A Rebel With a Cause: A Conversation With Haseena Moin

In 1996, I submitted my Ph.D. dissertation ‘From Genre to Zanaana: Urdu Drama Serials’ and ‘Women’s Culture in Pakistan’ in the Department of Radio, Television, Film at the University of Texas at Austin. The project examined the many ways in which the production, textuality and reception of Urdu drama serials opened up discursive sites where women negotiated, resisted and transgressed their prescribed limits in an Islamist patriarchal society during the 1980s and early 90s. The third chapter of my dissertation included interviews with three prolific Pakistani women writers in this genre: Haseena Moin, Fatima Suraiya Bajjia and Nurul Huda Shah. The following is an excerpt from that chapter that focuses on Haseena Moin. For better or for worse, I have not given in to my desire to edit and polish what I wrote 23 years ago.

When I was in Karachi in January 1994, laying the groundwork for a long-term audience ethnography, for which I would return, I first met and interviewed Haseena Moin. The interview made it obvious that the discourse of the zanaana extended itself to production as well as reception. I shared my research plan with her and she promised to introduce me to other women writers. In December 1995, almost two years after my first visit to Karachi, I had to reconcile myself to the idea of not being able to return to Karachi for fieldwork. For two turbulent years, Karachi had been gripped by ethnic violence. Despite several trips to the Pakistani Consulate in Los Angeles, my Indian nationality made it impossible for me to get a visa. Angry and confused, I spoke to Haseena Moin about my visa situation. She laughed: ‘If they will not let you cross the border, we’ll meet somewhere else’. The airwaves became that ‘somewhere else’, a place where we could talk and discuss this project without governmental approval or censure.

I interviewed these three writers over a period of three months (March to May 1996). All three writers wished to speak to me after 12 midnight, Pakistan time, ‘after all the chores were done’. Our interviews lasted for anywhere between half an hour and two hours. I recorded these with their permission. During the transcription of these interviews, more questions came up, and I called them once again. Over the months, we developed an informal air about our conversations so that now I call them without setting up an appointment, and they feel comfortable to tell me to call back later if they are otherwise engaged.

Issues of translation continually resurface as I work through this chapter. Language is not a neutral medium through which ideas are communicated. How do I translate the testimony of these writers, borne across the ocean through unreliable phone lines, from Urdu into English without changing the inherent meanings, the cultural codes embedded in language? In attempting to legitimise my research in the academy, what deceptions do I practice as I translate their simple, straightforward words into elitist jargon? How do I account for their awareness of my position, which often led them to use English words for Urdu ones so that they did the translation for me? These are not easy questions to answer. Nor are these multiple layers of translation comfortably stacked on top of each other. They interact or act simultaneously so there is no real way to peel back each one to reach an unmediated centre. I have tried to keep the voices of the writers as close to the original as possible by transcribing them in subcontinental English, keeping their grammar and syntax intact. I have resisted the temptation to change, hone and polish the sentences to make for better reading. I have tried to keep my voice distinct from theirs. Given the nature of this kind of research, it is impossible for my voice to not intrude. As a self-reflexive ethnographer, the best I can do is make ‘process’ a part of research, provide a ‘thick description’ that points to fissures that dent and break the mythological idea of representing the whole truth.

The following interview with Haseena Moin discusses her philosophy about the process of writing, her narrative strategies and point of view about her role as a writer within an Islamic framework.

One of the most popular writers on Pakistani television, Haseena Moin’s serials attract maximum money in advertising. ¹ She has written dramas for both radio (1962–1969) and television (1969–present). Some of her well-known drama series for television are Naya Rasta (1969), Shehzori (1973), Kiran Kahani (1973), Zer Zabar Pesh (1974), Uncle Urfi (1975), Parchhaiyan (1976), Dhoon (1978), Bandish (1979), Unkahi (1981), Tanhaiyaan (1983), Dhoop Kinarey (1987), Ahaat (1990), Padosi (1991), Kasak (1992), Kashamakash (1994 for Indian television) and Pal Do Pal (1996).

Moin’s drama serials are usually light hearted in tone with strong women characters who are smart, confident and often, happy-go-lucky. When I met her in 1994 in Karachi, we talked a lot about her work, both as a writer and as a headmistress of a girls’ school. She was embarking on her new drama Kashmakash for Indian television. I had left her tastefully decorated, simple living room with a promise to return within six months. Two years later, when it is almost certain that this project will have to take a different shape, I interviewed her again, this time in greater depth and over the phone.

SK: Anything about your life that you feel like telling me. Where you were born, where you were brought up, schooling, family, events — anything. I have no specific question.

HM: I was born in Kanpur, in Uttar Pradesh [India] in 1944. During the migration, we came to Pakistan in 1948. I was four years old then. Or was I five? My father was in the civilian side of the Army and he opted to come to Pakistan. We first went to Rawalpindi. I did my primary schooling there. Then, we came to Lahore where I did my matriculation. Again my father got transferred, this time to Karachi. I got a B.A. in Karachi, then an M.A. in general history at the university, and then, a B.A. in education so that I could teach. This year, I finished 25 years of teaching, so I’ve decided to retire. These are my educational qualifications.

As far as my writing goes, some ancestors of mine were linked with the lineage of the renowned Muslim woman writer of India, Qurratulain Hyder. My sister too wrote two novels before getting married. Now she raises children, so does not write. I started to write in seventh class [seventh grade]: children’s stories, caricatures of teachers, family, nothing serious. I wrote more diligently during college. My first radio play in 1962 was when I was in the second year of college. My drama had received an award at a student competition, and Radio Pakistan decided to pick it up for production. I wrote 15 or 20 dramas for them before I wrote my first one for television in 1969. They were trying to make the transition from radio to television as smoothly as possible. They asked me to adapt one of my popular radio plays for television. That’s when I did Naya Rasta. In 1972, I did Shehzori, my first serial. It’s an adaptation of Azim Beg Chughtai’s novel by the same name. I was amenable to it because it’s really funny with a female in the lead. See, I like those kinds of women because I was a total prankster as a child. I was a tomboy. Even in college, I was always up to mischief. Didn’t I tell you before that the teachers used to call me ‘devil’ and ‘savage’.

We’d be hundred girls in one classroom. The benches were on an inclined plane. I’d sit at the back with a fist full of coins and just when the teacher was about to make an important point, I’d release the coins. For minutes on end, there’d be a clanking, jingling and rolling of coins. The teachers would be so perplexed. All the girls knew that I was the culprit but no one tattled. Ours was a huge college. In any corner of the college, whenever there was something unusual, the authorities would summon me. But because I was good in studies, even when the teachers scolded me, they loved me, encouraged my writing.

I’ll never forget what we once did in English class. We were studying Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. The day we were going to discuss the chapter of his death, my friends and I took frankincense and myrrh to the class. We performed a ritual so that Caesar’s soul may rest in peace. The teacher was so angry… [Laughs, then more thoughtfully] But you know at that point in my life if the reprimands were not accompanied by love and encouragement, I would have been stifled. I would never have had the confidence to become a writer. That is why you see mischievous women in my serials. I’ve preferred to adopt a light-hearted tone because that is how I have treated life. That’s it.

I look for the comic even in tragic moments. When I was adapting Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady for TV (Parchhaiyan) with my producer and friend Shirin Ali, who was firm in keeping it a tragic play, I begged her to include a comic scene. I included something that had happened to us during those days. You remember, how Saheera (in Parchhaiyan) is scared by the behaviour of a drunken oaf when she is alone in a hotel? Well, Shirin and I had a similar experience in Lahore.

SK: Oh, so this is what Bajjia was referring to. She said she didn’t approve of you showing drunken men misbehaving with women –.

HM: – [laughs]. Bajjia lives in the past. Same old, same old. Look at the adaptations she does. Those books were written by women of a different era. Sixty years ago, life for women was very different.

SK: Do you think it is Bajjia’s fault given how rigid the structure is?

HM: One lives within that structure anyway but as a writer you cannot let that structure limit you. You have to take risks, even if you get beaten. That’s why my women are bold. I created the bold woman character as a counterpoint to all male writers who were showing women as a miserable victim, crushed by the system, eternally self-sacrificing, nurturing, serving her husband even though he visited prostitutes. Oh, it was so degrading! I like writing rebellious characters, and I keep repeating them so that there is an impact. The only thing is, my mode is comic and my words are never harsh. During many interviews, I have been asked why I show strong women characters. It annoys me. Do they ask male writers, why they show strong male characters?

SK: Good point. Could you talk a little about process? The nuts and bolts of your writing?

HM: Because my early hits were comedies, I am always asked by PTV to write comic serials, light entertaining stories. Of course, I do write tragic moments or events in a drama, but it is never entirely a weepie-washie. I write the characters before I write the story. I have detailed pages on characters. Then, depending on their traits, personality and outlook, I weave a story around them. Then, I write a one-line example [step outline]. Then, I divide what I have in front of me in episodes. For example, Tansen was in six episodes, Pal do Pal was in 14. After this division, I write the situations and events that take place in each episode. The last is dialogue. Once I have the situation and the characters, it is very easy to put words in the character’s mouth. Throughout this process, I keep sharing my work with the producers. As you know, I only work with a couple of producers. We have a good rapport. If they have changes to suggest, I make them. I tear out entire pages and rewrite them without any ego problems, which is unusual for a writer.

I attend the rehearsals actively. Help the actors with their lines. I do not interfere with the actual shooting. That is the producer’s domain. I am so clear-cut about certain things that no artist has had the courage to heckle with me to lengthen or strengthen their roles. It happened once, during the shooting of Padosi. One of the actresses came up to me and said she was misled to believe that her role as a servant was really important. She wanted me to lengthen it. I refused point blank. These days, the quality of serials has suffered because weak producers have become pawns in the hands of actors.

SK: Let us talk about the themes you write about. Things that interest you as a writer.

MH: Friendships, romance … gentler, softer things of life that are beautiful. I have been told that my serials are located more among friends rather than family. That is true. I think friendships are the only relationships that are pursued out of choice. Your relations are given to you. A friend can be a confidante in a way that a relative cannot. A friend can be a confidante in a way that a relative may not because with relatives, there is an air of formality or obligation. Friendships exist at an intellectual level.

SK: I have also noticed how your women characters choose their own husbands and never from among their cousins [common among Muslims].

HM: The first one is a conscious decision, the second unconscious. Though I am not married, my personal belief is that marriage has to be an extension of friendship.

SK: Several Pakistani girls, even your fans, tell me you always show ‘free’ and easy interaction between sexes, platonic relationships and so on. They think in real life such interactions cause too many raised eyebrows.

HM: Depends on which class you’re talking about. Among the educated upper classes, it is okay for the genders to mix. Well, I have so many male friends in the television industry. Yes, there are times when I have been accused of spoiling the teenage girls of Pakistan. But I always point out, that yes, the girls I show are strong, smart, chatterboxes, roam all around the world, but they are not badtameez – they are well brought up. They are respectful to their elders; they are good to their parents. With their peers they may do as they please; play pranks, take people for a ride, jest with them, whatever. Listen, if a woman is intelligent, she will do something or say something. Only the dumb ones will remain silent.

SK: Well, by saying that women should be seen and heard, aren’t you inviting criticism from certain powerful forces in your society?

HM: Actually, I am not religious, but because I have been brought up in a Muslim family with devout parents, I have read enough about Islam. I know its history, its laws. So, after reading all this, I can comfortably defend my characters by saying nothing they do is un-Islamic. Islam does not deny women’s education, women’s jobs, friendships – none of these are denied in Islam or in any religion for that matter. In fact, Islam has given women a lot of dignity.

SK: How can you say that? If there are such strict codes about where a woman can or cannot be seen, how can you possibly talk of –.

HM: – It’s the mullahs who have contributed to soiling and sullying religion. They have introduced a whole threatening aspect to women’s position in Islam so that they can preserve their own authority. They say if a woman does not do this, this will happen. If a woman does not do that, that will happen. Currently, we have a talk show called Hawwa Ke Naam (In the name of Eve). It discusses women’s issues like domestic violence, dress codes, rights to inheritance, divorce and so on. There are so many people against this talk show.

…

[Kothari] Moin’s ‘blame the mullahs’ resonates with Bajjia’s protest against male interpreters of the Law. The main difference between them is that Bajjia often brings up Islamic issues in her serials, whereas in Moin’s serials, Islam is absent. Neither of them questions Islam as they are quick to call the clergy culprits. I think this is an easy way to avoid the actual examination of the roles of women as written in the Quran. I am hesitant to pursue questions about particular suras and verses from the Quran that seem biased against women. ² I do not push this angle. I am an outsider. I am not a Muslim. The cat gets my tongue. Moin continues:

…

HM: I have had to deal with such threats. When I wrote the serial Aahat, for Johns Hopkins, men and women got on my case. ³ They said contraception is against our religion, against Islam they were livid. I said, I can prove to you using religious text, that this is not un-Islamic. But these people live inside a well. The ones who got my point did so clearly, the rest … Sometimes people are not ready to hear a message. My serial Padasi failed to become a hit. I had put my heart in it. It is all about three generations of women. It explores the idea of women’s networks as being more supportive and essential to our society than male approval. Maybe people were not ready.

SK: Or perhaps the competition on NTM (the private channel) had something to do with it.

HM: Possibly. NTM was showing this action-packed serial Chaand Grihan (lunar eclipse). Their overpowering story of feudal clashes drowned my story that was romantic, tender and a sad celebration of life. One thing you may have noticed, in my dramas, negative characters are almost absent. I do not believe in negative characters. I do not think the world is riddled with thugs, creeps, moustached villains –.

SK: – I know. You’re the only writer whose characters are not kidnapped!

HM: [laughs] Yes … torture, kidnapping, slapping around, landing punches, humiliating women, crude cussing, all this has become so common on screen. Maybe it has become common in real life too, but I, for one, have never experienced the ugly side of life. I consciously avoid showing bad things. I’d rather focus on the good, gentler aspects of human nature.

SK: The common critique of your writing is lack of realism. You show a ‘reality’ that does not exist, or exists for a small pocket of society –.

HM: It’s drama, not a documentary. In a drama, we can go beyond reality and offer possibilities. I believe in beauty. The other day I was arguing with a writer who was portraying a poor man as an ugly wretch. I said, ‘why do that?’ Even poor people can look good. God has made a world in which lotuses grow in a pool of filthy water. Some look at the water, others at the flower. Now, you may call me an escapist. Maybe I am one. When I come across filth on the street, I just turn my face away. Why torture yourself? If my job is to send out a message, why not a positive one?

SK: Is that how you see your role as a writer?

HM: As far as my serials go, I like to educate through entertainment. Entertainment is the focus, while education happens because of the content. They teach us in education classes what is called ‘indirect method’. Don’t say to a child that this is right and this is wrong. By not mentioning the wrong thing, you are automatically leading them to the right thing. What is the point of showing 10 out of 13 episodes in which a feudal lord practices violent acts of tyranny, and then, you punish him in the last three episodes? For months you let the audience revel in his villainy – showing him being brutal, torturing people, then at the end, you say this behaviour is wrong! Irresponsible writers feed the audience’s animal instincts. If that is reality, who wants it? People ask me why I don’t write about the poor and oppressed. It’s more important to make someone laugh, make someone dream, escape.

…

[Kothari] Some aspects of Moin’s antirealist stand, especially when it comes to Pakistani women’s freedom and mobility, resonate with what writers like bell hooks say in relation to possibilities of the representation for black women in the United States. In a lecture at the University of Texas at Austin, hooks pointed out that black women, even when portrayed by black film makers, always exist within a limited space: they get pregnant at a young age, drop out of school, and whenever they make it, it is only to a community college. This may be real, says hooks, ‘but who wants reality if it offers no role models to young black women. Why can’t we ignore ‘reality’ for a moment and send a black woman to University?’

If a narrative that shuns reality for an alternative in which new possibilities are offered is a strategy self-consciously employed by Moin, doesn’t it empower a large number of female teenage viewers?

Janice Radway’s early research on women reading romance novels brought a new perspective on the engagement in fantasy as an act of resistance. ⁴ Are women in Pakistan who watch Moin’s ‘Mills and Boon’ type narratives absorbed in their fantastic elements, emotionally involved in a world that is largely unavailable to them, engaged in resistance? Feminist defences of soap opera texts and audiences such as Ellen Seiter’s validate the escapist fantasy of the female viewer, by suggesting its potential subversive interpretations. ⁵

In Women and Soap Opera, Christine Geraghty argues that the emphasis on fantasy and escapism in women’s fiction is linked with soap operas because both genres explore these issues ‘through a creation of utopias, in which the values associated with the personal sphere are dominant, or of dystopias, in which the consequences of ignoring such values are laid bare’. ⁶

Moin’s entertainment serials are imbued with subtle messages that educate the audience through ‘laughter and love’. Her serials are strong and a counterpoint to the idea of prosocial soap operas. She does not take on women’s issues in her serials in quite the same way as Bajjia or Nurul Huda Shah do, but instead shows women comfortably living in society with power and success. I suppose she justifies this method in the example she cites from her education classes – ‘show the child what is right, not what is wrong’. She constructs a world in which women are not ‘grovelling at their husband’s feet’. In fact, she often constructs a world in which women do not have to have husbands! This stand is vastly different from other serial writers.

…

SK: What do you think of other serial writers?

HM: Every now and then, a writer comes along and sets us back by a generation. Aanch was one such serial. Of course, it was popular. People love to see women suffer, grovel at her husband’s feet, fuss over him … I had a big argument with the producer. What upset me was that the writer of this serial was a woman. If it were a man, it wouldn’t have hurt so much. Nahid Sultana Akhtar [the writer of Aanch] is a young woman. She doesn’t belong to, say, Bajjia’s generation. She should know better. I like what Nurul Huda Shah writes. It is not easy to be creative in a society rife with hypocrisy. Do you know they will not rerun my serial Parchhaaiyan….

SK: — because it had women wearing pant suits and tight sleeveless blouses and T-shirts? None of these images are halal (permissible) on TV today, are they?

HM: There’s that and they (PTV) were complaining about allusion to a mistress in the story. God, I’ve been so careful. I’ve not even used the word ‘mistress’ in the entire serial. And by the way, mistresses are a part of Pakistani society.

…

[Kothari] The hypocrisy that Moin accuses PTV of nurturing is borne out in the press discourse around Urdu drama serials.

…

SK: Female visibility has always been an issue on TV, hasn’t it?

HM: We’re ostriches. We bury our faces in the sand and do not confront what is going on. This whole dupatta business. ⁷ During Kasak, I made such a big stink, such a big stink, but nothing came of it.

SK: I heard Sahira Kazmi refused to act in the serial because of this bogus policy.

HM: Yes, we shot a few scenes. Then, the policy came about. I remember when our General Manager, Amir Imam Sahib, came to the set floor, I asked him which sensible mother has a dupatta on her head first thing in the morning in the privacy of her bedroom in the presence of a seven-year-old? This became a bone of contention; Sahira and I argued with the authorities but they did not budge. Sahira said in that case, she would not act and she walked off. I was seething. I had written this serial especially for Sahira who wanted to make a comeback as an actress.

The policy was criticised by so many people, including newspapers and magazines. It was ridiculous to target the serial while in advertising women could expose their heads. Some writers bought into it. There was a serial in which a drowning woman was hanging on to her dupatta. Thankfully, it was revoked within nine months.

SK: Three of your most popular plays were broadcasted during the Zia years –.

HM: Zia Sahib loved my plays. Since my voice is not harsh, people take my plays lightly. Otherwise, I did say quite a few things they could object to. That is why dramas are such a powerful medium. You can say what you want as long as it is couched as entertainment. I cannot stand the circus that goes on in television today in the name of creativity. Drama is an art. It is not a craft. It is not a factory. I think we should treat it as a canvas. Dip our brushes in soft colours and with harmony. Too many colours slapped together may attract attention, but will it sustain the painting?

…

[Kothari] Moin’s notion of couching resistant messages under the rubric of entertainment echoes Korean soap opera researchers, Lee and Cho’s, sentiments about similar strategies used in Korea. Their contention is that when narratives such as soaps challenge dominant ideology they can get away with it because the government does not take these stories very seriously in the first place. ⁸

Though I grant Moin her strategy of escape and fancy, I am unsettled by her easy dismissal of class as an issue that inhibits identification and escape. Her serials blithely gloss over the tension between different economic and ethnic groups in urban Karachi. Her women who have agency almost always belong to the middle or upper middle class. Her naïve desire to see beauty in poverty does not absolve her from ignoring a large population in the city, and eliding different social realities.

I thank her for her time. She promises to talk to me about her serials individually in the next conversation. I ask her if she would come to the United States if we were successful in organising a conference that brought together soap opera writers from across the world. She is taken up by the idea and she says she would definitely come but only if I am there. She hastens to add, ‘I know I act very bold, but in reality I am quite timid’. Is she serious? There is no way of seeing the possible twinkle in her eyes over the telephone.