Nostalgia

This refers to the article, ‘The world of Zeffirelli’ (July 10, 2019) by Dr Naazir Mahmood. The article took me down memory lane back five decades ago when I was a college student. In Rawalpindi we had the ‘American Centre’. During my free time I would sit in its library for hours on end, reading all sorts of colorful magazines and articles. Some of the cinemas in Rawalpindi used to show famous and internationally recognised English movies. I remember watching the ‘Taming of the Shrew’ performed by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. What a movie that was and reading about its production details afterwards was certainly interesting.

Franco Zeffirelli re-filmed an entire scene in which the hero and the heroine fall off a roof. The voice of a sparrow nearby had accidentally gotten recorded into the scene. His reason for re-filming the act was that the original play by Shakespeare did not contain the sparrow’s voice therefore nobody has the right to alter it; even though it may appear to be a natural part of the play. A line the writer wrote in the last part of his article struck me particularly that, ‘we have kept our generations devoid of any appreciation of art, culture and history’. I think the writer is absolutely correct since these are the disciplines which give meaning to life and identify a nation. Our art and culture are rich in history but we have hardly done anything for its projection, preservation and promotion.

Tarique M Malak

Rawalpindi