Tributes to the brave ones

By Afzal Hussain Bokhari

As the early-November drizzle in Peshawar on Sunday announced the arrival of winter, the ragtag cattle fair in the suburban Mattani was struck by a suicide bomb explosion that injured 36 and killed 13 persons including the Nazim of Adezai Union Council Abdul Malik.

Rightly or wrongly, the elected representative of the district government, Abdul Malik was probably the first Nazim of his breed that refused to get intimidated by the threats or literal attacks of the Taliban militants. He openly waged war on them by forming a ‘qaumi lashkar’ (local vigilante group) in active coordination with the area police.

For a long time, Mattani remained a no-go area for police after the horrible incident in which the militants slaughtered a police official and hung his dead body by a pole in the bazaar. Even the gutsy, desperate and dare-devil police officers thought twice before entering the area.

Nazim Abdul Malik had been advised several times by friends, admirers and relatives to be careful and not to burn his fingers by playing with flames. However, he preferred to play Lala Mohammad Afzal Khan of Swat and refused to come under the pressure of militants. He said he would rather be hacked to pieces than abandon his people and land out of the fear of miscreants.

As the Nazim walked about in the cattle fair, a young suicide bomber between 20 and 22 years of age advanced towards him. The body guard of the Nazim tried to stop the stranger from coming into contact with him. During the intervening struggle, the suicide bomber blew himself up causing a mayhem in the fair.

The wide-eyed animals wondered in sheer fright if a bigger beast had descended on the place. Police arrived at the scene and estimated that eight to 10 kilos of explosives had been used in the blast. The wounded persons were rushed to various hospitals in the City where the condition of nine of them was stated to be serious.

This was not the first time that the Nazim had been ambushed or attacked. It certainly was a graceful manner of accepting death while walking about the fair amongst his people. Surrendering to the enemy had never been an option with him. He was not caught hiding in a bunker, fleeing the place or catching a flight for Dubai.

Death is the ultimate truth and writers or artists are no exceptions. Showbiz circles in the city felt saddened at the news that senior television drama producer Nusrat Thakur had passed away. With general manager of Peshawar Television Centre Majeedullah Khalil in the chair, the community of local producers held a meeting to condole the death.

Glowing tributes were paid to the late producer for his contribution to the art of drama production. The GM recalled the days when Nusrat Thakur got posted in the Frontier metropolis and dispelled the impression that it was difficult to produce good plays from the ill-equipped and ‘barren’ centre like Peshawar.

When he arrived into the provincial capital of NWFP, Nusrat already had on him the stamp of being the successful and proud producer of super-hit serial like ‘Waris’. With a powerful script from Amjad Islam Amjad, the serial was primarily conceived by PTV’s Ghazanfar Ali who also produced the first three episodes.

However, Ghazanfar later fell out with PTV and founded the privately-run Indus Television channel. In this way Nusrat became one of the three producers who worked on some of the episodes. The serial was probably PTV’s first serious attempt to confront and expose feudalism in rural Punjab. By its high-pitched dialogues and loud treatment of the script, many of the reviewers said that ‘Waris’ was also the first serial that brought the loudness of Punjabi films lock, stock and barrel to television screen.

Very few of Nusrat Thakur’s admirers knew that before switching over to PTV, he had long been a drama producer at Radio Pakistan’s Lahore station where he did plays based on the scripts of such writers as Ashfaq Ahmad, Mirza Adeeb, A Hameed and others. Apart from being a drama producer, Thakur also tried his hand at Urdu poetry.

Majeedullah Khalil recalled that Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi was Thakur’s favourite poet from whom he drew much of his inspiration. Like his luckier colleagues in television – Sarmad Sehbai, Tajdar Adil, Ayub Khawar, Aziz Ejaz and a few others – Thakur was never able to get his poetry published in any of the known literary magazines but he continued the practice.

With a sensitive temperament and bony physical structure, Nusrat felt badly shattered when his son was killed in an accident in Peshawar. The tragedy visibly affected his health and for some time he felt disoriented. With the passage of time he managed to adjust to the loss.

Adjust to the loss people normally do. Radio Pakistan Peshawar, for instance, had a new station director on November 5. Just a day before that on November 4, the staff arranged a farewell party for the outgoing SD Noor-ul-Basar who stood retired after completing his service.

As the coincidence would have it, before getting promoted as programme manager, Noor-ul-Basar largely remained associated with religious programmes. He produced special programmes during the sacred months of Moharram-ul-Haram and Ramazan-ul-Mubarak. At times he arranged ‘Na’at Khwani’ competitions at the provincial level in order to make selections for the national contest.

The present SD – Sardar Ali – is not a new name for anyone in Peshawar. He has served in various capacities in Islamabad and Muzaffarabad (Azad Kashmir) but right now he has arrived from Radio Pakistan Lahore.

In Peshawar, he has been in charge of the transmissions aired from FM Radio 101. The assignment has not been easy as one has to cater to the tastes of modern, educated and mostly Westernised youth.

Sardar Ali is a good-humoured and jolly person. There are moments when he feels tense but most of the time he is smiling and cutting jokes with his colleagues. One can only wish him success in his new assignment.