LAHORE: Stage comedian Abid Charlie, 58, is back home after about ten days in Lahore General Hospital, and doctors want to see him again this week. His condition has improved. The argument his illness started among Lahore’s stage performers has not cooled.
Abid Charlie, whose real name is Muhammad Siddique, was discharged on October 1. Doctors said the clots in his brain would be treated with medicine, and a medical board is to examine him again after a week.
His nephew told reporters at the family home that the problems with his kidneys, liver and chest had cleared. The trouble in his brain remains. Surgery was considered and then ruled out, the nephew said, because doctors felt he was too weak and an operation could cause complications. If the medicine does not work, he will be admitted again.
“He talks, but sometimes we cannot understand what he is saying,” the nephew said. In the room, the comedian’s two young children, Abu Bakar and Haram, were at his side.
How it came to this
He suffered a stroke about two months ago and was left paralysed, with breathing and kidney problems as well. He was first treated at Jinnah Hospital. His wife appealed to the Punjab government for help with the cost.
On September 9, after actor Qaiser Piya took up the case with her, Information and Culture Minister Azma Bokhari ordered that he be treated at government expense. A week later his wife was given a cheque for Rs500,000. He was then moved to Lahore General Hospital, where Health Minister Khawaja Salman Rafique had a private room set aside for him. On September 27 the hospital formed a four-member medical board.
The hospital’s medical superintendent, Professor Faryad Hussain, said artists were a valuable asset and that every available resource was being used for his recovery.
“Ninety-nine percent are hypocrites”
The row began with Khawaja Saleem, a veteran of stage and PTV drama, in interviews given while his colleague lay in hospital. Asked why well-paid stars had not come forward, he did not hold back. “Ninety-nine percent of artists are hypocrites,” he said, while naming a few he admires, among them Sohail Ahmed, Naseem Vicky, Sakhawat Naz and Tahir Naushad.
He spoke from experience. He said he had been on a ventilator himself and had lost fingers to gangrene. His children sold the family’s house and two cars to pay for his treatment. When he objected, he said, his son told him that, “Papa, I can build a house and buy cars again. I need my father.”
He was grateful for the government’s help but said looking after sick performers was not really its duty. His advice to working actors was to save. He said he had spent his own good years on outings and comfort when he should have bought a plot for his children.
He went further, and that is what caused the anger. He suggested that the way some performers live, including the use of intoxicants, lies behind such illnesses, and that this might be true here too. He gave no evidence and admitted he did not know.
The backlash, and an apology
Fellow performers hit back. One stage actor who has stayed close to the family said most artists live clean lives and pray five times a day. He asked people making videos about the case to stop. “Do not make fun of him. Pray for him,” he said. He warned that money earned by mocking a sick man would bring no good.
Khawaja Saleem later said Sakhawat Naz and Tahir Naushad had telephoned him to complain. He apologised “with folded hands” to the whole artist community and promised not to speak against it again.
“Save the living”
Veteran stage actress Abida Baig turned the anger in another direction. She named performers who died and whose families, she said, nobody asked after. Her message to today’s stars was blunt. “Reciting hadith is not the work. Acting on it is,” she said. “Leave those who are gone. Put a hand on the heads of the living.”
She asked the stars and the government to make sure the children of artists who have no home of their own get a roof.
Another actor defended the community. He said performers had quietly sent money and visited the hospital in large numbers, and blamed social media for chasing only bad news.
The question the public keeps asking
A journalist said the comment he saw most from people was simple that why do stage actors so often end up like this? It is a fair question. Comedian Asif Iqbal, known as Pheena, died last month at the age of 60, and the same talk followed his funeral.
Khawaja Saleem and Abida Baig disagree on who is to blame, but they asked for the same thing that a permanent welfare body for actors, writers, directors and producers, so that a sick performer’s family does not have to appeal on camera. He also wants a proper check on vulgar stage shows. The Punjab Arts Council recently issued a notice to a stage actress.
For now, help has come one case at a time including a cheque, a private room, a medical board. Abid Charlie’s next check-up will show whether the medicine is working. The stage world has not yet shown whether it will build something that lasts.
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