My Theatre Play "Pakistan" in Lahore

In the mid of May, I received a call from Karachi Theatre Production, which is a private theatre group of Karachi Arts Council. They said that they want to cast me in its upcoming theatre play which would be performed in Lahore. An NGO of Lahore city named "Rawadari Tehreek" was organizing that play on its foundation day. I discussed with the group head of the production Usama who was also producing & directing the play and my journey was confirmed.

Here I want to tell you something about the theatre. The name of the play is "Pakistan". The plot is, a person represents the country "Pakistan" whose condition is not good and even getting from worse to worse. The responsible of this condition of the state is the society, politicians, bureaucrats, religious groups, and even common public too. Every after a few seconds, a person comes, sees the condition of the country, stays for minutes, tries to realize and then goes away to continue its work. No one tries to change or helps the country to stand on its foot. An old man came and tried but as he has no enough energy on his body due to old age so he was unable to help "Pakistan". Different people of the society including Chinese, Molvi, Pundit, Father (Bishop) come and see the situation of the country but move away.

Cast & Crew outside Alhamra Complex (Lahore)

In last, the old man shouts and makes all of us realize that this is our country and we have to unite with each other to stand it on its foot. All the people of the society, who moved away, come again, unite with each other and then stand Pakistan on its foot. The moral of the play is union is strength. If we are united then our country shines in the world, develop more and its people live with prosperity. Otherwise, if we fight with each other and forget all our moral values, our country will be destroyed. Everyone liked the theme of our play.

Well the group contains 10 people (complete cast and crew) departed to Lahore on the evening of 21st May. Our official photographer was Umer Hassan who is very professional. We arrived at the second day and stayed in the guest house of the NGO. The management was so cooperative and its hospitality really impressed us. After taking rest of one night, our performance was on the next day (22nd May) at Alhamra Cultural Complex. We all were so excited and ready to act in the play. We arrived at the complex & changed our dresses by applying props and costumes according to our respective characters. My character was Pundit and I was so happy for it. After some time, management announced our group to perform and we all performed very well. A huge round of applause indicated us that our performance was so successful and we won the hearts of Lahoris.

Right after the Performance

At the end of the play, the group leader Usama gave a short speech and addressed with the audience in the auditorium. We thanked to the public of Lahore who came to watch our play and even appreciated a lot. After the play, we also received outstanding response from the public outside the auditorium. Even we recorded many of the responses about our play. We realized that Lahoris were very hospitable and kind. The trip was memorable which also added another project in my professional acting portfolio. We returned to Karachi on Thursday 25th May. This was my second performance in Lahore. Before it, I have also performed in Ajoka Youth Theatre Festival 2015. I really want to thank Karachi Theatre Production, group leader Usama and every cast and crew member of the play. I also want to thank "Rawadari Tehreek" who regarded out talent and called us to perform in their foundation day. Thanks a lot.

Theatre Play "Juloos" by Actor Studio Karachi in Arts Council

A historical theatre play "Juloos" was performed in open air auditorium of Karachi Arts Council on 29th January 2016. It was performed by the 1st and 2nd batch pass out students of the academy Actor Studio Karachi. Basically it was the final project of 2nd batch. The play is directed by two main faculty members of the academy Ali Kazmi and Ali Sheikh. Actor Studio Karachi (commonly called ASK) is a performing art academy which offers extensive courses of theatre and cinema acting. The institute’s commitment and motive is to produce the best acting talent of Pakistan who can become the pillars of the industry after polishing their skills in professional acting.

Audience & set of the play

Theatre play Juloos is written by famous Russian writer Anton Chekhov, which is translated in Urdu by a well known Indian theatre director Badal Sarkar. The story is based on the flaws of our society where everyone is busy to loot, murder and destroy others. Either it is a government, political parties, communism or religion, in everything, the rights of poor and weak public are snatched by those who have power and wealth. The aim of the play is to represent all of these flaws and aware the common public from them.

Cast of the play in the backstage make up room

In the play, there are two main characters: Boorha (who represents past of the country) and Munna (who represents future of the country). Both characters are performed by 1st batch pass out students of ASK Owais Suriya and Me (Fahad). The remaining chorus (Juloos) of the play consists of 2nd batch pass out students. Boorha is always busy to seek his lost childhood (when the country was so prosper and in peace). On the other hand, Munna is always killed by the Juloos of different political and religious parties (actual killing future of the country). Every Juloos tries to save itself and proves itself right than others but in this stampede, no one cares for the future of the country and all kill it.

Boorha & Munna on the set

Munna always shouts "I am murdered… Why don't you see? Why don't you care?" But everyone in the chorus becomes blind, deaf and dumb. Even Kotwaal (policeman - played by talented actor of 2nd batch Shayan Meghani) doesn't care and see the murder of Munna. Chorus emphasizes Kotwaal that here is the dead body… He has been murdered but Kotwaal shouts, "No one is murdered… Go and do your work". Another character in the play is Peer Sahab (played by 2nd batch pass out student Fahim Punjani). Peer Sahab is actually the role of "fake peer" who always make fool of his followers and looted the public. At the end, Munna and Boorha found each other and the concept of past and future of the country becomes equal.

Peer Sahab (Fahim Punjani) with his followers

The talented actors of chorus are Farzan, Mazhar, Ali Mateen, Arsalan, Sagar, Shahid Aziz, Adeel Jadoon, and many more. All are acted well and purely represented their own characters very professionally. The director of Russian Centre of Science and Culture Mr. Yury Zalulya was the chief guest of the evening who addressed the audience and distributed certificates to the whole cast of the play. The CEO of Actor Studio Karachi Mr. Ali Sheikh also addressed the audience in which he told about the 2 batches who successfully completed their course and worked hard to stand that play. I want to thank to all the public who came to see the play, liked it and appreciated our acting. I also got some fans after this play who liked my acting as Munna. I thank to all of them.

The whole cast, crew and management of team Actor Studio Karachi

Dark Room - My First Theatre Play As a Professional Actor

When I entered into the field of theatre arts to learn acting then I never thought that it is so much difficult. Like what you watch the artists today in our media industry, 95% of them don’t know what actually acting is. Acting requires proper education and training which is taught in National College of Arts (NCA) Lahore, National Academy of Performing Arts (NAPA) Karachi and Performing Arts and Culture Society (PACS Pakistan) Karachi. So these three institutions are providing quality acting education in which PACS Pakistan is the best. I personally took admission in the institute where I did course of theatre arts whose duration was 3 months. In this time period, I learned a lot, I understood acting, its history, diction, uses of stresses and pauses, and everything which should be known by any professional actor. After my training, I performed in a play named Dark Room as a project of my semester.

Basically Dark Room is a super hit theatre play written by famous actor, writer and director of Pakistani media industry Sarmad Sehbai. He performed this play with his team in 1971 and won the best play award in Urdu Theatre Festival 1971. Now, on 31st May 2015, I and my team performed this play again in PACC auditorium. This time, the director was my acting teacher and a renown face of Pakistani media industry Ali Sheikh who is also a professional actor and graduated from National Academy of Performing Arts (NAPA). This was the first project of Ali bhai as a director.

Siddiqui, Jamshed and Kamran during a scene

The play is actually based upon the corrupt system of our country and different aspects related to it such as unemployment, morality, social values, etc. Unfortunately we are also facing these problems today. Well I tell you about the story that the drama contains 4 friends Siddiqui, Jamshed, Kamran and Zafar. All have their respective professions. Basically these guys are dispossessed from the originality of their professions and went on the wrong ways. The reason was injustice, unemployment, no regard of their talent and other negative aspects of the society.

Siddiqui
Siddiqui is the leading character of this drama. He is a scandal reporter. When he started journalism then due to his extra ordinary truth facts of writing, the society rushed him into the jail. After that, he realized that to write truth is the biggest sin in this country. So, he started scandals reporting.

Jamshed
Jamshed is a porn photographer. He creates and sells photographs of nude girls. From this job, he earns a lot. Students specially buy bundles of photographs from him. Even police does not take any action against him because the policemen also order and buy porn photographs from Jamshed.

Karman
Karman is a receptionist in a five star hotel, the guy who is most educated and well-mannered among all the other characters. In the hotel, he has a friend Mr. Jackson and a girlfriend Teena, both are from abroad. Mr. Jackson promised to take him and Teena abroad and Kamran waits for that time because he also wanted to make his career bright and left that dark room. Although, Jackson took only Teena to abroad and left Karman and Teena also cheated with him and went happily with Jackson. So, Karman started back his life in the Dark Room again.

Zafar
Zafar is a fine artist who is so frustrated. He is the only one who left the room and went to his village to take his right back from his uncle. He had his own lands in the village which was taken possession of his uncle. But when he came back after losing the ground, the story is actually started where Jamshed teased Zafar because he went to his village so confidently to take his right back. But Siddiqui calmly explains him to go again to snatch his right.

Rather than these four characters, there is also a 5th character in this drama whose name is Ismail. He is a clever school boy. I actually played that role. Well there are only three scenes of Ismail in the drama. But all of them are so powerful. Ismail really scares from a character Sultan who always snatches his ball and stands in the route of him from where he goes to school. When Ismail met Zafar in the play then he urged Ismail not to scare with Sultan. Zafar hardly got angry on Ismail and asked till when will you scare from Sultan? Go and snatch your right. At the end, Ismail killed Sultan, he comes to Zafar and tells him about this killing. So, Zafar learnt a lesson from this killing and goes back again to his village to take his lands back.

Me as "Ismail" during a scene

Well as a professional actor, the character of Ismail was very challenging for me. When Ali bhai casted me for this role, he told me that the role truly suits you and you can perform it very well. I accepted and started its preparation. In the first scene, my ball falls into the dark room where Siddiqui, Jamshed and Kamran are already present. They started to play with it. I entered into the room and said, “my ball, please give me my ball”. They teased me and don’t give it to me then I cried. Siddiqui and Jamshed make me scare from Sultan. Suddenly Zafar entered into the room unexpectedly and all the other members were shocked. I took the ball and escaped from the room.

In the second scene, Zafar asked details about me. When I told him about Sultan then he scolded me and said that why do you scare from Sultan? He urged me not to scare him and fight with him. In the last scene when all the 4 friends are present in the dark room, I came after killing Sultan, my shirt turned into red from his blood. I said to Zafar, “I threw Sultan into the well, I killed him. I don’t scare from him, I don’t scare.” While saying these dialogs, I holded the foot of Zafar and then slept. This was the end of drama.

The whole audience really liked our performance. We received a huge sound of applause and my first theatre play was very successful. Director Ali Sheikh also sent the pictures of the play to writer Sarmad Sehbai who currently resides in Lahore. He also liked our pictures. It was great feelings when I stand in front of the huge audience and all were clapping, appreciating. I can’t express my feelings in words. Allah gave a successful start to my acting career and I am really thankful to Him. I also want to thank to my director Ali bhai, the whole cast and crew of the play because we all proved a confident team work. My institution PACS Pakistan which gave me a platform where I proved my mettle in acting and I am still learning there. Thanks to my family, friends and some fans who know me and who liked my acting, emotionally and morally supported me. Insha Allah this journey will never have end and I will do more better in future.

The grand bao of the whole cast after the play

Director Ali Sheikh addressing the audience after the play

Furious 7 - A Review From My Point Of View

The 7th franchise of Fast and Furious series (Furious 7) was released on 3rd April 2015. From that time till now, the movie has crossed $525 million to be a commercial hit and still earning. The featured point in this movie is that it is the last series of the rapid growing roster Paul Walker who died in a horrible car accident almost over a year ago. It was shocking news for all the fans of this series but the movie was almost completed on that time. The remaining parts were completed with the help of Paul’s 2 younger brothers Cody and Caleb and some computer graphics were also used to look alike the face of Walker.

 Almost all our favorite stars are same in this series as like the remaining parts. The new addition in this piece is Kurt Russell who played the character of a grizzled governmental order giver and Nathalie Emmanuel as a British hacker. Well, the movie is about the revenge of Owen Shaw who was defeated by the Furious team in 6. In this latest part, Shaw’s brother Deckard (Jason Statham) takes the revenge from the heroes team. Deckard attempts to pick of the Furious family one-by-one. When the family was attending the funeral of one of their own, then Vin follows an unknown car which is actually Deckard’s. They finally meet in an underpass and fight. After some time, Kurt appears and then urges Vin and his team to recover a hacker and her surveillance program by which a user can easily hack any phone or camera on the universe to track someone down.

So for this purpose, the whole team prepares itself and starts the mission. Here action, there action, before action, after action, everywhere you will see the unbelievable action and stunts. Seriously, the movie is a blast in all the country’s cinemas. Well, when talk about the story then it is a fair action movie and the execution of this action is almost perfect. After every few minutes, you will find a new situation. People specially liked the jokes of wise-cracking Tyrese who always make the situations very satyr. I also enjoyed the flavors of some new cars in this franchise of Furious like some motors from Europe and as the film making is done in Japan so you will also see some real Japanese brands running on the roads. I think the climax of the movie was that point where the protagonist from Tokyo Drift Lucas shows his appearance and discusses the death of Han who died in the 3rd series of the movie. So you should watch this scene if you want to really enjoy the whole.

Well, I say that if you watch the previous series Fast 5, Furious 6 and Tokyo Drift then you understand much better that what is going on in the latest piece. Like others, this new movie also contains more action and fewer dialogues. It is a fact that the whole movie was almost cancelled as a result of Paul’s death and there is no doubt in it that it is an unbearable loss for the whole team. But the filmmakers decided to use the technology to fulfill the absence of Paul and then finished the movie. His death also urged the filmmakers to wind up his character (Brian O’Connor) from the upcoming series. At the end of the movie, a touching tribute was also given to Paul that really made me sad. I pray for him that may God rest his soul in peace.

PK Movie - A Review From My Point Of View

Aamir Khan is one of my role model actors and I like him since childhood. His creativity, variety in acting as well as tries to do something different in the movies always attracted me. This creativity also makes him different from other Bollywood actors that’s why he is popular as "Mr. Perfectionist" in the industry.

I watched his newly comer movie PK last night and I accept that this time, the guy also did something very different. Aamir Khan fans always think that his any upcoming project will be considered as one of the most anticipated movies in Bollywood and Aamir proves it too. So like his other movies, PK also proved that it is different from other traditional movies. It is directed by Raj Kumar Hirani who also has done some very successful projects before like 3 Idiots, Munna Bhai MBBS, etc.

PK is all about an alien-liked traitor guy who has wide eyes and log ears. The guy explores the world and his too much innocence doesn't allow him to adjust. First, he started his journey from Rajasthan where he met Sanjay Dutt who lightly cares him and told him about some rules of life because PK had no clear senses. After that, he moved to Delhi where he met a journalist Anushka Sharma who explored his personality more. Anushka was in love with a Pakistani guy and both were separated due to a tragedy and then, PK plays a role to re-unite them.

Actually PK is a guy who is in search of true God. He experimented and then found that mocked Gods in different forms have no meaning. About God, PK always asks such generic questions about religion from the common public which were never thought before. So, the movie proves it that God has different forms but actual God lives in our hearts. He listens our thoughts, ideas and do whatever is best for us. Tantriks and other spirituals always make the public fool and play with their sentiments. So Aamir played such a great role to show about the actuality of God. According to me, director has chosen the right candidate for such an inquisitive role that no other one can play.

Except Aamir, all the other participants played best to perform their powerful roles. Sanjay Dutt, Anushka Sharma, Boman Irani and Saurabh Shukla were seen perfect in their respective performances. Last but not least, appearance of Ranbir Kapoor was a surprise for Aamir's fans. This last scene shows that may be second part of PK will also be made in which Ranbir performs as lead role. Atleast, audience expected this.

I appreciate the strong screenplay, direction, script, meaningful and provoked dialogs of the movie that make people feel about the search of God in a true form. So I think it is the movie which can be watched more than one times. As I said before that Aamir always does something different and he proved it that time now. I suggest to all the people who are in search of true God and who has some question regarding the existence of God, should watch this movie. Their concepts will be cleared.

I Am Getting Acting Education

First of all, so sorry guys from last couple of months, I was so busy and unable to write, manage and even open that blog. I know my some readers and fans are consecutive subscriber and like to read my posts so I apologize to all of them. Now, I will try to update my blog frequently as like before.

Actually the reason behind my long absence from the blog is my continuing studies as well as my media related activities. In the holy month of Ramadan, I met a reknown artist Ali Sheikh for the purpose of acting who is not a formal actor like the majority one in the Pakistan Showbiz Industry. He is passed out from National Academy of Performing Arts (NAPA) and knows about acting in depth. After meeting him, I realized that acting has a vast field that contains its proper history and education. This education is given in NAPA and original actors are trained in that institute. So after meeting him, my thoughts have been changed regarding acting. I realized the difference between formal and original actors.

Now, I am successfully getting trained by Ali bhai as an actor and I have found the right way now. I am internally satisfied. It is true that I am not struggling to be a formal actor but atleast I am getting proper education in acting regarding its every aspect like history, diction, inflation in sentences, improvisation, etc. If someone asks me regarding acting tricks and its tenuity then I will easily explain these things. So now, I have no any desire to be a famous super star. If I become super star or not, atleast my heart and soul is satisfied that I get proper education in acting and being not a star, I will be better than lots of super stars in Pakistani Media Industry.

I will further write the detail blog on formal and original acting later because I am currently in the learning phase and I have to know many things deeply. I just want to give an advice to those youngsters who want to be the actor in the future, get proper education of it from NAPA, Arts Council or any other good art institute or atleast get training from any one actor who is passed out from any good art institute.

SEO, Web Development and Media - A Tough Life to Manage

As human being, we have some responsibilities. The first one is that we want to earn something to eat and live. For this purpose, we become professionals and mostly we adopt those professions in which we have interest. Some people have a motive of life that they want to adopt such professions in which they can earn more and more, even if they have lake of interest. Normally a human spends his whole life to work in a single field and it is true that one field is enough for life. But some people also adopt more than one fields and try to get expertise in all these. The majority doesn't get success in all professions because atleast one field remains weak for that person. The biggest problem in adopting more than one fields is to manage these with equality. But there are some people exist in the world who got good success in all the professions which they adopted.

Like others, I also adopted more than one fields. First I want to tell you that I am a Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) and I am in this profession since 2008. I have good experience of it and since that time, I have been working from basic to research level optimization. I am also at a good position now in a reputable IT firm of the country. But in the market, I felt that SEO is not enough for me and I have to do something extra as a support to that profession. As I am an IT bug so I thought that I should go for the web development. I am already in the internet marketing field so I did diploma in PHP Web Development in 2013. I have clear concepts of computer programming that's why I understood PHP better. But it doesn't mean that I left SEO. Actually web development is always very supportive for SEO that's why learning PHP was a plus point for me as an SEO. I managed and I am still managing both successfully Alhamdolillah. I never faced any problem regarding the management of both.

The third field in which I entered is media (showbiz). Media has many other fields itself but I entered in acting. The story started in two years before when I generally went to Jaag TV (formerly called CNBC channel) for open auditions with my friends. It was a campaign of acting competition that started by popular actress and model Ayesha Omar in her morning show Yeh Waqt Hai Mera. I filled the form and gave audition. I don't know so far that it was my luck or my own talent that Alhamdolillah I was in the top ten participants who selected for grand finale. Famous director of TV dramas Haider Imam Rizvi selected me for grand finale after watching my audition. I am very excited on that time and I played the grand finale. I couldn't win but it was an honor for me that I am in the top 10 finalist of that competition. When I went to the stage to perform in front of a crowd including judges who are the popular media personalities like Shamoon Abbasi, Seema Ghazal, Kazim Pasha, Rauf Lala, etc. then I felt a lot of motivation myself as an actor. The crowd also appreciated me a lot. After that, I thought that if I have a talent of it so I should also prove myself as an actor so I entered in this field too. Now, I have successfully done modeling in "Raabta" magazine of Pakistan (February 2012 edition), acting in 2 dramas of crime reenactment and modeling in 2 songs of GEO TV (one in the title song of the program "Geo Shaan Se" and 1 in the Election Campaign 2013 song of Mr. Jeem).

So, currently I am working in 3 fields in which 1 is totally different from others two and the remaining two are almost similar, I say directly proportional to each other. Many people including my friends and fans always ask me one question, "Fahad! How do you manage?" I understand and have experienced that multi-tasking is definitely not easy. You can't work simultaneously in more than one fields. So I fix the days to manage these fields. SEO and Web Development are mostly related to each other so I can perform both at a time and I do. But I always keep my media working on Saturday and Sunday. The reason is that acting field has no long term future. In fact, I say that never make acting your profession because it is not a constant work. Today you have lots of projects but tomorrow may be you have nothing. So, I am doing acting as a hobby. I do never want to make it my profession. I am Alhamdolillah educated and I always prove myself as an IT professional. Also, in the media field especially in acting and modeling, only a few works are on merit basis. Giving bribe, "give and take" works are quite common to cross the ladders of success in showbiz. That's why I am still not working properly in media and couldn't get any big project. Yes but some fans ask me, "If you get any good project in media then what will you do and how will you manage on that time?" I say, "It depends on the condition of that time and I will think about it because I will not want to miss that chance and I will also have to manage my other tasks, so I will try to divide these tasks on daily, weekly or monthly basis (depends on the situation) or any other plan which I will make on that time." So, let's see what happens in the future.