LAHORE: The 14th death anniversary of Lehri, the subcontinent’s celebrated comic actor who took humour in the Urdu film industry to new heights, is being observed today.
Born Safeer Ullah on 2 January 1929 in India, the actor known universally as Lehri ruled the hearts of filmgoers for four decades, conjuring comedy from a serious face and giving comic acting a new standard through his distinctive manner of speech, his spontaneous lines and his dignified humour.
He began his film journey in the 1950s and showed the depth of his craft in memorable films including Daaman, Talash, Kaneez and Tehzeeb. He was honoured with the Nigar Award for best acting on 12 occasions — a tally that placed him among the most decorated performers of his era.
Lehri’s style was such that he knew the art of making people laugh without any vulgarity or artifice, using only his dialogue and his facial expressions.
That last point is the reason his work survives. Lehri belonged to a school of comedy built on timing and understatement rather than on physical business or crude material. His method was to underplay: deliver the absurd line with complete seriousness and let the audience arrive at the joke a beat later.
It also made him unusually durable as a supporting performer. In an industry where comic roles were frequently written as interruptions to the main plot, Lehri’s scenes worked as part of the narrative rather than as detours from it.
He left his admirers bereaved on 13 September 2012. Lehri is no longer among us, but his work and his memories will live on.
The anniversary falls on the same day that a milestone was marked in the family of one of Lahore’s best-known stage comedians.
Ali Haider, son of well-known stage, television and film actor Naseem Vicky, has obtained a degree in business accounting from London.
Ali Haider is a student of the Mountford University, London. Along with completing his degree, he has also been offered a job by a well-known business company in London.
Naseem Vicky is in London to attend his son’s annual convention, where he expressed happiness at his son’s success.
Naseem Vicky said he is grateful for the prayers of fans, friends and family on this success.
The pairing of the two items on the same day traces an arc worth noting. Lehri built a career inside a film industry that produced dozens of Urdu features a year and could sustain a specialist comic actor across four decades. Naseem Vicky built his in Lahore’s stage theatre, the form that absorbed much of the comic talent after the film industry’s contraction, playing to live audiences on Alhamra and Mall Road stages.
The Punjabi stage circuit has been the country’s most commercially resilient comedy platform for three decades, though it has also drawn recurring regulatory scrutiny over script approvals and content — a very different environment from the one in which Lehri’s restrained style flourished.
Pakistani entertainment continues to generate its own conversations about merit and access, with veteran actor Hina Dilpazeer recently saying that work in the industry is not given on merit.
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