Muskan Malik, a television and stage actress who spent years in front of audiences, is selling chilled bottles of milk at a roadside stall in Quetta to support her family.
Malik said changing times, unemployment and economic difficulty had brought her to this point, and that she is supporting an ill husband and her household through the stall.
“My compulsions dragged me onto the street and I am selling chilled bottles of milk here,” she said. “I have not yet denied being an artist. I am still sitting in wait that I will get work, and I will work.”
She described the arithmetic of her household. “I live in a rented house. You all know how much the electricity and gas bills come to — a bill of 20,000 or 25,000 rupees arrives, and then there is the water tanker, and the illness as well.”
Malik receives Rs10,000 a month from the government’s Artists Welfare Fund.
Set against the utility bills she describes, that support covers less than half of one category of her monthly costs before rent, water, food or medical expenses are counted.
That gap is the story. This is not an account of an artist who fell through a system with no provision — provision exists, she is receiving it, and it is not sufficient to keep a household above subsistence.
Malik entered acting at the age of 13 and performed in numerous television dramas and on stage.
Stage and television work in Pakistan operates almost entirely on short-term engagement. There is no pension structure, no contributory retirement provision and, for most performers, no continuity of employment. Earnings arrive during periods of work and stop entirely when the work does.
For performers whose careers were built in the theatre circuits and drama serials of earlier decades, the absence of any accumulated provision becomes visible precisely at the point when work stops coming — which is usually a function of age and changing production patterns rather than ability.
Public interest in her situation has produced calls for more effective measures for the welfare of artists.
Artists’ welfare funds in Pakistan operate at both federal and provincial level, generally providing modest monthly stipends and one-off medical assistance to registered performers. The recurring criticisms are the level of the stipend, the difficulty of registration for performers whose work was never formally contracted, and the absence of any indexation as costs rise.
Malik’s stated position is not a request for charity. She has said she has not stopped being an artist and is waiting for work — which locates the problem in the availability of employment for performers of her generation as much as in the size of the welfare payment.
The Lahore Times has approached the Artists Welfare Fund for comment on the current stipend level and on whether any review of the rate is under consideration.
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