Drama was ruined by digest writers, says Faseeh Bari Khan

Faseeh Bari Khan says that the drama in Pakistan was ruined by Digest writers who had zero understanding of characters' psychology and how they should evolve.

• People hesitate while saying this but let me spell it out,


• our drama was ruined by the digest writers


• The drama writers we used to have,


• including NusratJaved, YounasJaved, Anwar Sajjad, BanoQudsia,


• and there are several others, including AsgharNadeem Syed who


• used to work on characters


• One big name among them is Munnu Bhai


• Now the digest writers who are writing these dramas,


• sorry to say, they have no exposure whatsoever


• They don’t know what a character’s psychology is,


• or what its depth is


• So when they write, their characters remain static,


• whether good or bad; we don’t see anything unpredictable


• The kind of character development we used to see in dramas,


• in the characters of Munnu Bhai, Ashfaq Ahmad, Anwar Sajjad,


• those characters are gone


• Now we are forced to watch this colourless drama


• which is only being run only to bring ratings


• And ratings only come through cheap tactics


• I really feel sorry about this


• Why does a writer have to be a clerk?


• Why don’t they care about their dignity and self-respect?


• When we ask writers, they say ‘we did it because we were asked to’


• You have my example


• I haven’t written any drama in three years


• But whenever I wrote, I wrote what I wanted to


• I wrote on subjects which people though couldn’t be aired,


• even in PTV’s best era


• But I wrote it even in this era when there are so many restrictions


• So you should know how to say what you want to


• If you have this skill, you can go forward


• If not, you better leave the field honourably