Breaking taboos with satire, humour

Shahid Nadeem, Haseena Moin discuss relevance of humour .

ISLAMABAD:

Satire and humour can help break ‘taboos’ but the way it is being practiced; one can hope for little or almost no change at all, said prominent writers in the third Islamabad Literature Festival.

Haseena Moin and Shahid Nadeem discussed satire and humour in a session titled ‘making them laugh and cry’ on Friday.

“Satire is an arrow which, if hits the target makes you think,” said Shahid Nadeem.

Nadeem said that people in Pakistan are always ready to share a laugh and humour and satire can be used as a tool.

Sometimes people feel good when they are given an opportunity to laugh at themselves but it’s the writer’s job to come up with something that can simultaneously make them think about the subject, he said.

For Nadeem, comedy is a medium through which one can make people laugh until they cry and satire is a means to make people laugh while they are crying inside. “We should learn to laugh at ourselves,” he said, adding that people in Pakistan needed laughter.

“Dramas are like children to me. I do not follow family planning when it comes to drama writing. With over 50 dramas, I suppose I’m a father of 50 children,” he quipped.

Moin was of the view that writers cannot hide themselves as they reflect through their writings. She said that one should write carefully as words carry great impact and leave subliminal effects on society. “Meaningful words work as magic,” she said.

While criticising current comedy dramas for not being logical and well organised, Moin said humour in a few plays contain unbearable content. “If it continuous the way it is, I guess humour will end.”

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th, 2015.