To Rozee, With Love

Dear Rozee!

We never met Rozee but my love for you goes way back. Initially it was more of relation of respect and as I grew up, I simply fell in love with your work more and more. It all begun when in my childhood I became kind of a big television freak. At that time, we used to have Friday off and every Thursday night, PTV used to telecast shows, movies & special long plays. Back then PTV Awards were one of the most prestigious and highly awaited annual events of the year. It was an occassion where the industry`s most talented artists came to perform. It included versatile singers from Alamgir to Rona Laila to the great comedians like Saleem Nasir. That is my first memory of you! You were an energetic young man hosting the show with a great command over the Urdu language with an amazing accent. You were speaking in tricky yet simple language which, at times was tough for a teen like me to understand at that age. But the smooth and fluent way you delivered the statements and conducted the show was always a delight to watch. I also remember your impersonations during television shows were a treat to watch.

But that was just a start! In those days whenever my mom saw any comedy drama or someone impersonating some personality at television, she always enthusiastically told me that some certain actor gave a great performance in a role where he portrayed himself as a woman. She loved his that play and always insisted that I should watch it, luckily thanks to PTV`s policy of repeat telecasting their hit programs, I was able to watch it finally. It was the start of my love for you! You did a wonderful job throughout the play but it was the last episode is what brought the best out of you. Your dialogues-cum-speech in the second last scene are still alive in our memories.  

I am sorry but even by then I still did not know that you worked on stage too. Till then I had never seen any stage play in my life, so it was summer vacations of late 1990`s when we, all cousins, gathered at our grandmother`s place wanted to watch something hilarious and entertaining. So different options were discussed until my mamu got up, left the room and brought us a video cassette of a play what he described as “worth watching family play”. It started with Omer Sharif in the main lead role, who was acting as an old retired professor, father of three pretty daughters who were, as expected, harassed by three boys. One of them used to call at his home and ask Professor whenever he picked the phone that “Budha Ghar Per Hai?” The play was going good when suddenly this young man walks in accompanied by a thunderous clapping from audience. This is when I saw you first time on stage, I was pleasantly shocked. You started talking casually to the professor and all of a sudden asked “Budha Ghar Per Hai?” which was followed by the loudest of round of applause.   This was start of what was an excellent and superb performance by you. You delivered your dialogues while impersonating different artist`s accent were outstanding. Your performance was really the soul of that play. You definitely won me over then!   

Apparently you were great at doing everything! Today, I don’t mind admitting that when I was young, I watched your programs for the sake of your name that “look this program include him so it`s bound to be good” but as I grew up, I fell in love more and more with the work, you and Anwar Maqsood used to do. You gave us a humor which was not based upon targeting personal lives of personalities or merely reading out the common-texts like jokes. Both of you didn't try to make us laugh at your every other sentence; instead you first created an environment through your conversations and then left an impact.

You showed us that what is one`s duty as an actor and what respect an writer deserves. You both presented a show where the content was as important as the presentation. You, yourself, were very talented writer and yet during the four decades you both worked together, you never changed a single word of Anwar`s written script. We all know that you were fully capable of improvising dialogues during the show and probably at times, your sudden improvisations would have only made the show better. But you always respected the right of the writer and only did what you were best at; presenting.

Rozee, you know there is no point in telling others about you. No need for me to go over all again that how many awards you got and which were your most famous programs. I am not the only one who loved you; I am just one of the millions. I am not here to declare that you left a great impression on my life and you were my idol and all because honestly speaking we have never listened and cared about what your generation tried to teach us! I am writing this because I feel I owe you for what you did give me! Whether you were the all dressed up host of the award show, or you were Rozee, or the drunken poet in the Angan Terha or the flirty Seth Manzoor Daney Wala; you always brought a smile to our faces! What better could have you done other than bringing smiles & happiness even for an hour during the last seven and probably the toughest ever years of this country through Loose Talk. You showed us what real entertainment was! You taught us that how just in three decades a 15 year old school-dropout kid could make all the difference for his own people, for his own country!

It has been more than two weeks now! We all still miss you. You would have appreciated the way people cried for you and remembered you. You once said “Everything I did is a part of history now. To live with history is difficult but there will be people, who will say one day, there was a man who did it and did it so differently.” Today, this is exactly what every one of us has said about you. You did something and did it in a really different way. Few days back, I saw Mr. Anwar doing loose talk again, for the last time! And tell you what, watching him recalling his memories of you, made me miss you more. I bet you would have loved this all. You know Rozee what Anwar`s driver said?  He said “Pakistan ka tu kismet hi kharab ho gaya hai! Moin Akhtar bi chala gaya”.

Yes, Life will move on! The graveyards all over the world are full of indispensable people.  So will be the case with you. Couple of months after your death, only your family will cherish every moment spent with him, only Mr. Anwar will bring to his mind you’re funniest of moments & only the people who you helped would be left praying for your soul. 

People will come and go but one thing of which I am dead sure is that during my life time, there will be no other Rozee!  We will always love you. Today, we have nothing to say but to thank you for whatever you had done for us!

Thank You Rozee! Love You!

From Your Loving,

A Pakistani

By Hammad Anwar

Follow @manihammad