Haq Nawaz: A moralist in the making |
Haq
Nawaz is a dramatist of high merit. He served for a long time as an associate
professor in the Govt College Lahore. Furthermore he is a literary brain of his
own merit. His television serial namely “Miraat ul Aroos” has earned him the
title “a new moralist”. He is really inclined to abolish the unethical
social tendencies prevailing in the immoral society around him. He has dealt
successfully with the moral questions faced by a number of characters in his
plays under the titles of Subah Hoti Hey (It dawns), Sohna Shehr Lahore (Lahore,
a beautiful city), Wapsi (The Return), Falak Daykh Faza Daykh (Watch the
universe), Surat Gar Khawboon Kay (The dream-makers).
As,
a peculiar characteristic of his plays is his capability of answering the moral
questions largely rooted in the materialistic values of modern times, he keeps
things strictly factual in his writings and has no literary or philosophical
justification to deviate from it in the process of refining his aesthetic style.
The main concern of Haq Nawaz’s plays is the analysis of inhuman living in a
so-called free society in which different characters whose tendencies have
manifested individually are behaving morally or immorally and whose reactions
have been tested with full psychic awareness by the playwright. He has chosen a
few essential subjects dealing with the honesty by citizens, the
responsibilities and shortcomings of urban women, exploitation and blackmailing
on various crucial issues regarding Jahez (dowry) and instinctual love etc. Haq
Nawaz rightly points out, “Urdu Drama could not reach at the stage it has
already achieved in other main languages of the world. In Pakistan, people watch
it only for killing time. Though initially drama is written to watch but many
people, who for some reasons could not go to theatre, can read dramas.
During
our social discourse with people, we often observe several lovers of literature
referring Shakespeare, Ibsen, Strindberg, Sholokov and Bernard Shaw. They have
become familiar to these alien playwrights only through reading their books.”
Haq
Nawaz is all out for the ultimate victory of good in internal and external clash
between good and evil.
Now
when the Pakistani drama is occupied with commercialism and romanticism, the
playwright like Haq Nawaz can restore respect for social and to some extant
reflective drama.
Considering
the role of the playwright in contemporary Pakistani society - a society demands
major social changes, a fact should be admitted genuinely that we could not
preserve and re-establish our natal value epitomes according to the requirements
of our ideological stand to which our people have accepted spiritually. We only
have experienced the highly compulsive ambition of western style ethical
mannerism which our media masters are practicing day and night. Besides the
development of refined, realistic and styled forms of modern theatre, is only
partly due to the low level of consciousness among our theatre going public. In
this perspective, Haq Nawaz and a few other playwrights could work wonder and
assume the role which theatre reformers played in the countries having highly
rich traditions of realistic literature. Through their useful moral and
realistic plays, playwrights can make this form a significant force for giving
direction and providing guidance to the minds interested in the moral and
ethical development of our society. I present here the opinion of Asghar Nadeem
Sayed, a famous dramatist of Pakistan, about the The plays by Haq Nawaz. I
translate
“The
tradition of revealing great literary classics of the world through motion
pictures or TV serialization is pretty old and established. It gave ample
opportunities to the art-loving audience of watching great novels and short
stories in the form of plays and movies. But here in our country though, on the
whole, this tradition remained a bit vacillating, few films based on prominent
literary works were made technically so perfect that the ruination of the spirit
of the novels under study were inevitable. Historically speaking Miraat ul
A’roos, the first novel written by Deputy Nazir Ahmad is known as the earliest
novel in Urdu. Its literary standard is an admitted fact. In Miraat ul A’roos
the depictions of the realistic and charming details fraternal to Muslim society
in old India include substance of dramatic concern. This was the reason that Haq
Nawaz made his debut as a TV playwright by presenting this classic novel in the
form of drama. His play consisting on many episodes got prodigal reception and
televised repeatedly. Haq Nawaz used his capabilities qualitatively and wrote
few plays for stage and television. Though he does not get chances to write
dramas generously but whatever he presented to the audience, it could be guessed
that in exploring contemporary subjects and utilizing the art of drama, his
talent works wonder. Haq Nawaz visualizes the realities of life penetratingly
and expresses them artistically in his plays.
It
is a genuine demand that many problems of our society should be presented to the
people through forceful media. The situations around us have been televised
expressively in best of our TV plays. Prof. Haq Nawaz is notable among TV
playwrights for his experience and observation of various fields and classes of
our society. This is the reason that in his plays, the different dimensions of
human personas and social contradictions are discovered with full dramatic
force.
Due
to his capability of analyzing things modestly and dearth of intensity and
loudness in his works, we can call him Altaf Hussain Hali of our age. He himself
desires to see society beautiful and wishes the sharing of his dreams by
audience. We wish his dreams to be fulfilled.”