The camaraderie between the stars and director of this week’s Pakistani film Lahore Se Aagey is quite evident as we sit down for an interview in Dubai, ahead of the film’s release on Thursday.
Lahore Se Aagey is a spin-off from last year’s film Karachi Se Lahore, a road trip, directed and produced by Wajahat Rauf.
“Thank God! You are the first one to call this a ‘spin-off’ and not a ‘sequel’!” Rauf said clapping with the Yasir Hussain and Saba Qamar, the lead actors. “We [Hussain and I] did a film last year of which the story was my concept and Yasir came wrote it. In that film Yasir’s character [Moti] was very shy but I think he carried the whole film. After the film released we thought that this character should be further developed. So we came up with the story together, but the dialogue, development of characters and twists and turns are his. We wanted to do something different this time because we didn’t want it to look the same. We both came up with Saba’s character — Tara — who is a musician. She’s a free spirited young woman, who wears ripped jeans and drives a classic car”.
While Moti was just “one of the other characters” in Karachi Se Lahore, on Rauf’s behest Hussain created a lead character. Moti is a young man who is talented but mostly keeps silent because of his stutter. In the film he encounters Tara and both set out to make her a rock star.
“I feel Bollywood films have created an ideal in our country that the lead actor should look a certain way, talk in a certain way. But I wanted to change that because none of our real life heroes look or behave that way,” said Hussain. “Take for example any big cricketer or astronaut or Edhi sahib [Abdul Sattar Edhi, Pakistani philanthropist] — they don’t look like this. Mother Teresa never looked like a heroine, but she was a real life hero. I believe it’s the character that matters, not the looks. So I wanted to change this cliche. If you see, even in India this is changing, otherwise Farhan Akhtar wouldn’t have been a hero”.
“We had watched the Hindi film Fan, where there was no heroine and [Hussain] realised that no movie will run without a female lead, even if it is a Shah Rukh Khan film. So my character was created because there’s no movie until you have ‘masala’ in it,” said Qamar, laughing.
“So we took a sackful of masala and put it in the film,” countered Hussain, gesturing towards Qamar. “My character is the same as in the previous film only the dynamics have changed a little. Earlier he was in a comfort zone in his friends’ circle. In this film he’s with Saba Qamar — obviously anyone would change”.
As the film’s lead actress is a musician, Rauf informs that the music plays an important part in moving the film forward.
“Shiraz Uppal is the music director who was also part of the first film. The songs had to be great, we had to have catchy tunes,” Rauf said.
For Qamar, it’s her big screen debut, having worked on another film earlier which is currently shelved. The young actress, who is already a known face on Pakistani TV, says working on a film “wasn’t difficult”.
“Because of him,” she said gesturing towards Rauf. “He taught me how to play the guitar, how to deliver the dialogues — the A to Z, little things that made things a lot easier. There weren’t any challenges as such but what I believe in is less is more. On TV you work at a lower scale. So when Wajahat would tell me to speak a bit louder, I always feared that I might over do things which will not reflect well on me. The character shouldn’t become irritating.”
While Qamar was able to finish her Indian film Hindi Medium with Irrfan Khan, even while artists got caught up in the cross fire across borders, Hussain informs that his Bollywood project is now stuck. But Qamar preferred to stay mum on the subject.
“I would like to comment on it even though she may not want to,” said Rauf as Qamar makes the zip gesture across her lips. “Mashallah, both the governments haven’t put up any ban on films or content, it’s only certain people who are doing it,” said Rauf. “It’s only a bunch of people, the media and some cinema houses that are causing this furore instead of looking at the bigger picture. Imagine how good it will be if there are joint ventures which will benefit both industries. It’s only a handful of troublemakers — which exist in both countries. I wish there’s an organisation who would silence them and say art has nothing to do with politics.”
“I can only say that I’ve received such love and regard from Indians that I have no words to express it,” Qamar did decide to speak up. “It only makes me wish to return and work more”.
As for Hussain, he says he wishes there was a “ban” on him.
“You see my film would work better at the box office because of all the hype. So I humbly request to have a ban put on me,” he said, laughing.
