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Power to the girl-child By sa'adia reza
In 'Hum Bazm-i-Jahan Ki Ronaq Hain' Adeel Hashmi beautifully captures moments in the lives of young girls as they speak of their experiences and hardships. The documentary includes interviews of their trainers and also deals with various outcomes of the girl-child training project
Hum bazm-i-jahan ki ronaq hain, Hum behnain, betiyaan, maaein hain
Naheed Akhtar sang this unpublished nazm by Faiz a couple of decades ago for PTV. Now, years later, Adeel Hashmi, his grandson, brings it back to life by using it as a peg for his first documentary on the girl-child.
Adeel is the project director of Himmat Society, an NGO co-patronized by his mother, Muneeza Hashmi, who has produced the documentary. "For quite some time, my mother was trying to rope me in the girl-child training project. When this particular opportunity presented itself, I decided to give it a shot," he says. The documentary is a Unicef project and the Society has so far trained 19,500 girls aged between the ages of 12 to 18 in 730 locations in Pakistan so far.
Hum Bazm-i-Jahan Ki Ronaq Hain beautifully captures moments in the lives of young girls as they speak of their experiences and hardships. The documentary includes interviews of their trainers and also deals with various outcomes of the project, including comments from men belonging to the rural class and how their perceptions have changed.
Be it Maryam from Islamabad who now runs her own home school, Kohat-based Nazia whose dream to be a designer came through or Misbah from Haripur whose first-aid skills came in useful while saving the life of an electrocuted child — it felt good to watch these girls discuss their experiences.
"It was difficult to get the girls to talk. I did not want their quotes to be stilted or the impact would have been lost," says Adeel. He told them that there will be a rehearsal first, and while they were rehearsing, unknown to them the director captured their views on camera, resulting in a natural exhibition of expression. "We have never seen young girls from under-privileged areas talk so confidently and be so vibrant and happy," he adds.
Groundwork for the documentary began in September and filming started in January 2005. The usual hitches soon followed when the team was not allowed to shoot in Peshawar, Gilgit was under curfew and Kashmir had to be dropped due to security concerns.
"We had four editors simultaneously working on the documentary. Initially, Unicef wanted a 10-minute documentary, but I refused," says Adeel. Eventually it was decided that two documentaries of 10 and 30 minutes each would be made. "When the people at Unicef saw the latter version, they discarded the 10-minute one."
He now plans to make Hum Bazm-i-Jahan Ki Ronaq Hain public by showing it from different television channels. He also intends to promote it on the international level with a slightly shorter version. And as a last step, Adeel will make a seven-minute trailer for the government. "Very few people will ever know the amount of effort, love and hope that went into the making of this documentary and even fewer will fail to be touched by it," he says, adding, "what began as a tough assignment ended up as a labour of love."
In 'Hum Bazm-i-Jahan Ki Ronaq Hain' Adeel Hashmi beautifully captures moments in the lives of young girls as they speak of their experiences and hardships. The documentary includes interviews of their trainers and also deals with various outcomes of the girl-child training project
Hum bazm-i-jahan ki ronaq hain, Hum behnain, betiyaan, maaein hain
Naheed Akhtar sang this unpublished nazm by Faiz a couple of decades ago for PTV. Now, years later, Adeel Hashmi, his grandson, brings it back to life by using it as a peg for his first documentary on the girl-child.
Adeel is the project director of Himmat Society, an NGO co-patronized by his mother, Muneeza Hashmi, who has produced the documentary. "For quite some time, my mother was trying to rope me in the girl-child training project. When this particular opportunity presented itself, I decided to give it a shot," he says. The documentary is a Unicef project and the Society has so far trained 19,500 girls aged between the ages of 12 to 18 in 730 locations in Pakistan so far.
Hum Bazm-i-Jahan Ki Ronaq Hain beautifully captures moments in the lives of young girls as they speak of their experiences and hardships. The documentary includes interviews of their trainers and also deals with various outcomes of the project, including comments from men belonging to the rural class and how their perceptions have changed.
Be it Maryam from Islamabad who now runs her own home school, Kohat-based Nazia whose dream to be a designer came through or Misbah from Haripur whose first-aid skills came in useful while saving the life of an electrocuted child — it felt good to watch these girls discuss their experiences.
"It was difficult to get the girls to talk. I did not want their quotes to be stilted or the impact would have been lost," says Adeel. He told them that there will be a rehearsal first, and while they were rehearsing, unknown to them the director captured their views on camera, resulting in a natural exhibition of expression. "We have never seen young girls from under-privileged areas talk so confidently and be so vibrant and happy," he adds.
Groundwork for the documentary began in September and filming started in January 2005. The usual hitches soon followed when the team was not allowed to shoot in Peshawar, Gilgit was under curfew and Kashmir had to be dropped due to security concerns.
"We had four editors simultaneously working on the documentary. Initially, Unicef wanted a 10-minute documentary, but I refused," says Adeel. Eventually it was decided that two documentaries of 10 and 30 minutes each would be made. "When the people at Unicef saw the latter version, they discarded the 10-minute one."
He now plans to make Hum Bazm-i-Jahan Ki Ronaq Hain public by showing it from different television channels. He also intends to promote it on the international level with a slightly shorter version. And as a last step, Adeel will make a seven-minute trailer for the government. "Very few people will ever know the amount of effort, love and hope that went into the making of this documentary and even fewer will fail to be touched by it," he says, adding, "what began as a tough assignment ended up as a labour of love."
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