Last week’s Parwarish episode 19 was an emotion – raw, unfiltered, heavy on the heart, and yet, carefully curated to give audiences a painfully real life feel. And the audience responded… the scenes touched a deep chord in some, in others, there was a relatability and even a trigger which made it it tough to watch. We sat down with director Meesam Naqvi to give you more insights into the two scenes that had everyone in tears.
“It is important to give hope.” Responded Meesam Naqvi, “Hope is the only thing that makes or breaks a person. But it is important to give hope.”
The director was referring to Sadia’s character played beautifully by Bakhtawar Mazhar, when she finally stands up for her daughter Maya.
But why didn’t she speak earlier? We asked. Wasn’t it about time? Why not when Waleed was harassing Maya in her own home? Why wait?
“We knew that she should have responded earlier.” Quipped Meesam. “But this was a deliberate effort by me and Kiran (writer, Parwarish), that we should push it right to the edge, so much so that the audience starts talking about it… when will she speak? We knew that when she speaks, we should make everything else quiet. So that people realize that speaking up is so, so important.”
The director went on to elaborate on the feedback he received after the episode:
“I have received about a thousand comments, people have called me. That this is how it should be, we must speak out. May Allah give everyone the same. But I have my own argument in this….” And here, he explains further that “Why should Allah give everyone the same? That they should be silent first, and then at some point say, No. In a pefect life, everyone should speak earlier. But here, we felt it more realistic because mothers like Sadia, they don’t speak a lot, they keep quiet, they suppress the matter. But inside her, something was going on for a very long time, and that is why, we did it in the middle, not at the end of the story. We deliberately kept it in the middle so that people would know. We didn’t take it to the end. And we are hoping that all the women who are watching this, all the mothers who are watching this, everyone, never takes it to this point. They do it beforehand. Yes, they should do it beforehand.” He reaffimed. “But because we have to watch the drama as well, we had to do it this way.”
On Aina Asif’s performance as Maya, Meesam Naqvi had this to say:
“I call her daughter. And I literally treat her like my own daughter and she treats me like a father. I know that she is sensitive, that is why she is a very good actress. The scene with Bakhtawar and Maya, 4 people had a breakdown on the set. We had to stop shooting for 15-20 minutes because everyone was crying, Bakhtawar was crying, Nazar (Maya’s father) was crying, Aina was crying, I was crying.” Such was the toll this scene took on team Parwarish duting the course of the shoot.
Director Meesam Naqvi went on to shed light on the contribution from the rest of the team:
“Nazar ul Hassan (Shaheer, Maya’s father) even said, because he is a very good person, I can’t raise my hand on a kid. This is not possible.” Revealed Meesam. “And the way he is acting, it is the opposite of what he really is. He is such a sweet guy. So after shooting that scene, believe me, it was only at night, in the silence, we were shooting this scene at 1 or 2 am, there were only whispers, crying and silence. Everyone was crying on set My DOP was crying, because the dialogues were so powerful, everyone was feeling it. Obviously, it was a heavy moment, I had to give guidance to my team, I had to be strict, I had to put aside my emotions, I had to laugh later, I had to joke around with them later to break the mood.”
“But first, I let them cry it out” Reveals the director. “There is catharsis in expressing emotions.”
“I gave silence first. There is a way,… to let them cry first, because the heart is filled with emotions. There is nothing wrong in crying. When catharsis happens, then if you explain something to them, it will be easy for them to understand, otherwise they will become emotional. Then I joked with them later. The next day, I called everyone and asked, are you alright? Are you feeling well? I got great input from my team. They responded that they received life lessons while performing that scene. And they are beautiful people. They are educated, beautiful, and have a wonderful mindset, so they understood. And that’s how we work.” Capped the director, on a scene that touched a chord in all those watching, off and on the set.
Meesam Naqvi goes on to contemplate: “We would like to do a program like this, where we tell people that the process of curating, planning, shooting, editing a scene is a little difficult. They should understand how much effort is put in, the hard work behind it, what are our thoughts, what are our objectives.”
Onwards to another scene in the same episode, (episode 19), which was equally poetic.
That scene where Waleed is talking to his father and Maya is talking to her mother simultaneously, a beautifully edited scene direction-wise. Where Waleed asks a question and Maya answers him through another conversation. tell us more:
“I will give credit to writer Kiran Siddiqui here.” Responded Meesam generously. “She wrote it beautifully. There is a technique in writing which I introduced to Kiran. Kiran was my student in NAPA. Now, Mashallah she is working with me. This is a technique called intercut where we are narrating two different scenarios. The sentence of one scenario is picked up in another scenario. In this instance,” explains the director, “Waleed will say something and the other person will pick up the conversation from there, from the same place, but from their perspective. So you must have noticed that between Aina and Waleed ‘s conversation – the same technique is being used here. It was written beautifully by Kiran. “
On the significance of writer-director teamwork, Meesam Naqvi has this to say:
“It has been my learning that Kiran was present throughout in the process of writing and shooting, I used to call her to the set, even in the editing process,” explained the director, now very passionate about his creation and the process. “Kiran would sit with me when we edited the scenes. So here, the writer and director combination is very important. Until you reach a level where you can think in one way, the script doesn’t create a form. There is a soul to it. When the writer and director are thinking in their own way, the scene comes out differently. The teamwork and trust factor and coordination comes from here. I was very lucky.”
Meesam Naqvi went on to pay tribute to two very special people on the set who deserve a shout out:
“My DOP Ghayas uddin Siddiqui and editor Taimoor Niazi. Ghayas, my DOP from Karachi University, Visual Studies. He has a degree in Cinematography. So that man, he is not a DOP who will just keep the camera, he reads the scene, he discusses the scene, he understands the moments and then makes the framing. Taimoor is my editor who also understands the drama. I would like to mention them both because they have given me their best!”
And that’s that from the scenes that wowed us in Parwarish episode 19. But there’s more from director Meesam Naqvi on Parwarish, watch this space as we bring you more behind the scenes stories soon!
