‘Everyone’s a guitarist!’

The sprawling campus of the Institute of Management Sciences looks incongruous set against the the Khyber Agency mountains.

The sprawling campus of the Institute of Management Sciences (IMS) looks incongruous set against the landscape of the Khyber Agency mountains. You can almost imagine a Bollywood song set in the sprawling fields, but instead students mill around the campus preparing for exams.

A poster advertising training for radio jockeys graces a wall, while a student stands nearby, flicking his poker-straight shoulder-length hair.

IMS is also home to a number of budding musicians and filmmakers.

“Everyone has a guitar these days,” amateur filmmaker Shoaib Anwar says. “Guitarists don’t ask you to sing a song you know, they say ‘we know how to play this song, sing it’”, says Khushal Khan.

“Even editing is becoming popular. When I joined university, I was one of two editors on campus. Now every one in five of the students knows video editing,” Anwar says.

The two, who are MBA students, have participated at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) Olympiad several times. As part of their marketing courses, they were often assigned to make advertisements; this kick started a fondness for filmmaking. For the last contest, they had to make a film in 24 hours and showcase one prop. The group came second.

“We work on zero budgeting for films,” Anwar says. “If we need a dolly, we use a skateboard, and if we need a crane we use the camera stand.”

Khan performed with the IMS band once, and the next year as a solo singer. His musical influences are numerous and include Coldplay. Anwar interjects, “He likes everything which is slow - the Junaid Jamshed style.”

But brandishing a camera or singing is not as easy as it seems in Peshawar. The students face many of the same issues that have dogged musicians in Karachi and Lahore.

“When I’d leave the house with a camera, everyone would say I should take care or else I’d get picked up,” Anwar says, who taught himself editing and direction over the internet. His work can be seen at youtube.com/shoaibkkk123.

But there are other problems. They know that their parents look at their work only as a hobby which they pursue while they are at university. “Even students ask us if we’re going to become marasis, and what kind of path this is that we have chosen.”

They do not see this as a full-time career. “We want to complete our education. We want to become marketers and get jobs in advertising agencies. This will remain a passion for us - but on the side,” Khan says.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 25^th, 2010.