THE NEWS INTERNATIONAL: You
(Vol. 3; No. 11), 1993
"Women and Cinema in Pakistan
The cinema of woman has yet to be
born in Pakistan. Our films, as they come, are fantasies created
by men and those which attain popular acceptance (the box-office
hits) could be considered as the fantasies of a people. To see
how women appear in these collective daydreams can be very interesting.
But let me add quickly how I see the value of cinema before
you put down this article. I think, regardless of its artistic
value a cinema by definition is a cultural document. The immense
amount of cellutape produced over the forty-five years of history,
if properly organized, can be used as a resource for the study
of our collective psychology.
A study of Pakistani cinema through
its history allows us to trace some patterns between the images
of women appearing in it. It seems as if the heroines of Saat
Lakh (1958), Armaan (1966), Aina (1977)
and Kalay Chore (1990) present four basic models and
the rest of the female characters appearing in thousands of
movies during the forty-five years simply identify with one
of them. These movies have been the most popular ones of their
respective decades. They also tell us that the people of one
decade accepted a model quite different from that of another
for their fantasy.
Kausar, the heroine of Saat
Lakh is an heiress to a large estate and not the type of
girl who would take on the matrimonial mantle easily —
apparently she is too aware of the snares of sex and the wicked
ways of the world. But as her late father's will deprives her
of his assets unless she marries, she decides to hire a man
who would simulate the role of her husband. However, the chemistry
of sex begins to work soon after she finds a man who is willing
to take on the role she has mapped out and she finds herself
terribly attracted to the man whom she had coerced earlier into
taking vows of celibacy. Complications develop from the mistakes
made by the heroine and it takes the other half of the movie
and the life of the side-heroine (an honest nautch
girl) to resolve them. In the process we are made witness to
her torment and remorse; to the melting of her indifference
and apathy into submission and tender longings.
On the screen the role was enriched
by the innocent playfulness and natural bewilderments of Sabiha
Khanum. The conflict within the character was brought out in
the now proverbial song:
Ghoonghat uthaloon keh ghoonghat
nikaloon:
Sayyanji ka kehana mein manoon keh taloon?
As we compare Kausar with characters
from other films of the period, we find several common features
between them. Inexperience, to name one. Also naivete, playfulness
and innocence, and the dependence of all these women on a man
for their understanding of the outside world as well as their
own personal feelings. With movies like Saheli (1960)
started the evolution of another type of women.
This was a woman profound and
prudent who would not owe her knowledge of the world to her
man. The personal talents of Nayyar Sultana and Shamim
Ara contributed to the development of this brand of women,
but the image was never more perfect, more vivid and more widely
accepted than as Najma the heroine of Arman (played
by Zeba).
Najma, an orphan, living in the
home of her wealthy but less than kind relatives. Her status
is reduced to that of a house-maid, but she does not care about
her less than pleasant living conditions as long as she has
a home to live in. Happily, she goes out to fetch vegetables
and escort her rich cousins whenever they want to step out.
When one of them gives birth to an illegitimate child. Najma
skillfully takes charge of the matter, arranging for the baby
to live without being discovered. Later, when she meets the
'right' man she accepts his proposal without much hassle. As
their marriage is about to take place, the baby is discovered,
thanks to the villainy of Najma's jealous aunt. In order to
save her cousin from disrepute, she acknowledges the baby as
her own thus exposing herself to a horde of troubles including
humiliation and rejection by her lover. Her miseries keep mounting
until a fortunate stroke of luck resolves the plot and everyone
comes to know what a nice girl she is. The hero is about to
toss himself off a cliff as a storm rages when she reaches all
the way up and saves him bringing him back to life.
What strikes the viewer here is
the woman's control over everything that is happening around
her. While we see her being ridiculed and rejected by her people,
we are also aware that it is of her own choice that she has
accepted this position: to save her cousin. She is the one who
could have changed the situation at any point in the movie.
Then why doesn't she? Firstly,
because she is too generous to do so. The nobility of her soul
stops her from letting down the cousin whose family once gave
her shelter in their home. Secondly, she is mature and prudent.
Unlike the single-minded Kausar, she can see more than one aspect
of reality — love, honor, gratitude, family, values, life,
each of which is important in its own place. It is very carefully,
perhaps with some calculations, that she gives one of these
for the others. And she never breaks down. In the midst of her
crisis she can tell the hero to "hold your tongue! I may
not be fit to live among the nobles, but I am better than many
of them."
Naturally, such a woman could
mean a lot to those around her — especially the hero.
Our man here is Waheed Murad (playing the role Nasir in the
film), the male Kausar. In Arman it is he who is running
away from the responsibilities of marriage in the beginning
and who is destined to mature into a more thoughtful person
towards the end. And the woman is the agent of this metamorphosis.
Perhaps there is little exaggeration in his acknowledgement:
Diya hosla jis nay jeenay ka
humkoe
Woh ik khoobsurat sa ehsas hoe turn
Jo mittey nahin dil say turn woh yaqin ho
Hamesha joe rehti hai woh aas ho tum
Akalilay na jana....'
Although she brings so much to
him, Nasir does not head the list of her priorities. It is the
family, or the home, which must come before everything else.
Her commitment to this insitution cannot be questioned or sought
to be explained: it is because it is. While her aunt turns a
villain, scraping away each bit of happiness from the tables
of her fortune, she still can not let her down because the house
once gave (her) shelter as (she) needed it. This is then, the
dilemma of Najma and it is captured in the famous song at the
end of the movie:
Her ik more per hain rivajone
kay pehray
Magar log jeetey hain inn mushkilo mein
Hai jin ke nahin koi unn ka Khuda hai.
Yeh dukh yeh udasi, yen ansoo yeh aahein.
chalay aao mill kay yeh gham baant lein gey...
Various traits of Najma are reflected
in the other movies around the same period. Zeba, Shamim Ara
and Shabnam in their stereotyped roles would play it well in
films such as Doraha(1967) Andaleeb (1969)
etc'.
The 70's saw a third type of woman
being accepted by the public as their ideal fantasy; the bad
girl who was fond of going out and did not care much about family
matters. She had been present in our films for a long time —
the vamp in the earlier movies like Dil Mera Dharkan Teri (1967)andAag(1967).A
better understanding of this girl developed through movies like
Mohabat Zindagi Hai (1975) until the legendary Aina (1977) transformed
her into a heroine. Rita (played by Shabnam), the heroine of
the '70s is actually the bad girl of the 60's. She speaks English,
dresses up in western ensembles, shakes hands with men, drives
about town alone late at night and when we are introduced to
her for the first time, she is drunk. Then we are entertained
to the insides of her bedroom and bathroom and the scene where
she sleeps in the bathtub. Rita and her lover are not conventional
in their love-talk either.
"Na baba. Mujhe shadi ki
koi jaldi nahin hai” says the boy.
“Lekin muihe to hai” says the girl.
When the rich father tries to
be traditional with “yeh shadi nahin ho sakti” Rita
finds its quite natural to leave his house and arrange the marriage
herself. “Log kiya kahein gey” is not something
that comes high on her agenda of worries. "What will they
say, no more than that I eloped with you or that you took me
away," she explains to a scrupulous hero. Simple as that.
No wonder she sings.
Mujhe dil say na bhulana
Chahay rokay yeh zamana
The trials of this woman arise
from her personality clash with her husband. The scheming father,
availing this opportunity to the hilt plans to get the two separated
and succeeds for some time. He even takes away her child letting
her believe that the baby is dead while all the time the child
is under the care of its father. However, when Rita discovers
the truth, she not only returns to her husband and child but
also slaps her father in his face. (What would have Najma thought
of her?!)
It is with the woman of the 70's
that we see the disruption of family as an institution. To her
neither her parents nor her own home is a sanctuary. But motherhood
is still important to her. She turns almost mad when her child
is taken away and cannot be consoled until it is brought back
to her. Let us not forget though, that she had conceived this
child against the wish of her own parents.
As Rita was spawning off her clones
in other movies, a fourth and completely different type of woman
was emerging. Action films were gaining momentum and movies
such as Parakh (1978) and Miss Hong Kong (1980) were in the
making. The action oriented heroine grew in popularity with
the advent of the violent eighties.
When perfected in Kalay Chore
(1990) the most popular movie since Aina this heroine became
a combination of an Amazon and Venus: a Mata Hari. She could
fight and seduce the lecherous males at the same time. Neeli
played the dual roles of Lachi and Honey, but they need not
be seen as two roles: they are merely two reflections of the
same image. Lachi-Honey portray that a woman can face sexual
advances without feeling the least bit hassled, spew vulgar
phrases and make obscene gestures without a qualm and she can
also defend herself with firearms and karate when the need arises.
Honey is formally trained to seduce the corrupt officials in
order to secure important files from them. Lachi delivers dialogues
which would make the prostitute of Saat Lakh blush, she can
also dance with ease parallel to the uncensored footage from
previous films. Both of them pair off with conscientious and
ghariat mand jawans at the end, perhaps to live happily ever
after.
Lachi-Honey woman, then, is a
logical impossibility — a distorted fantasy. Let nobody
confuse it with any notion of feminism; she is a male identified
woman to her fingertips. Maybe, it befits the people who are
inflicted with Hudood Ordinance and Nawabpur rapes. Whether
it is the collective daydream of a nation faced with the dual
reality of prohibition and drug trafficking is a question that
can be answered best by social scientists.
Hence Kausar, Najma, Rita and
Lachi-Honey, by representing the collective daydreams of our
masses become four milestones in our collective psychology.
The differences between them may also reflect upon differences
between the social environment of each period.
Here I cannot but reinforce a
point made at the beginning of the article: these fantasies
for whatever they amount to are the product of male minds.
They represent women as our men
think about them and not women as they are or as they see themselves.
The cinema of the woman, in Pakistan, is yet to be born.
