M A Jinnah Road (Bunder Road) Karachi used to have more than a dozen cinemas till 1970s. My Dada who used to visit Karachi for his business in 1950s and 1960s still remembers those days and tells us his memories of that beautiful and peaceful time of Karachi.
In 1980s, during Zia Regime Pakistani film industry became victim of unnecessary censorship which destroyed industry to whom many technicians, producers and other people were related. Many cinemas were converted to shopping plazas.
Now, last week three of the remaining cinemas were burnt down by so-called religious people. When I was discussing this issue with my colleagues, someone said that ‘Acha huwa, haraam ka kaam tha, khatam huwa’. I asked the person that even Quran allows you eat dead (murdaar) in extreme circumstances. If for the sake of argument, we consider it totally haram, do our people got enough sources of income to run their homes? The answer was silence.
Religious parties like Jamat e Islami never raised voice against the Cinema business responsible for spreading nudity (due to Indian movies like Jism-2 and Raaz-3), but now there is a group of people who says ‘acha huwa. gandi movies lag rahi thin’.
What are your views on this situation of destroying limited sources of affordable entertainment due to such thinking?
Agree intolerance is promoted due to huge difference of ‘have’ and ‘have not’, but people don’t think while destroying such places that many people from their category (lower income group) suffer from this. Cinema business not only provides profits to cinema owner, but people who used to sell pop corn and snacks during intervals are affected by this.
Thats the situation since last two decades. Pakistani film industry don’t have any existence. An industry that was producing more than hindered movies, without government support , is now produce 2-3 movies in a year for limited audience living in rural Punjab.
The cinema owners were allowed to import Indian movies by Musharraf regime and we saw building of new cinema multiplexes, butnow they are also stake
I think situation in Lahore is better than Karachi, but again many film studios are now no more in use and cinemas have been converted to shopping plazas.
Theatre dramas are being shown in Al-hamra and other small theatres of Lahore(which are now overshadowed by third class dances). In Karachi Theatre is also affected.
I hear you. i once heard that lahore had so much influence on United India that if some day a lahori girl accidently wears two different colour ribbons then it used to become fashion in rest of the india. so many singers, actors, artists, poets, sportsman etc used to come from lahore that it is painful to see that culture dieing a slow and brutul death.
even kites are gone.
but i think you cannot blame it on leaders of politics. society will have to reinvent of itself and find back it roots. anything else will be artificial.
Agree that our culture was flourishing and our faiths were not fragile enough to be influenced by celebrating festivals like basant. People should revisit and think over broader aspects of life instead of restricting themselves this is religious and this is haram.
Pakistani cinema industry suffered due to lack of government support. Government even didn’t give them exemption for importing new equipment. The financier were less educated, who kept on producing flicks like ‘Lahori Gujjar’, ‘Badmash haseena’ and many likes which can’t be named here.
this doesnt make it halaal or allowed 'cuz its not like they wont find other sources of income if they dont work in cinemas.
In my opinion the argument is invalid.
Destruction part shows intolerance , which is bad for the society.
while these things are strictly forbidden in clear words, Cinema business and performing arts (especially business of selling edibles in cinema houses) is not specifically forbidden.
Some people also justified burning of Banks considering non-halal nature of business.
