One minute he is sombre, reflecting on a social issue, the next minute he explodes into laughter, switching from Punjabi to English to Urdu and back again. Naeem Bokhari is animated, mercurial and humorous, oozes charm and dangerous, wicked wit. Drawing on his experiences as a senior advocate, lecturer and a TV anchorperson, his stories are endless, many of which, he says with a glint in his eyes, he can’t tell on air! It is hard to capture his energy on paper or in a picture; there is so much happening about him.

After a five-year break, he is back with a show that runs Friday to Sunday night. Dawn TV wanted a show with a lot of Naeem in it. After much brainstorming and research, Naeem Bokhari ke saath was born — a mix of current affairs, intellect, books, interviews, dialogue and monologue peppered with Ashfaq Ahmad, Bano Qudsia, Daman, Faiz and Naeem’s inimitable style and wit.

The concept of the show is evolving. “It is not Guns ’n Roses. Only Karachi is awake at 11pm, while the rest of the country is asleep. It is on the same time as Khabarnaak and Siyaasi Adaalat. They have pitted me against jokers when they can run Mughal-i-Azam in that slot. Put me up against the conversation of four politicians and I’ll beat them hollow!” he laughed.

Advocate, lecturer, anchor ... Mr Bokhari is a man of many talents and the owner of a singularly irrepressible wit

Then he suddenly became solemn. “I want to do a historical narrative about forgotten people and events. What was the role of the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) in shaping the destiny of Pakistan? What if the dismissal of the Constituent Assembly in 1954 had been set aside by the SCP? What if Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan had won in the SCP? Why did the SCP decide in that fashion and what have been the repercussions? What if the SCP had taken up the ’58 Martial Law and then blessed it within 14 days of its imposition, did the SCP do us a service or did it not? The Asma Jehangir’s case where the SCP declared the Martial Law of Yahya Khan as totally and inherently illegal and why did it have to wait for Yahya Khan to be thrown out to make that decision?”

Bokhari was on a roll now, a speeding bullet train. “Why did the SCP go back on it in Mr Bhutto’s case which cost him his neck? And what was the ZAB case? Why was he hanged? Where did the SCP go wrong? And where did Bhutto go wrong? Was it such a bad decision? Then you can take up the acceptance of Parvaiz Musharraf’s takeover. In between, there are two important cases: the restoration of Nawaz Sharif and the fact that the judgment only stood for 39 days before both of them went home,” he finally paused.

“You can’t just make a lecture out of this. There is a list of people who can comment but who are actually dying —Sharifuddin Pirzada, S.M. Zafar, Hafiz Pirzada, Abid Hassan Manto — then you need to talk to historians like Dr Safdar and I.A. Rehman as to what they think? Then you weave it together in a way that people don’t get bored,” he said.

Naeem would also like to explore society yearwise. “What was Pakistan like in 1954. “Film keri aayi si? Gaana kera mashoor si? What sort of a man was Ghulam Mohammed? Who was Tamizuddin? What was that court headed by that chief justice? You come right down to the era of Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry? What has it cost us when he struck aside the sale of Pakistan Steel Mill? Per month how many billions has this white elephant cost us? We could review his era which I call judicial despotism, not activism, what effect has it had and what if the PPP government had not been so weak, corrupt and inefficient that they could not stand up to him?

But here’s a question of my own: What stops Naeem Bokhari from doing all this?

Why do you think there are so many talk shows on news channels? They are cheap, call the same people for the same bak bak. Why do you think they cover rallies? What is a dharna without media coverage?

“Aik to masla canvas ka hai. Mujhe weham ye hai ke humein kaam karne ka shauq nahin hai. Hum jhatka karna chahaten hain. If I ask somebody what footage you can find on 1954, and what were the headlines just prior to the dissolution of the assembly, he would consider it drudgery. Why do you think there are so many talk shows on news channels? They are cheap, call the same people for the same bak bak. Why do you think they cover rallies? What is a dharna without media coverage? We need that story board weaving away or else we could produce CDs of this material made available to political science departments in every university as current political history.”

Have our tastes deteriorated compared to the past? “I don’t think so. We are in a nostalgic hang-over. Why are we always comparing the golden past with the present as not-so-good? Wo baray suhanay musam thay, people say. Ki suhanay mausam si? I doubt that meat sold in those days was any better than now. Or that the standard of education was better than now. I think there was never a better cricketer than Imran Khan … or Waseem Akram.” He cheekily mimicked Fazal Mehmood and Imtiaz batting in loose flappy pants. “Humara taste pehlay bhi aisay he tha. In the ’60s there was Gujjar Badmaash, Badmaashaan da puttar! We wanted to make Maula Jat then, we want to make Maula Jat now.”

Money, he believes, is the new god. “Nobody had much money earlier; that is what is different now. I always thought in my formative years that Habib Jalib was a successful man but because he had no car, no house, I have no idea how his neighbours looked at him.”

In the days of PTV monopoly, there was nothing to measure it against, says Naeem. “I don’t watch TV plays today, and I don’t know what was the uniqueness of the drama in yesteryear. For instance, we have no history of orchestra, hamari patience hai vocalist ke liye. Classical music was never the music of the masses. It was always elitist; fine art has always been an elitist thing. Tansen would play for the darbar, Roshanara Begum was enjoyed by niche audiences and how many people bought Chughtai? Popular culture has always been folk music, te melay, te kughoo ghoray, te khusray! People say, pehle loag Faiz Sahib ko bohat sunte thay, keri awaam sundi si? I first watched Dilip Kumar’s Daagh in 1962, I cried like anything. When I watched it in 1986, I laughed at the way curtains would be flying. As Faraz says, ab na wo tu hai, na wo hai, na wo mazi hai Faraz … In a year’s time all our cells in the body change, we are constantly renewing.”

How much prep goes into each show? “If I have to interview a current politician like Aitzaz Husain, I know more or less enough about him but for Mumtaz Ali Bhutto, I would like more information so I dig on the net. I invariably write out a questionnaire and since it is mine, I don’t really stick to it like a script.

Interviewing Rahat Kazmi or Arshad Mehmood would be easier but for people like Zia Mohyeddin, 36 minutes is not enough. Zia M is like a computer, and gives you the same expression every time. An essentially shy, introvert, you have to go back to Passage to India, and see his films Behold a Pale Horse, Immaculate Conception and his television work, The Empress and the Munshi. You have to talk to him about international and Pakistani film and theatre.”

Naeem feels the media gets away with murder. “There is no concept of verifying information. Jo mu mein aata hai bak do! The other day an anchorperson said that Khursheed Shah has assets worth Rs50 billion. Where does this figure come from? You accuse people of outright corruption and get away with it. On the other hand you hear whispers and innuendos about money being given to anchors or political parties or intelligence agencies backing them but it stops at that. Izzat jis ki marzi uchhalo. That way, the freedom is absolute.”

Media has always played a role in changing the mindset of people, says Naeem. “When the film Tall Men was made with Clark Gable, in one scene, he took off his shirt he wasn’t wearing a vest and hence the sale of vests dropped by 50 per cent in the USA. In the ’50s, everyone wanted a hairstyle like Dilip and later like Waheed Murad. We accuse the monkeys but human beings are the greatest imitators. The media leads in a certain fashion but sometimes events take the media in another direction.

A bunch of people stood outside Lal Masjid and led the media to it. If the media had not given 24-hour coverage to Iftikhar Chaudhry’s journey from Islamabad to Lahore, things would have been different today. Why don’t the media ask politicians to pay them for the press conference coverage? They don’t show anyone’s chocolate without charging for it, then why cover every Tom, Dick and Harry? There is also fear factor behind news coverage, but every tyranny comes to an end. The bher chaal is frightening. Breaking the news first and then 28 channels will show the same thing. CNN and Fox don’t do the same stuff. People like entertainment in news — Samjhota Express mein aag lag gayi, 19 banday mar gaye, aik bacha moajzati taur pe bach gaya, the thrust is on the moajza!”

If he gets bored and take a break, he will wander off to teach law or to his courtrooms where he practices. “Television fortunately is not my livelihood, my livelihood is rich people,” he chuckled.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, February 8th, 2015

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