Review on SOIS workshop: Waheed Murad "A spiritual journey"

The workshop that was conducted on "Waheed Murad: A spiritual Journey" by Sir Khurram ALi Shafique on Saturday 25th of September 2010, was one of the beautiful spiritual experiences of my life, may be other participants had felt the same.

Before starting video clip session, Sir distributed a handout to all participants in which a short abstract from one of the novels from Ibn-e-Safi was given, everybody read it and Sir also asked about the views of participants that which of the heroin of that time would have suited the character of Sabiha in novel. Then video session was started.

In the first clip when camera entered the street where Amir lives, everybody with his personal experiences found himself at a different place having a different role in the clip. Most of the participants were found to be with Amir, while he was telling us about his world and things and people of the street he lived including those kids who do not appreciate his art and Mr. Bezar who has no listener of his old classical music. It was like knowing his world with his views, seeing with his eyes. In the very next clip, the feedback from the participants was increased and everybody shared what he had thought about the song "Aaj achanak" and the attitude of Amir towards life and people around him and actions that he performed during the song.

Then after watching the third clip, almost every one was now able to differentiate between the two songs and behavior of Amir and Bezar Sahib.

Before the short tea and Namaz break Sir Khurram played one more clip from the movie in which almost same situation came which was in the abstract from the novel of Ibn-e-Safi, hence everybody recognized the scene and found the connection between the two legends (Waheed Murad and Ibn-e-Safi) which is still strange and mysterious.

After that the fourth clip which is the last song of the movie "Akhri baar" played and we visited the soul of Amir where suddenly film was being transformed from black and white to color. This was another interesting experience and in the discussion after the song that was actually in the fantasy of Amir, it was discussed that Aaliya who was the heroin of the movie had the same name as of Waheed Murad daughter, so could Aaliya be a metaphor of the next generation which Waheed Murad had used in his movie. Then final clip with climax was played and after a little discussion session was ended.

In the movie every viewer seems to visit his mind first and then his soul, so the film is all about stream of consciousness, and may be Waheed Murad wanted to convey his message through this stream of consciousness.

The quality of the workshop was that it was different from typical workshops that are usually conducted. While playing different clips from movie "Ishara", sir Khurram did not explain many things himself, but created a free environment in which everybody was participating more than his expectations even and things which he wanted to explain, people themselves were approaching those experiences and answers of different unexplained things were coming before explanation.

Salma Waheed Murad whose presence was very important for all of us, praised the work of Sir Khurram and clearly claimed that he is being chosen for this work. I agree with her, Do you?