Comic ‘Paasban – The Guardian’ turned into Urdu audio book

Comic about radicalisation has been translated into Urdu by famed writer Amjad Islam Amjad

KARACHI: While international cinema and comic book stories are replete with heroes and superheroes, Pakistan has had a tough time creating one that could keep the audience preoccupied. Granted local cinema has not yet matured enough but the niche market of comics does keep experimenting with various ideas. You might recall Commander Safeguard from a few years ago or even the more recent Burka Avenger. Both were great ventures but neither managed to make the people want more.

Enter Paasban – The Guardian, a graphic novel by CFx Comics that is now available as an audio book on music streaming platform Patari.

Paasban tells a story of four college friends who have to battle extremism and make some tough choices in order to save their loved ones. It started off as an animation project back in 2012.

“We wanted to create awareness about how radicalisation has seeped into society and how young people are more susceptible to being influenced by it,” said Gauhar Aftab, the writer of the graphic novel. “We wanted to de-legitimise it.”

The Army Public School attack in Peshawar really shook Aftab and in its aftermath, the writer quit his job to fully focus on Paasban. The aim was to spread word regarding “the creeping radicalisation in college campuses and how one can battle it.”

According to Aftab, things started picking up in 2015. Famed writer Amjad Islam Amjad translated the comics – originally written by Aftab in English – into Urdu. As the project developed, the Paasban team managed to distribute 5,000 copies in public schools across Karachi, Lahore, Multan and other cities.

“It’s amazing because we surveyed a class about how many of the students would be willing to use violence in the name of religion to convince or stop others and majority of them said they would,” Aftab revealed. “It’s sad because there were Sunnis and Shias sitting together and both were willing to use violence against each other. We distributed the comics and did another survey and this time, 50% of the opinions had changed!”

Aftab is trying to promote Paasbaan through as many mediums as possible. The latest development has been his understanding with Patari. While members of Zambeel Dramatic Readings have worked on the dialogue and narration, Taimur Salahuddin, also known as Mooroo, has handled the sound design.

“I became interested because firstly, it’s translated by Amjad Islam Amjad. Secondly, Urdu literature seems to have lost its relevance. Our youth have trouble reading Urdu but those who can’t read, can listen and understand,” said Patari co-founder Khalid Bajwa. “What makes Paasban fascinating is that it has its own heroes and we don’t have a lot of homegrown heroes anyway. Sure, there have been some but they haven’t stuck around. This is definitely a better quality and the stories are something we can relate to.”

Paasban has become all the richer thanks to Mooroo’s soundtrack. The singer-songwriter claimed he would rather call it a radio play than an audio book as the former has more depth in terms of world creation through sound design. The Lux Style nominee shared that he maintained a cinematic approach for Paasban and that his team had already selected some music, which he took inspiration from. This included some radio plays Mooroo grew up listening to, such as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Kafka’s Metamorphosis.

“You don’t have to be literate to understand the message,” said Mooroo about how he expects Paasban to grow in the future. “You just have to know Urdu. That’s one of the reasons I became interested in this project: I thought it was a great story that deserved to be told on multiple mediums. I could be part of Paasban’s counter-terrorism message through the sound medium.”

As many as seven episodes of Paasban have already been made available on Patari. The team is set to continue the series gradually, to explore different aspects of radicalisation.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 24^th, 2016.

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