Although paksitani media screen has always been dominated by drama serials. yet there have been few spectuecular long plays and serials also. When ne starts enumerating those classics the first and by far the best in line is “dramay” and Aur dramay” series. the series which kept on airing thorough out the 80’s by the name of Drama 83,drama 84 drama 85 and so on. today i am going to review one of the stalwarts of these plays “Ghanti” from Drama 85.
Muhammad Nisar Hussein(M.N.H) was one of the most astounding directors of television for paksitan. I am a bit biased being one of his students but a more irrefutable testimony to this comes from the fact that all his plays are a part of the crrriculam of Indain academy of dramatic art at Pune, the german universities of Frankfort and Berlin and also at Vienna. He was a remarkable genius and way ahead of his time in the concepts of drama making.
Ghanti was a simple story. it was about a government officer who rretires and suddenly discovers that he has suddenly down graded to jsut an old man who is lving in the house. then his status is on a down ward spiral. the house members which include his son , daughter in law and grand children grow weary of him and leave him only to the house servant. Then one night when the servant is on leave he is being attended by his son. there is a bell(ghanti) in his room which he rings . his son is annoyed by his calling him again and again for petty issues then on the urging of his wife one time he puts the bell out of the reach of his father. next morning the whole house hold waked up to find the grand father dead.
The story was simple but knitting of scenes was flawlessly done. The sequences were subtle and really moving. Qavi Khan played suc an adorable father. Firdaus jamal was picture perfect as his son and Samina peerzada pulled another stellar performance as the son in law. The execution was very symbolic. the old man’s friends were used beutifully to depict his miseries. the drama included a beautuful sound tracjk as well. a really emotional ghazal specially one shair ” woh jo geet tum ne sunaa nahi meri umer bhar kaa riaz thaa meray dard ki thi woh dastaan jisse tum hansi main uraa gaye”. it really affected the heart and realted so well with the theme.
the play had a really strong and relevant message that how the old age makes the parents dependent on children again and they actually start behaving like a kid but the same kids are not able to put up with them at all.
