At the outset, I’ve nothing against Pakistani films. I love going to cinema every now and then. Nothing can match the romance of the torch-holding man leading you to your seats in the dark hall as you try to balance your popcorn and soda, and then happily sitting with no distraction for the next two hours or so.

I can safely claim I’ve watched at least half of the Pakistani films released in the last five years, some out of sheer curiosity and excitement, some for academic purposes alone (especially, the ISPR-sponsored ones). On this Eid, I had to watch one since all cinemas close to my home were showing only Pakistani releases.

What is bothering me of late is this silly talk of how we must all support Pakistani cinema. This isn’t the first time I am hearing this; it must be the umpteenth such call in the last 30 years.

It has often been preceded by a statement: "Pakistani cinema is on the verge of revival." By revival it is obviously meant there existed a golden period -- could be in the 1950s, ’60s or the ’70s depending on who you’re talking to -- which was then lost and is now going to be revived.

But for it to revive, we the people must be ready to do our bit. Oh, and most agree that the loss of golden period happened in the 1980s -- a decade that is known for a cult film like Maula Jutt.

A lot has happened since. The calls for revival were followed by a near collapse of the industry and demolition of cinema houses.

Fast-forward to the present and the more recent demand that all Pakistanis must support their cinema. Somehow, this just puts me in a bind. I can’t understand why must we go and watch mediocre stuff just because it is made in Pakistan and how these patriotic invocations would help the industry in the long run.

I can understand how important the business side is to this particular art form. So, a few hundred thousand people in the few dozen fancy screens in urban metropolises may help the producer recover his cost and maybe make some profit, too. But where’s the incentive to produce a better film? Watching a bad film and helping the producer make profits out of it will lead him and others to produce more films of the same quality.

Okay, I do understand the industry making such calls in lieu of advertising its product, even if selling the film involves seeking narrow nationalistic sentiments. To some extent, the euphoria among the Pakistani diaspora is understandable, too. But to me, the viewer here and abroad, ought to be more discerning. After all, if making a film is expensive, so is cinema-going.

I am discounting how the cine-going culture was revived here by the smart entrepreneur; by importing Bollywood films that were popular anyway among the Pakistani public. Once the people of a certain class got into the habit (of going to a cinema of a certain variety), the new-age, educated Pakistani filmmaker was encouraged into experimenting with the local film.

Yet, the challenges for this new filmmaker are huge. The competition is tough and the trappings of an industry non-existent. The support-Pakistani-cinema brigade insists once the industry becomes big, there will be a multiplier effect and so on and so forth.

My point is that it is not easy to minimise India’s comparative advantage. Here we have an industry next-door, speaking about similar problems as ours in a language that’s almost our own and much more successfully because its own golden period is simply unending.

So, what are we left to do? Not make films at all? Try to make crude Bollywood copies? Or carve a niche of our own? I suggest the last as the best option which luckily has already been tried.

But that won’t happen till we keep trying to protect ourselves from competition, till we don’t let the best films from the world be screened here and learn from them.

Alongside all this, we must all realise a good film can’t be made or enjoyed in a milieu where film-watching remains an exclusive activity. The middle classes as the makers and consumers of films will not an industry make. Even in the nostalgic golden age, in the stalls, galleries and boxes, the class distinction was palpably visible. But at least they all breathed and felt and heard each other under one roof for those two hours. I could go on and on…

Remember there once was something that earned recognition as ‘Pakistani drama’. It achieved excellence not because people supported it as their product. It was an excellent product to start with, watched by all for this very reason.

Let the Pakistani cinema find its own feet.