The cricket world has been left poorer ever since India and Pakistan drastically cut down their engagements on the fi eld after 2008, because of Islamabad’ s alleged support for cross-border terrorism. In the wake of the Uri attack on September 18, will cinema, television and music be permanently damaged too? Putting it another way: Is Fawad Khan’ s career in India fi n- ished before even properly taking off? The attack on the Army camp in Uri has prompted Subhash Chandra, the head of the Zee network, to declare that he will stop airing Pakistani serials on his popular channel Zindagi, which has introduced Indians to several Pakistani actors, including Fawad Khan. The demand that Pakistani talent should not be allowed to work in India has found support beyond familiar rabble-rousers such as the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and the Shiv Sena. It wasn’ t Times Now ' s Arnab Goswami who wanted Fawad Khan to Quit India, but CNN News18 anchor Bhupendra Chaubey. Doubts are being raised about the fate of upcoming fi lms such as Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, which stars Khan in a small role, and movies still under production such as Mom, starring Sridevi and Sajal Aly, and an untitled Yash Raj Films project featuring Danyal Zafar, the brother of the singer and actor Ali Zafar. Over the years, Pakistani actors and singers have managed to escape the ultra-nationalist heat that has inevitably followed major terrorist strikes. They would lie low, ride out the calls for retribution and be back on the screen in a matter of weeks. That was before the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre, the proliferation of troll armies on social networking sites, the war-mongering on TV channels like Times Now and CNN News 18, and the polarisation of the movie industry into liberals, centrists, and proud ultra-rightwingers like the singer Abhijeet and actor Anupam Kher. Partition saw a fl ight of talent from India to Pakistan and vice versa. Indian fi lms were still being released in Pakistan after 1947. But by the mid- 1950s, severe restrictions began to be placed on their distribution to boost the growth of the local fi lm industry, known as Lollywood because it was headquartered in Lahore.“ The restriction on Bombay fi lms opened a new free and non-competitive market for local productions,” writes Mushtaq Gazdar in Pakistani Cinema 1947-1997.“ 1956 proved to be the most fruitful year of the fi rst decade in terms of box-offi ce returns from indigenous cinema.” That year, two Indian actresses appeared in Pakistani productions: Sheila Ramani, of Taxi Driver fame,
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ARTICLE
A brief history of Pakistan-India cultural ties
and Meena Shorey, who had charmed audiences in the song Lara Lappa in the 1949 movie Ek Thi Ladki. Ramani played the lead in Anokhi, produced by her uncle Sheikh Latif, and the music was composed by Bengali composer Timir Baran,“ who came from India for this purpose”, writes Gazdar. Ramani returned to India and faded out after a few fi lms. Meena Shorey( born Kurshid Jehan) was the heroine of the Pakistani production Miss 56, directed by JC Anand. She was accompanied by her husband, Ek Thi Ladki director Roop K Shorey, who had to return to India after Meena Shorey decided to stay on in Lahore. Many Indian directors and actors, including Zia Sarhady and Noor Jehan, migrated to Pakistan between the’ 40s and the‘ 60s and contributed to the consolidation of the indigenous industry. Pakistani cinema had its own star system and musical talent, but on occasion, it borrowed Indian singers such as Hemant Kumar and Sandhya Mukherjee for Humsafar( 1960). The Merchant-Ivory Production Bombay Talkie( 1970), about a married fi lm star’ s dalliance with an American writer, stars one of the best-known Pakistani actors and voice artists. Zia Mohyeddin had appeared in several plays in London, including as Dr Aziz in a BBC adaptation of EM Forster’ s A Passage to India in 1965. In Bombay Talkie, Mohyeddin plays Hari, a frustrated writer who is love with the American writer, played by Jennifer Kendal. Over the years, big-name Pakistani actors made appearances in Hindi fi lms, including Nadeem in Ambrish Sangal’ s Door Desh( 1983) and Talat Hussain in Sawan Kumar Tak’ s melodrama Souten Ki Beti( 1989). Zeba Bakhtiar, the daughter of former Pakistan Law Minister Yahya Bakhtiar, played the lead along with Rishi Kapoor in Raj Kapoor’ s cross-border romance Henna( 1991). The story of a Kashmiri( Rishi Kapoor) who strays across the Line of Control after a bout of amnesia was inspired by the Pakistani classic Lakhon Mein Eik. Directed by Raza Amir in 1967, and based on a story by Zia Sarhadi, Heena has dialogue by legendary Pakistani television writer and playwright Haseena Moin, who wrote such iconic TV shows as Dhoop Kinare and Tanhaiyaan. Bakhtiar was briefl y married to singer and composer Adnan Sami, who became an Indian citizen in January 2016. Among the Pakistani actors who have enlivened Hindi cinema through standout cameos is Salman Shahid. He plays a Taliban fi ghter in Kabul Express( 2006) but is better known as Mushtaq Bhai, the hoodlum who tries in vain to tame Iftikhar( Naseeruddin Shah) and