Best entertainment news in the industry, we break entertainment stories as soon as celebrities post on their social media and do Pakistani drama reviews.
Former DG ISPR, Major General Asif Ghafoor, who was a key figure in the liasons between the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) and the entertainment industry has bid goodbye to his post. He has been transferred to the 40th Infantry Division (Okara), where he will serve as the general officer commanding (GOC). Gen Asif Ghafoor has been replaced by Maj Gen Babar Iftikhar.
“Thanks to everyone I have remained associated with during the tenure,” Maj Gen Ghafoor wrote on Twitter as news of his transfer broke.
Alhamdulillah. Thanks to everyone I have remained associated with during the tenure. My very special thanks to Media all across. Can’t thank enough fellow Pakistanis for their love and support. Best wishes to new DG ISPR for his success.#PakArmedForcesZindabad#PakistanZindabad
Following his transfer, members of the film and sports fraternity including Humayun Saeed, Shahid Afridi, Reema and Shaan took to social media to appreciate the officer and his services.
Thank you Major General Asif Ghafoor for your service. Your humility, honesty and passion made for an exemplary tenure of yours as DG ISPR. Wish you good luck for your new assignment with prayers that may you continue to excel at whatever you do @peaceforchangepic.twitter.com/yQCztojUQK
Huge respect for Major General Asif sir for all you have done for our country and our people specially with your humbleness, it’s inspiring ❤️ @peaceforchangepic.twitter.com/5pA3lGFPco
Quoting Dr Arfa, Hira further wrote, “Kaamiyabi khush ikhalqi main hai Acha bolnay main hai Acha Sochnay main hai. kamiyabi ilm main hai or ilm paise Se nahi ilm mohabbat main hai (success is hidden in education that will come from love and not from money)
Ghalti will make you cringe and even feel a little angry. Typical, typical, typical Pakistani drama re-enforcing the stereotypes we are trying to change in our society push through in the first five episodes of ARY Digital’s Ghalti.
The drama is full of the more than typical saas-bahu drama, the word talaaq thrown in for good affect and the jealous nunday, Ghalti left nothing behind. All that’s left now is someone planning kaala jadu and all the ills of our society will be complete. What’s more shocking is that someone as brilliant an actress as Saba Hamid is acting and directing this incredibly regressive drama. Even if the moral of the story is for the good, the fact that the drama indulges in such barbaric stereotypes is disturbing in itself.
Brilliantly regressive acting by the incredibly progressive Saba Hamid
The story revolves around Zaira (Hira Mani), a happy, single daughter belonging to a wealthy family and nikkahed to her cousin Saad (Affan Waheed). Saad’s family, including his widowed mother Zaitoon (Saba Hamid) and sisters live in a house provided by Zaira’s father. Zaira’s father faces some financial issues and asks Zaitoon to vacate the house that belongs to him so he can pay off his debts. Zaitoon is enraged that she now has to return to her small little house (which is not in Defence) and plots revenge. Revenge plotting includes trying to break off Zaira’s marriage to her son, accepting the marriage and hoping that once Zaira is ruksatied her father will give them another house and when that doesn’t happen, plotting and scheming to make Zaira’s life miserable.
This is how Hira Mani looks in almost every scene of the drama
Only someone who has as blank an expression as Hira Mani could play the helpless, sad, little Zaira. So helpless that the viewer doesn’t get angry at Zaitoon for treating her daughter-in-law like trash, but more at this Zaira; an educated girl who should be able to stand up for herself but oh ho, her love for her incredibly mediocre husband Saad drives her to cook, clean, be treated like trash by her in laws because she must live with what’s been handed to her and suffer because she loves her husband.
Cleaning when her cool mother walks in to find her daughter suffering and blubbering
Woh bhi choro, Saad’s big ghalti is that he divorces Zaira once in a fit of anger and it’s like the worst thing that could happen, right? Wrong. Zaira is perfectly fine with Saad once he gets her imported flowers and they get on with their happy lives.
Listen up ladies, if you get divorced, Ghalti says these flowers and a card should make it all okay
People need to be educated that this concept of uttering talaaq once and the process that has to be followed by law is completely different than what is shown in our dramas. Talaaq at three different times, with proper methods to reconcile, are done to protect the woman and the couple and the way they are thrown around in our dramas, especially this one, is irresponsible and criminal.
Hira Mani looking the same at the moment she is divorced
What’s worse is the way the word talaaq is treated like a joke and reason to gossip. The defence of this drama would be that aisa tou hota hai and women can relate to their lives being as terrible as Zaira’s but really? Is that what we want people to watch and feel? That this happens to everyone, so it’s perfectly fine if it’s happening to them? Why do we constantly push this terrible narrative of saas bahu dramasto gain ratings?
Because it gets ratings. The five episodes on YouTube have more than a million views each so we can keep expecting that such dramas will be created and actors like Hira Mani and Affan Waheed and director Saba Hamid will keep doing such roles.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), in a written complaint, has requested TikTok to remove Hareem Shah and Sundal Khattak’s videos from the app.
According to reports, the government has requested TikTok to remove videos posted by Shah and Khattak after they received complaints regarding their videos. A PTA spokesperson shared that they have written to TikTok to remove videos posted by the two women, though he denied receiving a request to suspend or delete Shah and Khattak’s accounts.
The spokesperson explained that PTA wants TikTok to “defuse” the videos.
Shah and Khattak became popular after they shared videos of themselves with high-profile people, including ministers and politicians, on the app. Those videos were widely shared on other social media apps as well. However, the two were thrust into the public eye after Shah shared a video of herself walking around a conference room at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA). The video sparked a controversy prompting the government to order an inquiry into the matter.
Other videos of Hareem — featuring Federal Minister for Railways Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed and Punjab Information Minister Fayazul Hasan Chohan — had also gone viral on the internet with the claim that Rasheed had “also sent Hareem inappropriate videos”.
“What about all those naked videos you used to send me have you forgotten about them?” Hareem can be heard as saying to the federal minister in one of the videos of their telephonic conversation, following which Rasheed abruptly disconnected the call.
While the videos were removed by Hareem, it wasn’t later that they went viral over the internet, drawing mixed reactions. Amid all the criticism facing the internet star, Hareem on December 31 was reported to have left the country and applied for Canadian citizenship.
The very popular drama Meray Paas Tum Ho has surpassed boundaries to make a home in the hearts of fans.
Viewers are desperately waiting for the last episode of Meray Paas Tum Ho. Recently, two friends from Indiana University, US sang the title song of the drama.
The video was posted by the Pakistani student association at the university on Instagram with the caption “Have you been living under a rock if you don’t know Meray Paas Tum Ho?! Pakistanis all around the world are DYING to see the final episode. It even has a higher rating on IMDb than Game of Thrones!”
A 41-year-old manidentified as Vikas Sachdeva has been sentenced to three years in jail by a Mumbai special court for molesting former Bollywood actor Zaira Wasim in 2017 on a flight.
Back then, Zaira posted to her Instagram story that a man molested her while she was half asleep on her seat, on a flight from Delhi to Mumbai. She explained that how the man constantly touched her inappropriately by moving his foot up and down her neck and back.
She tried to film Sachdev, but it was too dark to see his face. Police arrested him after he was reportedly identified with help from the airline, Air Vistara.
She also made a video explaining her horrifying experience on the flight, in which she was heard as saying, “No one will help us if we don’t decide to help ourselves.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FLkqQnPEjo
The man, on the other hand, claims he was trying to sleep and the actor mistook it for molestation.
Wasim debuted with Amir Khan in the movie ‘Dangal’ in 2016. In 2019, she announced her decision to quit acting because she wanted to make her bond with God stronger, and the profession threatened it. Her last movie was ‘The Sky is Pink’with Priyanka Chopra.
It’s a double episode and will air on the 25th of January on television and cinemas across Pakistan. And the promotional video does not disappoint.
It seems like Danish (Humayun Saeed) and Mehwish (Ayeza Khan) are getting back together if the promo is to be believed. But it really can’t be that easy. Especially since the writer has revealed that someone is going to die in the last episode. Moreover, it seems like Shehwar (Adnan Siddiqui) is going to leave Maham (Savera Nadeem) and we are wondering where he is going to go.
Drama serials based on social issues are trending these days – think Cheekh, Rusawai. Based on the same lines is Sana Javed’s other drama Darr Khuda Se which sheds light on workplace harassment and the ordeal women go through in such situations.
Produced by Abdullah Qadwani and Asad Qureshi, Darr Khuda Se stars Sana as Afreen and Imran Abbas as Shahwaiz. Afreen comes from a typical middle-class family with a financial crisis while Shahwaiz is her rich, misogynist boss.
The plot of the drama progresses to show how workplace harassment happens, and how it doesn’t always involve physical touching.
Here are four times the drama highlighted workplace harassment:
1. When Shahwaiz unnecessarily touches Afreen without her consent
Throughout the drama, there are plenty of scenes where Shahwaiz tries to touch Afreen without reason. For example, in one episode he tries to hold Afreen’s hand while in another one, he praises her by touching her face. Shahwaiz’s advances make Afreen extremely uncomfortable around him but she is unable to do anything because he’s her boss.
2. Blackmailing, power dynamics, and revenge
Shahwaiz blackmails Afreen’s colleague Aasiya for supporting her. He threatens to transfer her from the office despite Aasiya’s requests to stop the transfer. This agitates him, and he asks her to sit by his foot and plead to him. The scene perfectly encapsulates how power can be used to blackmail people into doing what is morally wrong.
3. Unnecessary increments with ulterior motives
Shahwaiz invites Afreen for lunch in a restaurant where he announces a 25% increment in salary. When Afreen questions this, he tells her that she should thanks him instead of asking him questions. He also asks Afreen to address him by his first name, which is inappropriate in a professional workplace.
4. Watching through the CCTV cameras and taking pictures
Shahwaiz watching Afreen through CCTV camera is just creepy. Apart from being morally incorrect, it is also a breach of privacy for a woman as she is being watched without her knowledge.
While Darr Khuda Se tends to drag at points and can become mundane, it has brilliantly portrayed workplace harassment, giving viewers food for thought.
Child actor Shees Sajjad Gul who plays the role of Roomi in the superhit drama Meray Paas Tum Ho recently revealed that he wants to be a scientist when he grows up. Shees added that he’s not sure whether he wants to pursue acting as a career as not.
Son of director and producer, Sajjad Gul, Shees debuted in MPTH and also features in ads. He even has his own YouTube channel with more than 72,000 subscribers.
Meanwhile, Shees further shared that Ayeza Khan and Humayun Saeed who essay the role of his onscreen parents took great care of him on the sets.
Pakistan-born Canadian writer Tarek Fatah was recently trolled by Mehwish Hayat and other Twitter users after he posted a scene from Mehwish’s and Fahad Mustafa’s Load Wedding in an attempt to discredit Pakistan.
The video shows a mother slamming the door on two polio workers while screaming, “I will never ever allow my children to take these drops. Never never will my kids drink these drops. Never.”
Soon after the video was shared, Mehwish responded to Tarek and let him know that the video he shared was from her film and the scene aimed to raise awareness about polio. She called him out for spreading fake news and snubbed him by asking him “to verify the source before posting [any misleading videos] next time.
Thank u for giving ur 2 cents on this but pls first verify the source b4 posting next time. It’s a scene frm my movie”loadwedding”,the polio worker is me & that woman an actress.Through the film we were raising awareness of the issue.Glad 2 see our performances were so convincing https://t.co/ididoJJcxL
People also started trolling the writer for posting the video. Minister for Human Right Shireen Mazari also applauded Mehwish for exposing a “rabid Pakistan-hater!”
Thank you for your support. It is important that all citizens stand up against this anti Pakistan bigotry whenever needed. I for one will always be there first to defend our nation and its interests .
HAHA you are right! Its on youtube too. At the 34:57 is the scene! https://t.co/wgFD1CkSbr Sometimes Tarek is full of shit. Thank you for exposing him in English!
Meanwhile, in 2016, an actual video went viral of a woman fighting polio workers who had come to her house to vaccinate her children. All the dialogues of the Load Wedding scene were taken from the actual footage with minor amendments.
