New York Story, Karachi Style
By Robert Schroeder from WSJ’s Scene Asia blog:
Madiha Aijaz
Mehreen Jabbar
Nausheen Khurrum (Laaj Studios)
Mahira Khan and Ahsan Khan in the TV serial, ‘Neeyat’.
Pakistani director Mehreen Jabbar looks every inch the hip New Yorker as she munches on a hummus sandwich in a Manhattan café. She is cool and chic and talks animatedly—in rich, accented English. The Karachi-born television and film director has lived in New York for the past eight years, and it provides the backdrop for her latest project, a 20-part series for Pakistani television called “Neeyat,” which means “intention” in Urdu.
The serial’s New York locations, including parts of her own Brooklyn neighborhood, “are a little foreign for people [in Pakistan],” says the 39-year-old director. The show’s characters wear sport coats and knitted winter hats, not hijabs, as they move among New York’s glinting skyscrapers, wintry parks and frenetic streets.
But viewers will easily recognize their countrymen in the foreign city’s streets, says Ms. Jabbar. “Everyone knows there are Pakistanis in New York and that’s how they’re going to take it,” she says.
Continue Reading on Scene Asia.
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Via: India Real Time
