Lead stars of the original web series on Zee5Global explore gender bias
Read the full story: https://bit.ly/2F1BKfH
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
#Churails #Pakistan #webseries
Read the full story: https://bit.ly/2F1BKfH
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
#Churails #Pakistan #webseries
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00very powerful imagery there, women in burqa taking charge of their life, showing their faces.
00:05Did you expect such, you know, adoration and adulation for the series as well?
00:10I don't know. Part of me must have unconsciously been hoping for it.
00:14But no, did I expect it to be this big? Certainly not. Did I expect it to,
00:18you know, have every single reviewer in the world writing about it and talking about it
00:24and people on Twitter going crazy, whether they're talking positive or negative, but
00:29the amount of dialogue, I think I was not expecting. I think people would watch it,
00:33they'd like the show, they would not like the show and it'll be the end of that.
00:38I think we've never, I mean, I have at least never read a story that was so honest and a story that
00:46reflected social issues like that. I do see a lot of talk on social issues, but generally we
00:55tend to just tap it on the surface and then move on. But in Chudaiyaz, I think so many issues
01:01were talked about and you know that was just very, very courageous and I wanted to be part of
01:07such a courageous script and obviously Asim is just like, you know, people go gugu gaga over
01:13him in Pakistan and now internationally, you know, everybody knows. And then Nimra, Nimra was
01:21so amazing and just having these names and all these right people be part of this team, I think
01:28that was very, a very unusual opportunity for us and I just jumped for it. I was like I have to be
01:38part of this.
01:41And Asim, perhaps you could tell me what was like the seed of the idea? How did you come about it?
01:46I don't know if there was a specific seed. I think the themes were just themes that I had been
01:55looking at for a while. I was interested in exploring gender bias that exists within the
02:00subcontinent and seeing in different ways how that power dynamic kind of, you know, how vast
02:07it is and how it impacts so many different avenues. So, it was a big and sprawling and
02:16you know, something that at that time I thought maybe I could do a film but as soon as I started
02:22writing it, I knew that this was something that needed a bigger scale in terms of how many hours
02:29I had to play with it. So, when Zee5 approached me and kind of, you know, asked me to pitch some
02:35ideas, I think this was one of the ones that was at the forefront and they liked it and
02:39kind of from there I went on and I kind of, you know, started dissecting and trying to figure out
02:46each of those things where those power dynamics kind of come into play. So, hence you'll see that
02:51the, you know, the tone of the series shifts, that the theme of episodes changes but at the core of
02:59it, I think it is about that gender bias and it is about the power play between a man and a woman.
03:04Let's see. How about you Nimru? I really enjoyed your role as well. Very powerful.
03:09Thank you. Thank you. It's all in the script. Yeah, I was very curious to read something that
03:18was called Chudails. I went to meet Asim and I had not met him before. I had not seen his work. I had
03:25not, you know, I mean I didn't know very much about, I'd read lots of great reviews about Cake
03:35but I hadn't seen it and so for me Chudails was like the first of his work that I saw and I was,
03:41you know, pretty much blown away and then I kept thinking, I kept turning the pages to see
03:46if something would go wrong in this, you know, like in how much I liked the script but I liked
03:53everything about it. To tell you the truth, I really didn't think that much about, you know,
03:58that we were going to go and do the first, you know, sort of how people are describing the first
04:03feminist series. I mean I just thought that this was, you know, a very well told story about women
04:11and with great dialogue and great, you know, lots of thrills and action and for me that was a real
04:19first. That was the first that I had seen in a script like that, that women were doing the action,
04:25they were driving the action, you know, they were the protagonists, they were the heroes and the
04:30villains and everything, you know, there was, I mean it was all women so but I still didn't think
04:35that it would, you know, translate so much into, you know, this that people are talking about that
04:41how we meant it to be the first feminist. I mean there was, I think Asim, there's like, you know,
04:46it was not, it was not that. No, there was no conversation, we are going to fly the flag of feminism.
04:52I mean, you know, obviously we were aware that the themes are, you know, feminist in nature but
04:59the thing was it was always about the story and what we were trying to, the actual literal story
05:05and not the thematic implications of it so much. Fantastic and I'm glad you'd say this because at
05:11the end of the day, I was very worried honestly while I was watching the series because it's a
05:15female-fronted one and I heard a bit of surround noise about it being very feminist, etc. Would it
05:21just be male bashing? That was my biggest fear and something about it, I don't think that's
05:25feminism, it's just about equal rights so in your case were you also worried that it should not end
05:30up as some propaganda piece about male bashing, making all men look like these hideous monsters?
05:37No, I wasn't that worried because I felt like I had three very, very strong male characters,
05:43two you've already met till episode five, one you'll meet if you're going to see the rest of it
05:49and I felt like they for me were the good guys and they were very strong and they've
05:54gotten and you know and now as we see one month down the release that they've gotten a lot of
05:59love for it and a lot of love for the characters that they have portrayed and I think so it wasn't
06:03for me, you know, it's one thing I did think was, I wonder if people would lump it but for
06:12me, you know, it was only like one day of consideration because frankly the people who
06:17get it, get what that means, it's the same thing as you know we had this whole hooha
06:22about mera jissam meri marzi because people take it in the wrong way and say that we are
06:27trying to imply something negative whereas that slogan isn't and I think some same thing with
06:34it wasn't that all men will suffer but it will the men will also know pain that we have known
06:43that you know that we have been subjected so I think it's a interpretation that really matters
06:48and I think people I know and I now know from experience and I knew back then as well
06:53people who want to read negatively into things they will find that negative anywhere no matter
06:59what the show was they would have found it so I think that just comes with the you know just
07:04comes with doing something that is slightly you know shaking up the status quo.
07:08Sarwat you have a you know a husband who's philandering etc but you seem to be tolerant
07:13quite your character and I found that very interesting you're so empowered otherwise
07:18when you're going around saying I don't tolerate dishonesty and lies and then there is you know
07:23that dichotomy was very interesting. You know I mean that's just real life, you may want to
07:28have a perfect life, you may want to have a perfect husband, a perfect home structure, perfect
07:33mother but at the same time life is just brutal and it is honest and I think that's the beauty
07:40of Sara's character that you see that she has this amazing life but when you how many episodes
07:45have you seen? Five. I mean you will see that when you go in the flashback you will see a
07:53confused Sara, a Sara who was you know not so sure if her husband did cheat on her but because
08:02it was her first time she does give him the benefit of the doubt like every other wife wants to
08:09but when when things you know really hit the fan she really does take it in a very personal way
08:17because for her she has left her career, she has left herself to provide and to be this perfect
08:25wife and if her husband is going around doing things like that, that just shatters her entire
08:31reality down and I think like any woman would not be in a sane mind and not make you know the
08:43right decisions once she finds out that 75 women he's been flirting with so but at the same time
08:50you know inside she's a leader, inside she wants to get everybody together, she wants to uplift
08:56women, she wants other women's problems to be solved which she is going through but then you
09:03see her falling also so I love that about Sara, I love the fact that she was a leader but also a
09:10failure so what what Sara was for me was a very real-life woman and everyday woman that I see
09:20around me who's trying to do the best she can in her career, in her life, in her personal
09:26life. Are you a boxer in real life by the way I had to ask you because I've seen you know you do
09:32it quite authentically I was like there's so much rage in you Mehr so perhaps you can tell us
09:37you've joined in slightly late but perhaps about your role you know there's a lot of anger in you
09:44yeah there's a lot of anger and rage in me in real life but I've always suppressed it a lot but I
09:50think with Zubeda I was able to really channel that suppressed rage that I've had all my life
09:57I think that Zubeda is someone who just acts immediately as soon as you know she's been wrong
10:03and she's just generally very action-oriented and no I was not a boxer before this but I am
10:09a dancer so I guess that aspect of my life and that training kind of really helped me
10:15because we were able to do choreographed movements very easily because of my dance background
10:23but yeah I think I was able to channel that rage well because I really did feel that kind of rage
10:29in my bones and as Zubeda you know and so many young women who have had to just the first scene
10:35where you know Zubeda is being introduced where someone wings at her and teases her you know her
10:42immediate reaction to it was so animalistic like she just bangs that guy's head on the desk
10:50I feel like that's some that's the kind of rage that every young woman has felt
10:55sometime in her life where you know she was just completely overtaken by it and she just
11:01couldn't take it and you know the audacity with which these men are allowed to get away and
11:08even perform these acts where they you know where they engage in Eve teasing so this is just not
11:15something that sits well with Zubeda and she is prompted to take definitive action as soon as she
11:21is presented in a situation like this and Nimra you didn't stop at boxing you actually killed a person
11:28because I didn't know how to box
11:32although I am with you I'm on your side at some point I was like is it okay to kill a man I mean
11:37what a harsh punishment and what a brutal way of it's almost like borderline like you know you
11:43would associate that with a very disturbed mind so did you have in your own head how do you justify
11:49killing that's a good question I think what happens is you know you sort of try to put
11:58yourself in a killer in somebody who has killed somebody you try to put them yourself in their
12:03shoes and you try to imagine what you know went through their head and you just cannot you cannot
12:09I mean I for the life of me cannot imagine you know being married so young which is what the
12:15character Batool was subjected to marital rape you know having a child at that age then you know
12:21having that child fear of having that child abused and so I mean I can't imagine any of that stuff
12:28actually you know so which which led up to that but I can I can imagine that there was
12:35a sense of rage and helplessness which led to what happened I don't think that you know she
12:42was somebody who went around you know knocking at people's doors with an iron and I am you know
12:48so it was like it was all it was driven by her circumstances and and on the one hand where I
12:53can't imagine her killing a man bigger than her with an iron I also can't imagine going through
13:00all of that so you know it was quite a lot that built up to that to that event but then but then
13:06I think what is more interesting to me is how then you live after you know that there is life
13:14after and I think that for me is the unique quality about Batool that you know she she put
13:19that behind her it was not like you know this was sort of that she felt that she had done the wrong
13:25thing she felt she did what she had to do. Asim where is all this anger coming from I have to know
13:30it's not my anger my personal anger luckily I'm born a man and sitting very comfortably in a
13:40privileged life it's not my anger it's it's the anger of everyone who is not sitting in my chair
13:45and who is not going through the oppression and who is not belonging to a marginalized
13:51gender or a marginalized community it's their anger and I think it comes from the idea that
13:57how how much can you push someone before they fight back before they bite back before they
14:05and it's and the and the rage kind of comes in in different forms for all of them and the one
14:10thing that you guys were just talking about I think we've not spoken enough about how how much
14:16of this show is about motherhood and all its different forms how Batool is dealing with the
14:23loss of a child and what the the the length she would go to protect that child what Jugnu is
14:29going through having lost a child by her own free will but now having these pangs of guilt because
14:36of how that could have turned out or what the alternative to that and then you know in the later
14:41but now you've seen Sarah wedding up a happy front a lot to do with having three children
14:47with that man and they're trying to like trying to protect that that family that she has built
14:54and and and the decisions that she'll make in episode 10 around you know the some lies that
15:00are created around the children I think those are also to protect their protect that bond of the
15:06mother with the children so I think that theme was very very important right and was it a big party
15:11I mean there's this dialogue in the series that go when all these women come together problems
15:15are bound to happen some sexist throwaway line I don't know if you remember it's in the first
15:20few it's commentary and I was a bit like you know taken aback I was like oh that's interesting that
15:26there is such a throwaway remark but did you women have fun like or is it just a stereotype
15:32that if women get together they get scatty and perhaps sometimes violent it was I think it was
15:38coming from a from a man who was when you find out who the man is you'll understand
15:45but no on the set it was uh not very catty at all not catty at all
15:52what's not very catty that means we we actually we actually had a lot of fun I mean you know
15:59this is such a stereotype that you know women have this competition between them and they fight
16:04over things and I think we are we were so not not like that at all we became friends we some of us
16:11knew each other slightly but you know some of us had sort of worked together for the first time
16:17and we all at the end of it we would sit in this little you know we had this little mobile kind of
16:23trailer they call it yeah one air conditioner and lots of women and he you know shooting in this
16:30heat and then everybody would come back from the set rip off their burqas you know get in front of
16:35the AC and just all laughing and snacking and you know talking about what we would snack on next
16:43and then what would be you know sort of be doing so it was really really good fun and so much
16:49support and I think it was really great that we were thrown all of us like you know were thrown
16:55together in these circumstances because we learned a lot about you know about each other also and I
17:00think it was also great how it fed onto the screen chemistry between us the the bond that
17:06you see on screen is real is a real life bond that we developed and also because you know Asim
17:16is like a strict although he doesn't say it but he's like a principal and you know so we should
17:25to disappoint him or upset him so whatever problems even if we did have they would just
17:32stay inside and we would be all good but no absolute amazing team they were all artists
17:40from theatre so you know how theatre artists are so real and so grounded and so like sit on the
17:46floor and have dal chawal and we were all doing that so it was lovely oh wow it was one big happy
17:51family huh that's not a thank you so much guys for once you guys is not a word you guys are all
17:58collective even Asim including you I think you are really the master you're the puppeteer who
18:11you guys should go on a vacation together have it on a t-shirt but I enjoyed watching all you
18:17flawed and fabulous women on screen and what a wonderful series I'm going to finish watching it
18:22as soon as I'm done maybe I'll have more things I don't know but well done all of you thank you