I’ve been a fan of Mr. Ashfaq Ahmed’s (late) writings and dramas for a long time. A few days back while reading one of his books, I came across a very interesting story which he mentioned to highlight Pakistan’s role in the Afghan war in the 80’s.
It was regarding a film producer who wanted to make a large scale movie so he instructed his director to use all possible resources to make it appear real. In this context, he instrcuted his director to shoot a war scene using 20,000 extras (10,000 for each side.) The director agreed but pointed out that in order to include 20,000 extras in the movie, we would have to pay these 20,000 people as well.
The producer very calmly replied,
‘That won’t be a problem for me… Just make sure you give them real weapons.’
The story was mentioned to underline a very important issue which most of us understand but prefer to keep our eyes closed. Even if we look at the present scenario that we are facing with reference to this story, we would find that the story fits perfectly.
I leave it to my readers to think about it.
Hammad A. Mateen
Hammad Abdul Mateen's Blog 