Saturday, November 27, 2010

Producing a documentary-Chatpata Karachi.

It was a fine cool evening.Dark sky embedded with stars was definitely going to make our time memorable. Though it was natural of us to feel nervous and tensed,excitement was still at peak.
We four with our cameraperson "LALA RUKH"(The only female cameraperson of Pakistan,who formerly worked at Geo TV network) eneterd in car to move ahead. Our destination was Boat Basin's Food Street.

A month back we were assigned to produce a 10 minutes documentary on any interesting topic.We all know that Paksitani population donot welcome documentaries very well.Therefore the most tough job for us was the selection of a topic.We wanted a topic which could attarct anyone's attention and would make them glued with the screen until it ends.After few disputes, we all selected a topic "Chatpata Karachi". Yes, now its your turn to imagine about all those sizzling spicy foods,sweet aromas, and mouth watering foods of Karachi.

Yummy spicy Chicken karahi,tasty glistening Nehari, Simply a piece of art-showarma etc were the tempting sights and treat to our taste buds.Decent desi style set-up with wooden takhats and pillows in an open air food street were quite welcoming for us.However, today we were out not for thrusting up our tummies with these uncountable "mon u salwa" but to shoot a documentary. Lala Rukh fetched me back from my fantasy world where i was a queen and my royal servants were serving me B.B.Q in gold plates and silver crockery.

Lala Rukh placed her tripod stand and fixed camera to take some best shots,covering the food street.We learnt how to take angles, close shots and long shots.We then got busy in taking interviews from the people who were enjoying the delicious food.It was our first experience of immediate interaction with so many different people but it was simply awesome. We also met a couple of French and it was fun talking with them. I loved when one of them,so full of energy, said. "I love Pakistan, and Pakistani food".
  
After the food street we covered Lal qila restaurant and few others.It was a fun filled experience under the leadership of experienced and a polite camera person Lala Rukh!

I love Karachi!
 
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Friday, November 12, 2010

Colours of Autumn.

Ilove autumn but my luck i have never enjoyed autumn in real *sighs*.Pakistan has four seasons but i donot think that autumn with its full colours ever come in Pakistan.Similarly being the khi-iet i have neither enjoyed full winters nor autumn and spring.Its 10 months summer, one month warm-up for winters :D and finally winters for A month only
I have a little collection of autumn pictures from different parts of the world and i pray for all of you who feel like being at these places, that may Allah bring us all there where all the weathers are at their full blooms.









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Sunday, November 7, 2010

War of glamour by Pvt Media sector

 Since after the bombardment of private TV channels over Pakistani media a war of fashion and glamour has been started.Our norms and values which are the speciality of eastern culture,seem to be disappeared somewhere in the debris of nudity and unethical advertisements(mostly inspired from the neighbouring country).

The family friendly network PTV has also lost its value and viewrship in the past few years.All the good writers,directors and producers moved towards the private media sector.Though the technology has improved and the quality of work has been enhanced, we are still coming down instead of going up.Pakistan is unfortunately a third world nation but the drama industry of Pakistan which is no doubt quite flourishing these days gives totally an opposite view of Pakistan.A state with 15.20% (2009 est)of unemployment, and 12.69% (june 2010)inflation,cannot bear the unnecessary load of glamour.A nation where interest rate is 13% and exchange rate is 86.1200 with the promotion of rich and wealthy culture (confined to the limited population of pakistan) can not build mentally healthy children for the future of our society.A World Bank report titled ‘Sparing lives, better reproductive health for poor women in South Asia’ has revealed that Pakistan’s 37.4 per cent children under the age of five are malnourished.With such alarming rate of poverty and unemployment how can we expect that our MODERN drama industry isnot widening the gap between haves and havesnot?

Policies have changed and rules have been modified after the private sector jumped to occupy its space.Westernization is now considered as modernization.Well-fournished glamourous buildings, lavishly designed expensive costumes and dolls like models lay a negative impact on the minds of people belonging to middle-class families.It gives birth to the world of fantasy and imagination in the subconsious of growing children.In old times elederly people would keep an strict eye on the reading habbits and reading material of the children in order to protect them from unethical and bad literature.This effort would be made only to build a mentally and physically a healthy child.Similarly, same should be done in this fastest world of electronic media where thousands of channels are just a pressing of a button away.

Moreover, parents should be very careful about the cartoons their kids watch.Chota bheam and Hanuman,are the cartoons made for indian children as it promotes Hiduism.It must be a good effort of indian media for their children,not for us.It is noticed,that Pakistan has now become a land where everyone has closed his/her eyes from their responsibilities including sacred relations like parents and teachers.As a result our children know more about Hinduism than Islam.When parents dance on a movie song infront children,than what else can we expect from such children except bad attitude,lack of respect for elders and bad language?

These are the growing fears which should be thought upon,if we want a BETTER PAKISTAN!

References:
Rate of unemployment in pakistan
Inflation and echange rates
Poverty rate in pakistan
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