Tahira Wasti

Tahira Wasti was a Pakistani TV and stage actress, playwright and director of social theater, and women's rights activist. In 1964, she started her career as an English newscaster on PTV News and later on ventured into television after the formation of PTV. She wrote Pakistan Television's first original script Kiran Kahani aired in the early-1970s. Before this, PTV relied on novel-based scripts for dramas. She was considered to be the best playwright and dramatist in Urdu Pakistan has ever witnessed. Some of the dramas she wrote include Ankahi, Tanhaiyaan, Kiran Kahani, Dhoop Kinaray, Aahat, Uncle Urfi, Shehzori, Kohar, Des Pardes, Pal Do Pal, Aansoo, Kasak, Parchaiyan and Parosi. Other works include Mere Dard ko Jo Zuban Milay, Kaisa Yeh Junoon, Dhundle Raste, Shayad ke Bahar Aaye, Mohim Joo, Tum Se Mil Kar, Bandish and Zair, Zabar, Pesh. She was born in Kanpur, India on November 20, 1941. She received her early education from Sargodha and later she moved to Lahore and, in the 1950s, settled in Karachi, where she graduated from the Government College for Women in 1960 and earned her Master of Arts in History from Karachi University in 1963. She started writing for a children's magazine, Bhaijan, when she was 17 and then moved on to writing skits for Radio Pakistan in her early 20s. Following her success with Radio Pakistan, Pakistan Television — the state-owned television channel — invited Moin to write an on-stage Eid special in 1969, which paved the way for her big break: writing for a TV serial. Her first, Shehzori, was adapted from a short story by Azeem Ahmed Chughtai, brother of renowned writer Ismat Chughtai. Shehzori was such a hit that Moin was asked to write the first-ever original script for a Pakistani television show, Kiran Kahani (1973). Moin worked consistently since, writing both original serials and adaptations, such as that of Daphne du Maurier’s My Cousin Rachel and Henry James’s Portrait of a Lady. Despite her success, Moin never considered writing to be her full-time job and was an educator — first a teacher and then a school principal. For her, teaching was her day job, while writing was her labor of love. In 1988, famed Bollywood director and producer Raj Kapoor would ask her to write the dialogues of his film Henna (1991) — about a man who inadvertently crosses the Indo-Pak border from India into Pakistan — which she did. Wasti was known for creating strong and independent female characters in her dramas, who were not bound by the traditional norms and stereotypes of the society. She also tackled social and women's issues in her plays, such as domestic violence, child abuse, divorce, and widowhood. She also wrote comedy and romance with wit and humor, making her dramas popular among the masses. She was one of the few screenwriters who were celebrities in their own right, and her fame spread across the border to India, where her dramas were watched and admired by many. She also collaborated with Indian artists and writers for peace and cultural exchange. She was a pioneer of Pakistani drama and a role model for many aspiring writers. She died in Karachi on March 11, 2012, after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 68 years old.