Abdul Hafeez Kardar
(April 2012)
Pappi Hashmi – Show Time!
Of all the unexpected things Pappi Hashmi did was to go and have a stroke about three years ago. It rendered a man so full of joy de vivre, instantly inactive. The garrulous man that Pappi was, it was so ironic to have him go silent. He who had never sat still in a life overflowing with a million ideas and things to do was now devoid of all activity. People in Lahore were so used to running into Pappi that the last thing they could associate with him was his new status. Confined to his home in Model Town. Now he passes the days and long nights, thinking what we don’t know. The city for him is just a chair and a bed. What could be sadder? The heavy velvet curtains have come down on what was his great love, the theatre but as long as they were up, Pappi and his madcap group entertained, ridiculed and touched the lives of millions with comedy the like of which has not been emulated here sans some inspired moments from serials like ‘50:50.’
His academic and theatrical life ran in tandem for about 4 decades, no less. For 36 years Pappi wrote, directed and performed for Television - a 100 plays, over 200 shows and just as many especially for children! All the while, he hip hopped between this and teaching Economics, Mathematics, Literature, Urban Studies, Theater and Television. If that wasn’t a mad routine, Pappi was writing columns. For 3 years at The Frontier Post, 8 years at the News and 4 years with Gulf News. On Economics, Literature, Criticism, Politics and Media there were another 100 columns. In all Pappi ended up writing about 850 columns. For Theatre and TV another 500 articles. Where did he find the time? Ask anyone who has written one single column and the sheer impossibility of sticking to deadlines and you can just begin to get an idea of Pappi’s prodigious talent and creative flair. However, in trademark style, Pappi would wave such notions away, unlike the hundreds of pompous fools who unburden their boring load on the readers. For Pappi life was a lark, the merrier, the better and the crazier, even better. He was driven with the belief of a humane society an ideal that continued to slip further and further away. But not for Pappi. Through slapstick, one liners, stories, skits and characters, he stuck to his olive-decked guns. Indeed it is established that across both sides of the border no one has produced skits and sketches with such remarkable brilliance as he did. Gems of high creativity.
Of his teaching ‘methodology’ at Government College and Lahore School of Economics to name two after he picked up a Masters in Economics in 1966-1968 from the London School of Economics, there now exists a folklore of ribald stories. Pappi’s classes in GC were hardly ever conducted in a class room. That wouldn’t have been Pappi. Like the impish Puck, he flitted about his students awe-struck in humble tow. At the GCDC, in the tuck shop, under a tree, on the steps of a hall – it didn’t matter where. When my son Mekaal having taken Economics in GC said after two years that he hardly ever attended a class of Mr. Hashmi, the answer obviously was that it would be underway but surely not at the appointed place. In the LSE Lahore, he only agreed to teach Math if he could also teach what he wanted to teach, so his priceless lectures on Lahore and the sing-along sessions with the girls singing Amir Khusrau.
But the theatre was always beckoning and he spent a year at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1962/63. Pakistan TV in earnest black and white drew him like a filing to a magnet and the comedy shows Akkar Bakkar, Such Gup and Tal Matol, flowed spreading mirth and joy across the country. And what a team there was! Shoaib and Salima, Shaheen and Farooq Qaiser featured on Akkar Bakkar. It was in Such Gup however that the galaxy spread. Mian Abbas Shafi (billu paijan), Mariam Hasan (gentleman lady), Samina Ahmed (ring brons), Salman Shahid (Rafiq, Gainda and the mad scientist), Navid Shehzad (poketa, pocketa), Irfan Khosat, Cheemie (anday hubalnai ka sahe tarika). Nayyara Noor sang, Arshad Mahmood, Shahid Toosy composed. This was young Pakistan that sought to spread pure fun. In so many ways the innocent pranks in Pappi’s dramas reached out to middle Pakistan and were reflective of the innocence that was still Pakistan – not these jaded times, the bankruptcy moral and financial bankruptcy, the chaos, the bigotry and all that is evil that has befallen this country. As a director he was excellent because he expected you to improvise and he was able to work with just about any body. Intelligent and gifted, he never used it to hammer others into submission. His discovery of the ebullient Shehnaz Sheikh and his prolific work as a translator, adaptor and writer is a tribute to the gifted man that he is.
There was no mistaking the moment he would arrive in a room. In his best theatrical tenor he would growl out, ‘Oye,’ which is just about as polite as Pappi could be on a given day. Simply irrepressible, he caught hold of me at one of Dr. Durre Sameen’s legendary dos (they don’t do them anymore I guess) and made me sit down. ‘You know’ he said, ‘you have no talent but your son – now that boy knows music. He knows it very well indeed. Sur mein hai.’ Then he added, ‘Obviously not yours.’ ‘Of course not,’ I replied. ‘I thought you knew.’ That sent him into guffaws of laughter. I was reminded of another Shoaib story today. Faiz sahib was in jail and it was his birthday so some of his friends and admirers gathered at the Avari to have a tea party. This was the time Terry-Thomas that detestable scumbag was poisoning the minds of the Pakistanis, a feat he performed zealously for 11 long years till the Lord showed us some mercy. The police were doing their duties of harassing people with the quality of passion that our police is now famous for. As the raid took place and people were being arrested, Pappi Hashmi was sauntering out. ‘Oye,’ yelled the fat cop. ‘Which political party are you from?’ Pappi looked back at him, took a long drag and said, ‘The Birthday Party.’ Game, set and match – Pappi Hashmi. He left the cop scratching his head!
Pappi was a reluctant traveler. At a dinner in India, Cheemie recalls that as each guest walked in they were introduced thus: ‘Yeh jee Gujranwala sey aye thay,’ ‘Hum to jee Sialkot kay hain,’ ‘Sadday loki tey Multan day nei,’ and so it went on. Pappi had just about had enough. ‘Oye,’ he yelled which everyone heard, ‘Aethay koi nain rainda see? Saray uthon aye sau?’ Vintage Pappi.
Will they name a road in Model Town for him? Artists are in poor standing and only mediocrity succeeds so he is safe from the bureaucracy. In his long and lingering illness, Cheemie, their son Yasser and daughter Mira and her two children have stood by him, with resolute bravery and cheerfulness. Cheemie said that come only if you have Lahore’s latest gossip otherwise Pappi is not interested. I haven’t the latest gossip. Besides I am a coward. I like to cling to my memories. I remember like a picture etched deeply, Pappi Hashmi with that familiar shuffle emerging from the wings and looking straight at the hushed audience and then transforming it with a sharp one-liner – ‘what do you think you are doing here?’ or something like that. Now that’s a memory worth keeping, don’t you agree?