Pakistani dramas often draw narratives around family, family and more family. However, recently, we’ve seen a change of heart as makers, (and viewers) have taken a liking for crime thrillers. Not just that, but Express Entertainment has taken it one step further to cast a female lead x action hero(ine) in the latest limited episodes series to grace our screen. Hence we see none other than Inspector Sabiha making a return as a prequel from the much acclaimed crime series Gunah.
Pakistani dramas take their time when it comes to shifting away from the saas – bahu theme. But recently, we have seen some refreshing firsts: Limited episodes series ala Netflix, narratives layered in crime or mystery and now, a female protagonist cast in a role more substantial than the wife, mother in law or ‘other woman’ tropes. It is safe to say, Pakistani dramas have arrived and what better moment than now to delve into the how’s and why’s of Rabia Butt’s journey as Inspector Sabiha.
As the story hits its climax this weekend, we sat down to know the story behind the story from the heroine herself, and this is what we found out. Read on:
How and When You Said Yes to Inspector Sabiha?
This is the only script so far ke jisko meine 24 ghante ke andar haan kaha tha. I said yes
Rabia Butt on Inspector Sabiha
Rabia Butt: “There was no option to say yes or no to it. Jab humne Gunah kiya uss waqt hi humare zehen mein yeh idea tha keh we will continue with this character… I guess it was in the books since day one.” Responded Rabia with surety.
“I take a really good time in deciding about things in life. But I am also a very spontaneous person. However, with work, I like to take my time. But I said yes to this within a day. Without I guess, reading the script, I only spoke with the director on a phone call, and 50% I said yes in my head during that call and after that, within 24 hours, I said yes to it totally. Because yeah, I fell in love with the narration, how he related the story, how he said the whole series is going to be based on Sabiha’s shoulders, and how she will carry it, aur kaise wo lekar usko chalengi aur kitna backbone aur kitna important character hai is series ka, like a man and a woman both reside in this one character.” Rabia Butt’s enthusiasm for Inspector Sabiha was palpable.
On The Character vs The Actor: Sabiha and Rabia Are Both A Force To Be Reckoned With!
Rabia Butt: “How do I keep Rabia and Sabiha separate, although there might be many similarities between the two. So it was very difficult for me. My God! If I just bring the character’s colour on me. If I bring the character on me, because it has similarities with Rabia. But then, Rabia might bring a lot of her own things too?” The actor has a conversation in her mind… “So how do I keep it separate?”
Rabia explains the struggle of an actor who wants to stay entirely true to the character she brings on screen – an intense character who shares many traits with the actor herself, yet the two identities – character and actor must stay separate, because, although there might be an overlap between Sabiha and Rabia, they are, in essence, two separate people.
Rabia continues passionately: “Emotionally, I don’t know, but acting wise, I always say I don’t act. I can be impressed by those who act. But I don’t act. I just think that if Rabia is like this, what would she do? And then, Rabia does it. I do not act ever and I think I cannot act.” Oh the irony of that thought stays – how an actor gets into the skin of the character they play, till it’s not about acting anymore, but being the person we see onscreen!
How did you prepare for the role? Did you visit a police training academy, get a personal trainer or any other insights?
Rabia Butt: “I prepared for this. Although I am health conscious, I feel that working out should be an essential part of a person’s life. Not only for your body but also for your mind. When your body and mind are in good condition, your heart is doing the right thing, then somewhere or the other, your soul will also start to be right.”
Rabia continued, giving us insights into her prep: “I had to learn how to shoot a gun. When Sabiha is holding a gun, she should hold it like a professional person who has received training in how to hold a gun, shooting a target, weapon holding.” She drew a parallel, “Same goes for the car driver, By braking, by taking a turn, by holding the steering wheel, your body language while driving, and you are looking around while driving on the road. So, I did all those things, I did skills training.” Revealed the actor.
A dialogue closest to your heart?
Rabia Butt: “Yeah, there was a dialogue which I loved, loved, loved… I have a lot of similarities with her. So, Sabiha lost her father. And she is madly in love with her father. Same goes for me. I am so madly, passionately, crazily, so lovingly in love with my mother, Alhamdulillah, even till date, I’m so in love with her – it is one thing to love, telling someone that I love you and the other is to be in love with someone, in their absence and after so many years, my God, and this is not a regular mother’s love. I have proof that my love is very different. I have given that proof to God and to the world. I have given that proof to myself.”
Sabiha utters this dialogue to her therapist because, Sabiha is a stoic person, and on top of that, she is very poker faced, appears calm, but everything is going on inside her. There is rage inside her, there is volcano about to erupt.”
Mere baap ki wafaat ka aik aansoo hai, jo na tapakta hai, na mein usko undar nigal paati hoon. I told Adnan, OMG, what have you written… wo aansoo, jo thaihar gaya hai, jo atak gaya hai mere undar, na wo mere andar jaata hai, na mein usko pee sakti hoon, mere halaq mein aik kaante ki tarha atak gaya hai, wo aik aaansoo... “
Inspector Sabiha
Rabia continues: “That’s why you say, when someone dies, that you must cry. Because the tears you don’t shed, keep falling inside you. And those tears, you cannot get away from. There is no respite from them. This dialogue had my heart!”
There are many lines which I loved about this series. For instance Sabiha is in a therapy session and her therapist asks her, how she is, and she replies…
“Mein theek hun. Mein hamesha theek hee rehti hun... This dialogue is so relatable. We have all used it at some point in our conversations”, elaborates Rabia. “We often use this dialogue when we are going through a tough time in life. And since society teaches us to stay silent, not to react, whereas actually, there’s a storm waging inside us, yet we always respond: “Mein theek hun. Mein hamesha theek hee rehti hun… Rabia’s voice trails off into a lingering moment or thought”
“Of course”, she continues, snapping her self back to the moment, “every writer has their own style, which comes from their personality, Adnan writes less, but in those few things which I liked, which I was hit with, there was another dialogue that I liked. It expressed: I have raised myself. People are raised by their parents, I have raised my parents. I have raised myself. I am my mother and father too.”
When Inspector Sabiha spoke for all the career minded women, or single women, or divorced women of the world?
Rabia Butt: “She says, how will I do all this alone? How will I survive in this society alone? All these questions are of course for women. Whether they are single parents, divorced, or even those women who are not married, all of them have the same problem in their minds. How will I do all this? How will I survive alone in this society?”
I think all the characters which I have performed so far, all are different from each other.
Rabia Butt
Rabia continues to explain her role choices: “Totally, completely different, like head to toe. But there is a base line in all of them. Their value system is very strong. Ethically, all those women are super strong. I’m not saying I’m so strong that my God I’m like a mountain. No, a strong person has his own weak points, weaker moments. But a strong person carries a system of values, ethics – a foundation of values. You can keep on renovating, you can keep on building lekin, foundation nahin hilni chahiye. Foundation bari zaroori hai – the core values. Tau har wo banda strong hai. Jo apni core values pe compromise nahin karta.
“Otherwise it’s very easy. Aaj ke daur me bhi, pehle bhi… I don’t lie but if I lie here, people might not know, they might never know? If you lie all your life, what will happen? But, hello, that moment is going to decide,” elaborates Rabia, on her life philosophy… “that moment between thought and action, what stimulates you to act, that particular moment is going to lay a foundation for your future self. And that’s what I’m saying here, that it’s a small moment, the stimulus, that decides whether you’re going to live with your head down or with your head up and with pride, with love. And this is me, and it’s very important to me.” She caps off.
On Inspector Sabiha’s intensity, Rabia Butt has this to say.
“She was a strong woman… it’s just, it was a beautiful character. And all the characters I’ve been. So… But in this character, Sabiha has brought back some childhood memories of mine. I can’t even imagine, if you replace her father, with a mother, she’s completely Rabia. Uh… And then there are so many other things about her. How she single-handedly raises her daughter. And I too, Alhamdulillah, I single-handedly raised my three sisters. Sabiha was raising one, I was raising three. And actually four, including myself. We are four.” … Let that sink in.
Rabia continues on the topic of sleeping pills, a taboo topic?
“Neend ki goliyon ki baat karein. Come on, let’s talk about it. Every other person amidst us has taken sleeping pills, but no one dares to talk about it on social forums. Suffer in silence, but do not talk about it in public or on social media. Everyone refuses to talk about it. We feel this is really awful to talk about. It’s a painful topic, though you take pills to reduce your pain. I have taken many pills too in the past, but mainly, my goal was to fix my sleeping pattern. It takes time to wean off them too. Many people take anti relaxants, reduce anxiety, but no one talks about it. Sabiha is at her training session, and she is taking so many pills, she has to take more as her body develops a higher threshold. So, in a very good way, this drama has addressed the topic. Such a critical thing has been discussed.”
Rabia goes on to mention all the pressure points touched upon in Inspector Sabiha
“Therapy has been discussed, sleeping pills, depression, your relationship with your father has been shown”. And if that’s not all, a traumatic mother-daughter relationship takes its toll on our heroine. “Your subconscious, your nervous system, when we see wounded adults around us, they were wounded children once. They are around us, they are us.” Explains Rabia, passionately. “In Gunah, Sabiha was such a killer police officer. She took a feudal lord to the police station. So much was manipulated, but she reached the right decision. She located the body buried in the right place. And this was her journey, Inspector Sabiha’s journey,”
“And now, you see where she came from.” Rounds off Rabia, almost drawing a full circle, from Gunah to Inspector Sabiha, the young girl who aspired to become a cadet, tortured by a single childhood memory. “How did she survive all this?” asks Rabia. We’re beginning to wonder if the character has overtaken the actor now.
“After these pills, therapy, marriage, betrayal, alone with her daughter. My God! Look at her, what she has become. Such a big, life changing thing this girl has achieved, and this gives such a big lesson. Someone watching might say to themselves, “I will also become such a person. I will also work hard. I will not listen to the demeaning things said to me. Someone is also lowering my morale but I will not let it get to me. So this series, I think, is a lesson for us. And in our real life, it’s not that it’s fake, but in our real life, there are unsung heroes who fight their traumas every day, and despite that, they make their mark in life, and even if they can’t heal their traumas, they bring smiles to those around them. And when these people smile, then the world smiles, the angels smile, the skies smile… because they are injured souls.” Rabia continues, excusing herself for taking a philosophical path, but that, dear folks, is possibly, the power of characters like Inspector Sabiha, they live inside of us and the people who play them, long after!
On Express Entertainment’s Venture Into The Unknown…Rabia Butt Sheds Light On her Thoughts:
“We have tried to do something different here. We have talked about different topics which are based on reality. So we wanted to know how people are going to accept it.
Humain ye baat to maani paregi. Express ne qaafi zyada cheezein, out of the box ideas karne ki koshish kiye. Varna unke liye bhi aasaan tha keh wo bhi saas bahu ki kahaniyan sunaayen. Show some romance, that would have been very easy. Sometimes I laugh. The heroine’s tresses aren’t even blowing in the wind. Often, she has no makeup on. No song to accompany her actions or expressions? Adnan (Sarwar) says, my heroines are like this, they are real life heroines.
Rabia Butt
“So my heroine is a real life heroine,” explains Rabia. “Because our mother, sister and daughter, you don’t picture them in a romantic way. You picture them like this – a woman who is strong, who faces the obstacles of life head on, who takes all the relationships, who suppresses the demons inside her, who fights them and also fights the demons outside. Because it is a male-driven society. So Express must be lauded for addressing a different genre.”
A Call To The Conscience Of The Audience
“Even if people don’t watch it, we have put our content out there in the universe. People will understand, maybe, in 10 years. We have done our bit, now it is time for others to act. We will make this decision for our future, we will make this content. Because if people don’t watch our stuff, then they are proving that audiences don’t want a difference. People are watching the same old filmy stories, and there are millions of views. So this story is not ours now, we have done our bit, this is for the people to decide now. I said earlier that the voice of our conscience, that moment between thought and action, the decision that you have to make at that time, this decision will be made by audiences. This decision is not ours, we have already made it.”
Usually, in our dramas, it is said that the girls are just crying, and they are just suffering and tolerating. This is the only story – Inspector Sabiha, in which there is no male figure, there is no protagonist, she is the hero and the victim. This is a woman-driven story. Although, there is a story behind it. So this series is game altering, it will shake a lot of perceptions.
Rabia Butt on Inspector Sabiha
It is hard to refuse work, many actors say they take on work that pays so they might do 3 meaningful roles in the year but then one commercially viable one because they need the pay check. What makes you say no? How do you justify to your practical side that it’s okay not to do characters you don’t believe in. Can an actor survive commercially, in practical life, and run their household if they only do meaningful roles?
Rabia Butt on picking meaningful roles and the pressure to say yes to a commercial role
She continues to explain the ethos behind her decisions: “I work very little and I make sure that I can sit with pride and see that my work is done. I don’t want to bow my head. I don’t want my family to bow their heads. I want my society to play a positive role in my story. So how will I perform something that I cannot relate to?”
And that, dear folks, wraps up a very intense conversation on Inspector Sabiha. We saw shades of Rabia Butt, shades of a woman who will not be beaten, who will stand true to her foundation as she calls it, and will always go for roles that resonate within, deep down inside her. Catch Inspector Sabiha as the final episode drops on Friday, and if you haven’t watched it yet, then settle in for a weekend watch, what better time than now!
Inspector Sabiha is written & directed by Adnan Sarwar. The cast includes Rabia Butt, Yasir Nawaz, Yasir Hussain, M. Ehteshamuddin, Samiya Mumtaz, Sohail Sameer, Iffat Omar, & more.
