Evenings that you must come to …

When I was in school we used to go every Sunday to a Morning Show that had Cartoons and Comedies and Captain Marvel and Nyoka and more. Nishat Cinema ran the first membership for children for their shows. It was brilliant.

But that was before people started watching TV and then followed later with multiple films at home and got up at 11am and then at Noon and then at 1PM.

Damn!!!

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T2F decided we'd have occasional morning shows to see how they would go. That was on it's first place on Ittehad Avenue. The film we started with was What's Up Doc. It started at 11am. The place was crowded. There were many old people, a bunch of teenagers, and a few little kids.

We were asked to do this often … and we did that once a month for the next few months until we got pushed out of the old spot by a crooked landlord who kept our money, too. But I think I've mentioned that in one of my blogs so I won't go there.

Peter Bogdanovich's hilarious film, What's Up Doc, had Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal … and the the audience hadn't laughed so much in days. If you missed it (or want to see it again!), it's worth watching when T2F does this in Thinking Films on May 2nd 2018.

Sabeen and I loved many films (I've shown many of them in Thinking Films, so far) and we made a long list. I started the series with Cinema Paradiso - a great favourite of us both.

Here's a letter she wrote to me after watching it:

There are movies, and then, there are life-altering experiences.
I was a trifle apprehensive before watching Cinema Paradiso. I was exhausted after weeks of all-nighters at work, the film was in Italian with English sub-titles, and I’d heard so much about it being such a wonderful film, that I feared I might end up hating it.
However …
For over 2 hours, I sat mesmerized by one of the finest films ever made. Told mostly through flashbacks, Cinema Paradiso is about one man’s love affair with films, and his special friendship with a projectionist. That may not sound particularly exciting but I don’t want to give away the story. It was all about the small touches and details - the stunning direction, the gorgeous cinematography, adorable little Toto, Alfredo - the real hero, the priest whom you can’t help but like, the lilt of Italian dialogue (am so glad it wasn’t in English), the smoothness with which numerous other stories were told alongside the main plot without hype and confusion, the evolution of a little village, and of course, the myriad glimpses into the golden age of movies.
This is not a movie that you like or don’t like. It’s just too special to be conveniently boxed into a category or superficially commented on. Cinema Paradiso is a multi-sensory feast, and a movie made with heart, mind, and soul. Cinema Paradiso - at the risk of being labeled an inarticulate Gen X idiot - was simply awesome.
In awe. 

P.S. Zak, thank you for waiting patiently. One has to experience a little bit of what life has to offer (and take away) before watching Cinema Paradiso to truly appreciate it. And I do intend to watch it again, and again, so that I can focus on different aspects each time.

The next films on our Thinking Film series was Quo Vadis, followed by Luther and 12 Angry Men (the first black and white version).

Here's Sab on them in the same letter:

Quo Vadis brought to life the time of Nero in the most spectacular fashion. Luther coldly illustrated the unbelievable selling and branding machine that is religion. 12 Angry Men tore the infallible American judicial process to shreds. 

And the week after Eed we'll have more Thinking Films. The one to really watch will be what Sabeen talked about in that letter:

Judgement at Nuremberg placed 4 Nazi judges on trial before a panel of 3 American judges, for war crimes, and made me question seemingly simple notions of right and wrong till I felt sick to the bone. 

Judgment at Nuremberg is a 1961 American courtroom drama film that is 3 hours long! Directed by Stanley Kramer, and starring the great actors of that time — Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Maximilian Schell, Werner Klemperer, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, William Shatner, and Montgomery Clift. Set in Nuremberg in 1948, the film depicts the Judges' Trial of 1947.

(I loved Montgomery Clift in this role … in fact I loved him in all of his roles. The others were all brilliant, too, as they were remarkable actors).

Do come and see both of these.

Laugh your head off at the first one; Think hard after watching the second one.

And eat Popcorn to support T2F bringing you these wonderful films. There's a lot more to go.

They took you away from us …

… and it has been an awful 1096 days for those who love you.

But, still, we carry your dreams and do what we can to make sure that the youngsters get to know you well and follow your footsteps. The young (and many old people) must learn to speak and honour the truth, regardless of the consequences (just like you did). They must always stand for the rights of all who are pushed down for their class, creed, beliefs — religious or otherwise — and ideologies that may be different from theirs (like you always did).

Most important: They must have and show tolerance and understanding, even if the views are totally different from the other people. They must argue with facts … but never pull guns, never kill, never maim. They must not forget that the others are as human as the rest and may have gotten those beliefs and ideas from people who profess things in ways that could be inhuman (or insane). But they must be ready if argued by facts that even their views can often be wrong and accept the others views and change their stance.

•

We had a Baluchistan event earlier a couple of years ago — and it went very well. On the 24th April 2015, when you had opened the second Baluchistan event at T2F, you had said again what you believed in …

The Intro

But they took you away …

💋

The Loudest Silence

This!

Aaj merā dil phir say dükhā haé …

In 3 months it'll be 3 years since you left us

In 5 months it will be what would have been your 44th Birthday

•

We all miss your smile.

•

T2F lives and will continue to live

and do all the things you wanted it to do

and many things you were hoping it would do.

•

Looking back …

Iqbal Ismail

On the 19th December my dear old friend,

 Iqbal Ismail, left this world.

I found out when I saw the announcement his son, Solu (Sulaiman), sent me and phoned to ask me why I was not at the funeral. I said I hadn't known - I don't read the newspapers anymore - and had just heard it from him.

Nuzhat and I rushed over to his place to meet his wife and the children and grandchildren. We talked of old things, our lives together, our school-boy links, and more. I'll write a blogpost about him soon.

We got to talking about my being at the National Medical Centre for the time that I had my rather severe heart-attack and was treated to a quadruple bypass. Iqbal had walked in with the owner, a friend of his son Solu, and I was introduced to the hospital team as the owner's friend. I was given a luxurious treatment after that.

(Ardeshir Cowasjee died there; Sabeen Mahmud was dead when she arrived there after being assassinated; my dear friend Dr Shamim Ahmad died there while I stood next to him; and Iqbal died there, too.)

Sabeen & I at NMC

On my way back home I looked at my medical records out of sheer curiosity and found this piece of paper inside, written by Sabeen who handled the medical accounts while I was at the hospital. She was methodical in most ways that I am not (although my wife is good at these things, she wasn't in the right frame of mind at that point). Here is the sheet:

Miss you like crazy, Sab!

(… and all the others, mentioned, too!)

Our Favourite Films at T2F

صبین

کیا عجب وقت ہے، روتا ہوں کبھی ہنستا ہوں

دن   گزرتا   ہے   مرا   یاد   کیے ٴ  تم   ہی   کو

 Kyā ajab vaqt haé rota hōn kabhi hañstā hōñ

Din güzartā haé  merā  yād kiyay  tüm hē ko

•

So this time we are going to have Public Film Screenings, the way you wanted. We started with Disney (1) and have one this Saturday with our favourite: Cinema Paradiso - a film that we both loved so much.

There will be the full list of films we had chosen in our correspondence and discussions. All of them! Some of the new ones that were not on those lists that we exchanged, but we watched them together and were thrilled by them, will also be added.

And there'll be Popcorn, too, for the Audience to buy.

•

[A few days after Sabeen's assassination, while I was at her house, I decided to look through her VideoDiscs and put them in order alphabetically. When I got to her Cinema Paradiso that she had bought in the USA, I opened it … and found that the disc was not there. So I opened all the boxes to see if someone had left it in another box, Nopes. It still wasn't there. I then went to her video player and opened it to see if she had been watching it at some point and had not taken it out again (though that would have been unlike Sab). Nopes. All I can say is that someone obviously stole this disc (since the cover and the booklets were still in the shelf) and so her set now lies incomplete.]