Video: Audience doesn’t want to watch grey characters in dramas, says writer Zanjabeel Asim Shah

Zanjabeel Asim Shah is a popular name in the field of script writing in Pakistan. She has written scripts for massive hits like Pyar Ke Sadqay, Cheekh, Balaa, Marasim and Bashar Momin to name a few. Her most recent work which was popular on YouTube and received high ratings was recently concluded Fitoor starring Faysal Quraishi, Hiba Bukhari, Kiran Haq and Wahaj Ali.

In a conversation with Hassan Choudary of Something Haute, Zanjabeel Asim Shah revealed that she is an accidental writer because she never planned to become one. “The phrase ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ applies to my circumstances as I started this work after my husband’s demise. I wrote my first drama Ek Nazar Meri Taraf in 2010 and then I got addicted to this field,” she shared.

She has been associated with different TV channels like Geo and A Plus as a content/ dram head as well as production houses like Big Bang Entertainment. She gave out hit drama serials like Jalan, Hasad, Aulaad , Bandish amongst others, one after the other, during her tenure, but now she is working as a freelance writer.

How does she feel about the dramas airing on television these days?

“Honestly, I have come to a realization that viewers have no interest in deep conversations. Secondly, a writer also has to survive and earn a living. Channels are no more a medium of intellectuals, but a medium of masses. They want to make content that gets business. And I am sadly admitting that our audience doesn’t want to watch a grey character on television, they just want a black and white character,” she said.

How does she access Fitoor?

“You may find Fitoor a regressive story but I don’t feel it that way. There are many things that are very close to me, especially dialogues. I was surprised when I saw that the mother’s dialogue was skipped or cut from the scene when she admitted that she lied about her past in order to safeguard her son’s marriage. It was pivotal part of the story and had a lesson but I don’t know why it was omitted,” she said.

“The tragedy of love is that it is always justified in the eyes of a lover, but it is illegitimate in the eyes of an outsider. I wanted to write a story of a girl who may have experience love in her past but married someone else, and then it was all revealed in front of her husband. Dilnasheen, like any other woman, is a human and has feelings. Why don’t we give a woman a margin to make a mistake,” she explained.

Watch the complete interview here: