Great people never had normal live patterns. They seem to have survived as one man against the entire world and it is never a small world when there is one against all. Their lives do not follow the business as usual track lines. They do not move in stationery orbits. While they live, they live differently and leave different trails. It is only by observing this leftover trail of these people by us that we get aware of how abnormal lives they had lived. This grants them the legacy of being the Great ones. Can each of us afford this abnormal-pattern of lives? Obviously not, and that is the reason why not everyone can be Umer Sharif!
He was obviously more than a comedian. He was a staunch patriot who loved his country; a devoted artist who worshipped his work; a social scientist who diagnosed social ills; and an activist who cared for the people. He was not only a man of theatre but was in fact a man with a beautiful heart. Sixty-six years is the numeric value of his physical life but in reality he has already lived countless lives: Umer Sharif to rest in eternal peace!
His was the simplest and least expensive stagecraft and with this he managed grandeur themes with punchy plots that held the society as one star struck audience for decades. He had tamed the words and domesticated their meanings that elevated him to an unparalleled position as being a master of extempore performance. How overwhelming was his grip on his time and space is something yet to be determined. He was a recusant rebel of literary set principles and established that he was not the trend follower rather he was the trend setter.
Labeled as the God of Asian Comedy or the King of Comedy, Umer Sharif was a man made of versatile stuff. His theatre was never the source of lucrative earning for him as to have ascended such fame both nationally and internationally, he could have taken it down to the lucrative end of the spectrum but he never did it. His was an approach that was influenced by social reform through literary infusion of realities and showcasing the cracks within our social fabrics. The laughter created out of his theatre was never lost in vacuum rather remained colliding within the society and echoed around and that is still echoing.
For him, it was not an art only to make people laugh but it could be evidently concluded from his works that he intended to mould the social values, the social base and social ethos of a deteriorating society. His shows or theatres were structured with the well calibrated rubrics of science and art. The literature rolled out was well articulated around a theme and he always left his viewers with a smile on their faces and a thought in their minds, thereby fulfilling the Aristotelian requirements of Poetics.
Take a nostalgic bit view of his shows and it will make one cognizant of the reflections of social realities that existed in the timeline of our social evolution. The decay, especially the social decadence, of value system that was projected or predicted in his performances just makes things seem so real today. It seems he was speaking from the oracle.
With a life caught by personal and family miseries, as in typical Pakistani humble background, managing to face fathoms of pain within, one rises and shines like a star is so commendable. Still, how life moulds one in giving so many smiles and contributing happiness in the society while struggling to survive from the pains within is something gifted to a very few of us by God. Management of this internal painful rift with external distribution of smiles is what Umer Sharif championed at.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 10th, 2021.
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