Dramatist and playwright Haseena Moin no more

KARACHI: Renowned Pakistani dramatist and playwright and the Arts Council of Pakistan’s vice-president Haseena Moin passed away on Friday. She was 79.

She was a breast cancer survivor, but the reason behind her death has not been revealed yet. Her funeral prayers were held after Asar at the Farooq Azam mosque in the North Naziamabad area of Karachi. A large number of people including noted poet Iftikhar Arif and ther leading literary figures, social workers, and members of the Arts Council, including its president Ahmed Shah, attended the funeral prayers. Moin was last seen in public at a Pakistan Day event at the Arts Council of Pakistan in Karachi on March 23.

A day before that event, she received her first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine at the Arts Council of Pakistan. She was born in Kanpur and received her early education in her ancestral region. She then moved to Karachi in the 1950s where she graduated from the Government College for Women and earned a Master of Arts in History from Karachi University in 1963.

Moin wrote several plays for stage, radio, and television which gained international repute. She crafted strong roles for women in her plays who confronted the turmoils deftly while keeping the family intact, well ahead of Pakistan’s women liberation movement.

Iftikhar Arif, while speaking to the media, said that her demise has caused a great loss not only to Pakistan Television but also to the country. “Haseena was a very clear and quality writer. She wrote her first play for TV with reference to Eid,” Arif said. He said that Shehzori was the drama that started the journey of Hasina’s popularity. “Every drama broke the record of popularity.”

She wrote Pakistan’s first original script ‘Kiran Kahani’ aired in the early-1970s. She was also the author of several other Pakistani hit dramas including Ankahi, Tanhaiyaan’, Dhoop Kinaray, Aahat, Uncle Urfi, ‘Kiran Kahani’, Kohar, Des Pardes, Pal Do Pal, Aansoo, Kasak, Parchaiyan, and Parosi, and most of them have gained international repute. She was the recipient of the Pride of Performance award for her services towards performing arts in Pakistan. In 2017, she also joined Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf after meeting Imran Khan in a gathering.