He shot to fame with his role as the young, effeminate Cheeku in the popular musical comedy series, Shashlik. In real life, Sarmad belies the image of a comedian. Generally speaking, I'm not funny. Comedy is not my forte and neither is acting for that matter. It is direction that has always been my passion in life, he says.
His affair with the media started at a tender age and with little choice of his own as his mother was associated with Radio Pakistan and father, veteran TV and film actor Irfan Khoosat, was popular as a comedian. In fact Sarmad's grandfather, Sultan Khoosat, too, had been quite popular as the character, Imam Din, for a radio show in the 1950s. What I really wanted to be was a doctor with absolutely no interest in showbiz. In fact, my father's popularity as a comedian embarrassed me. I got admission in a medical college in Multan but the idea of being away from home put me off medicine. Later, I joined my father's production company which dealt with film marketing and publicity, and gradually got pulled into the world of the electronic media.
Today, things are happening for the young director who also teaches film-making at a prestigious college in Lahore. He has just shifted the office of his very own production company, Zaijan, to an upscale locality and is entertaining good projects. I'm directing a serial, Piya Naam Ka Diya, originally penned by Bano Qudsia. I have acquired the rights of the script and brought about some changes in it with her consent. The play is primarily about performing artistes and revolves round the life of a successful playback singer, played by film star Saima, who tries to actualise herself through music and the men in her life. The serial has an original music score and in adapting a 1977 script to current nuances, I have tried to bring the avante-garde to the mainstream.
This serial gives me the excuse to use legitimate glamour' thanks to the storyline and after directing the densely artistic series of short plays, Tamasha Ghar, I needed a change. Although it had little commercial value, it was successful in terms of critical acclaim. I adapted stories from international fiction ranging from Somerset Maugham to Satyajit Ray, and used a jackground' of random music from Peter Gabriel to Abida Parveen, using mostly amateur actors from the National College of , Lahore. The stories were serious and at times murky. I had a low budget so I was even involved with the set design but the results were gratifying and definitely an about turn from the look good-feel good' Shashlik. By crisscrossing from serious to commercial ventures, I try to give myself some space and maintain the for life-life for art' balance, says Sarmad.
The subject of direction and film-making animates Sarmad who thinks of Mehreen Jabbar as a guru and is also directing a play for her. He holds the great Indian film-maker Satyajit Ray in great esteem: Ray has been my mentor and guru. I have learnt immensely through his films. Besides that I enjoy European cinema as well. Film-making is the ultimate goal and escape for me as television is gradually but surely losing its novelty thanks to an onslaught of commercialism.
He explains, When you direct a play putting your blood and sweat into the process and it is chopped off into 10 chunks interspersed with sauna belt adverts generously sprinkled with time checks, news scroll, channel and upcoming programmes' logos flashing on the screen, how can you expect the viewer to stay put? No wonder Star Plus has clicked for its mindless soaps require no concentration. TV today is truly an idiot box that kills visceral continuity. It suffocates me and that's why film is a better avenue of presenting art to the masses.
Is India mania taking over our part of the world? Working with the Indians should not be an issue, he says. It's about time we open up to the requirements of a superior and mature audience worldwide and learn from India where art is supported socially, economically and politically. However, India shouldn't be an obsession and a shortcut to becoming popular. For that matter, why don't we show the same fetish for working with the Iranians or the Japanese? We have acquired an inferiority complex because we have been stifled for too long. Ours is a formula-driven psyche.
Sarmad further elaborates, You see, if Maula Jutt was a phenomenal success by Yunus Malik, it was because he dared to make something original and uninhibited. When that Maula Jutt became a hit formula replicated by virtually all other directors, we started generating crude flops. We have stopped experimenting with originality. Ram Gopal Verma of India is a name to reckon with and he started with a string of eight to nine flops to his directorial credit. He was still given a chance each time to become what he is. In our case, when our youngsters will be stopped from experimenting, they will obviously run after somebody else's identity. That's why it's difficult to enter filmdom in our part of the world because we hate experimenting. I wrote a script for Hasan Askari, 60 per cent of which was shot and then the project abandoned because the director/producer duo developed differences over the script.
This is why Sarmad believes it's important to develop an academic side to art and impart it to newcomers. Let me be frank here. Our elders failed to teach us what they had learnt. Had the performing arts been taught at academia, we the artistes, might today have been a respected lot rather than considered meerasis. That's why I teach whatever I know. I don't claim to be a pundit of the performing arts but at the very least, the exchange of ideas with young minds might lead to originality evolving somewhere.
But doesn't the older lot, too, have a fair share of complaints about the decadent work ethics in the newer lot? Our elders are sometimes too critical, I feel. About 10-15 years back everyone who acted, directed, wrote or produced plays was not the best. There were flops, too. Today the quantity and variety of content has expanded and you can't compare the media then with that of today. And I must say that some veteran actors themselves exhibit a total disregard for work ethics. They fail to show up for recordings or rehearsals.
This was mainly the reason that I gave a chance to amateur, devoted actors from the NCA for Tamasha Ghar rather than relying solely on veterans. I was given a particularly tough time by a celebrated actress who insisted on reading the script of her role first and then saying she would like to have the 16 scenes recorded in a single day, without rehearsals, because she had to go to a wedding, says Sarmad in an exasperated voice.
