Effects of Drama Culture in
Pakistani Society
Almighty ALLAH said in Quran: (Mafhoom):
Those who are playing in avocation, they are drive towards the hell with a
forceful pushing. (Al-toor;Al-Quran)
HADITH:
“Woe to him who tells lies to make people laugh-woe to him-woe to him”. (Ahmed;
Trimdhi)
First of all I would like to discuss “what is the drama culture?” then what are
the norms, values and tradition of Pakistan and then I would move to the major
topic Effect of Drama Culture in Pakistani Society. So what is the drama
culture? By Drama we means that “Any thing in writing or in acting which make
people to laugh or grief or think about certain idea or to feel the conditions
of some miserable people or a clear illustration of the situation by means of
artificially created character and set which is totally imaginary in its
creation”.
Actually the writer picturises the situation in words and the actor acts
accordingly to make the situation clear to the reader or viewer of the drama. It
is very effective way to convey your message to the audience.
“Trends of the people of particular area to celebrate the events of happiness
and grief according to the preset norms, values and tradition of the particular
area or reluctance or acceptance in adoption of new things”. During the last few
years Pakistan adopted variety of things and also abolish lot of things.
Adoption rate is so high than the deletion of things. Examples of the culture
are the Punjabi, Sindi, Balochi and Phatan culture in Pakistan.
Scientifically culture is the particular habitat where different species of
animal lead their lives with a high degree of interdependence. In this culture
some animals are powerful while others are weak, stronger animal dominant the
weaker one’s and ultimately they swallow the weaker animals b/c animal have no
knowledge and wisdom. But there is an animal, which has knowledge and wisdom but
also, behaves like proud animals, this animal is human being. This animal uses
different tools and ways to disgrace weaker section of the community; kill them,
abuse them, scold them, laugh at them, make fun of them and ultimately deprives
them from their native right of universal freedom and compel them to live just
to serve the stronger section of the community. Now the stage drama culture
strengthens this process by introducing different new style and words to make
laugh someone and disgrace some others.
This drama culture is totally base on the maltraditions of the society, which
are nothing except lie, and collection of liar people who feel much happy while
doing this. This culture also has some traditions to make other people laugh by
telling lie, joking at them, boasting, making unrealistic stories about other,
creation of imaginary writing or acting, the actor are just like the cartoons
and the drama is their show in the dual hand of director producer and public in
front of stage.
By the last few years this cartoon culture flourished much, which involved
people of every age. Every body laughs widely on their act and enjoy themselves.
The people feel that they are now free from the bitter reality of the cruel life
while watching them. Those who are use to this culture become senseless and have
no regard to the people in difficulty but they claim that they are very
sensitive b/c they depicts the very minute things “which are usually neglected
by the society” in their writing or acting to induce thinking on that point in
the society. Infact they have no aim behind this except to attract people’s
attention and accumulate money. This drama culture demolishes many traditions
and values of our society.
Now I come towards the norms, values and tradition of our society. As we all
have a knowledge that Pakistan has more than 90% Muslim people and also Pakistan
was achieved on the name of Islam so on the basis of these strong evidence, I
can argue that “Pakistani society as a Muslim society which has its foundation
in Medina Munawara by the Holy prophet (P.B.U.H) at the very beginning of Hijri
calendar”.
This society was very unique in many aspects b/c this was established by Holy
prophet (P.B.U.H) and this was cooperative society, one has every necessity of
life but other deprive of that b/c of migration. In this society, Holy prophet (P.B.U.H)
attaches every emigrant (Mahajer) to the local people of the Medina (Inssar) by
one to one arrangements.
In an Islamic society, five things are very basic except these a man can never
be a Muslim, so the Muslim society can never be established. These are the;
Faith in ALLAH, Faith in Angeles, Faith in His Books, Faith in His Prophets,
Faith in life after death and every good or bad thing is from the Almighty
ALLAH. These are the basic things, which keep in track the man and refrains him
from evils to destroy the society.
In Islamic society respect, love, affection and fear of ALLAH are the major
cocepts, which play vital role in the success of the society. As there is the
saying of our Holy prophet (P.B.U.H): (Mafhum):
“He is not amongst us who does not show respect to his elder and not love to his
younger”
It is very clear from this hadith that respect and love have special place in
Islamic society. When there is respect of elders and love to younger, there is
no disparity in the society. We respect our elder so much, we give special place
to father, mother, brothers, sisters, other relatives, teachers, friends, age
fallows, women and elder people of the society. We give them due respect and
fallow them in every walk of life. These respectable people also guide us; they
have great love and affection with us. There is an emotional attachment b/w we,
which is the major factor of building social relationship in the society.
The most important concept is the fear of ALLAH. This is the fear of ALLAH which
motivates the people to do every positive thing for the well being of the
creature of ALLAH and resist him from doing any thing wrong which effect the
society in any way. Due to fear of ALLAH, man prey to ALLAH in such a way “O
ALLAH show me the right path and stop me from doing wrong and make me a man
which is liked by You, O’ ALLAH help me-help me” this shows that man in Islamic
society, accepts ALLAH as his Creator, Master, Helper and Caretaker.
An other aspect of Islamic society is the justice. Social justice, political
justice, self-justice, economics justice and justice in every walk of life. I
think, “Without justice life is nothing at all”. When there is justice,
prosperity is there, every person is happy with every other person, so society
as a whole running on the sound footing of trust on each other which derive the
social well-being of the miserable people and give them equal status in the
society. Justice play vital role in minimizing social disparity in society.
Veil (Pardah) is also very important, which is the symbol prestige for women.
Due to this female in Islamic society are very safe. Veil is very important for
the whole society b/c it stops a lot of moral evils, which cause so much
complication in the smooth running of the society.
Almighty ALLAH said in Quran: (Mafhoom)
“And remain in your own homes”
Also the word Aurat have meanings of “one’s who live under veil”.
There are five basic principles of Islam (Kalma, Namaz, Roza, Zakat and Hajj).
These are the obligation from ALLAH on every Muslim. These help the people in
realizing the existence of their creator “The Almighty ALLAH” and so many other
such respectable things are also there to get calm, peace and patience by
observing them.
Now the “Effect of Drama Culture in Pakistani Society”.
All the things that I had discussed above are affected by the drama culture,
some are totally depleted and some are near to depletion and some others are in
threat of destruction. You all are familiar with the word addiction that means
“a person use to some thing” now a days people are addict to the stage dramas.
They prefer to watch dramas on every other thing even Namaz. I would like to
share a little example with you “my own classmates are so much use to watch
dramas on computer or live. One of them saw the drama live twice during 18 days
of final examination”. You can easily access the craze of people about these
stage dramas. Men become helpless in front of T.V. or live stage. They behave
just like passive listeners who listen and laugh widely on the words and actions
of the actors. These actions of the actor have a great value in the mind of
audience.
The words of Azan and Kalma have less importance for such addict people. So they
unintentionally refuse the five basic principle of Islam, which are very
necessary for a man to be a Muslim.
They take the man into the imaginary world of dreams where a man can do anything
without any kind of restriction, and man start thinking about the impossible
things which has no existence in real. Man has idea that I am the best than all
other men in the world and I can do everything, nobody can stop me. His point of
view changes totally and he starts saying that he has power to do every thing
without the help of any third body. Such type of thinking has weakened the faith
in ALLAH and all the related faiths. When faith in ALLAH has weakened than
destruction of society will automatically resulted. Ultimately the fear of ALLAH
has vanished and man starts using both legal and illegal means of earning. Man
become so much selfish, His thinking just revolves around himself and he does
not bother about the other society member.
His aim is to capture every thing in this world and use this for only his own
benefits. This reduces the cooperation among the society members and makes them
so much cruel.
This selfish behavior renders him to love young one’s and shows respect to his
elder.
As holy prophet (P.B.U.H.) said:
ALLAH is not merciful to whim who is not merciful to people (Bukhari, Muslim)
Our society strongly believes in relationships but this culture use these as a
source of enjoyment, so the element of respect has completely vanished. The very
close relatives i.e. Father, mother, brothers, sisters are the big source of
enjoyment for them. They through jokes on them and insult on the stage in the
front of hundred of people. They compel their sisters to dance and felt prestige
happiness while watching their dance. Although all the relation are temporary in
nature but they have used the word dady, mama, brother and sister while acting
in the stage play. These relations are losing their sacredness and uniqueness.
For these people the words, like Father, mother, brothers, and sisters have no
meanings at the stage. They treat all the people same on the stage during play
or drama. There is no body younger or elder in play all of equal age so they
through jokes on one an other with no regard to the age of targeted person. Some
other social relationship is also greatly affected by this drama culture. All
close friends and relatives are then the person who are directly or indirectly
involve in these activities. Father, mother, brothers, and sisters all are
enjoying themselves while working in the play.
Justice has the very secret status in the Islamic society. This is also treated
badly by this culture. They have to make fun of the justice. They have to do
their own decision for the sake of enjoyment of the audience. The ideas they
present in their plays some time induce negative thinking about the rich people
of the society. The poor young people start thinking that there is definitely
their right in the wealth of rich people, so there start a tension b/w haves and
have nots which is the major cause of social disparity. On the other hand they
represent the rich people in a way, which made the rich people more proud who
has the thinking that poor people are only for their service. They show them so
much cruel and selfish in character, so other element of society start hating
rich people. In this way the social justice is disturbed by drama culture.
The veil (Pardah) is vanished near to its completion. The women (mostly the
young ladies) come out of their homes with great degree of fashion. They feel
great pleasure while wearing short and tight cloths. The female come on the
stage, they sing and dance simultaneously in front of thousands of people. The
female who have to wear the veil, use the very attractive colors so to induces
evils in the society. Now a days, female are just like a showpiece that is
handled by different element of the society. As every person use decoration
piece according to his choice similarly each element of society uses the female.
This drama culture is also a financial burden on the society. A lot of money
wasted on this that has no reward to society. Money earned by this mean is not
fruitful for the society b/c this is not a legal mean of earning. The addict
people do everything even theft for watching dramas. The average rate of ticket
of the live stage drama is Rs.150 and people in each theater are on an average
250, which is equal to the Rs.37500. this huge amount is wasted daily by the
citizen on this fruitless activity. This is a rough estimate of one theater.
There is much more such theater in the country where people spent both money and
time . Time is also very important which wasted carelessly in such activities.
The usual duration of the drama is 3hours, so in one theater 750 hours are
wasted. By this you can easily access the loss to the society by this drama
culture.
All the effect that I mention above has very strong impact on the mind of the
children and the teenager. Although the process of changing believes is very
slow but it have everlasting impact. Until we don’t take collectively action to
stop this vulgar culture, it can never be stopped. So we should collectively
work to stop this to save our nation from destruction.
I acknowledge that enjoyment is the part of the life and life becomes so
colorless without this, but there are several means of enjoyment. Enjoyment
should be productive, free from prejudices, lies and all kind of cheatings. Now
we should be care about the norms and values of the society and we should work
together for the sake of these.
This is the end of the article.