential inheritor of the legacy of the old master.”
