Not enough progressive women shown on screen: ‘Churails’ star Nimra Bucha

“There are all these stories that are setting up female characters about good and bad women like a cardboard and there are no strong and progressive women," the actor, best known for TV shows like "Daam", "Mera Yaqeen", added. “Churails”, however, raises pertinent questions about patriarchy, exploitation and child abuse, something Bucha said should be discussed more.

Pakistani actor Nimra Bucha, who plays one of the four leads in ZEE5’s web-series “Churails”, says most of the shows are in the country are still stuck with “cardboard female characters” at a time when women are progressing in all the fields. The actor said “Churails” by filmmaker Asim Abbasi, the director behind the acclaimed 2018 film “Cake”, is one of a kind progressive show to come out of Pakistan.

The 10-episode web-series, also featuring Sarwat Gilani Mirza, Mehar Bano and Yasra Rizvi, revolves around four women who decide to run a detective agency to expose cheating husbands in Karachi’s elite community but eventually stumble across something sinister. Bucha, who plays the role of a fearless woman, Batool, in the series, said the representation of women in cinema and television is not progressive. "In our art and literature, our representation has not been what in reality it is now. There are women pilots, doctors, engineers, single mothers, mothers working in 16 hour-long shifts, doing dangerous jobs like martial arts and they all are doing it better than a man,” she told PTI in a telephonic interview from Karachi.

Bucha, 40, said a lot of the stories on screen still revolve around marital obstacles that a young couple faces or kitchen-sink dramas about the mother-in-law. “There are all these stories that are setting up female characters about good and bad women like a cardboard and there are no strong and progressive women," the actor, best known for TV shows like "Daam", "Mera Yaqeen", added.

“Churails”, however, raises pertinent questions about patriarchy, exploitation and child abuse, something Bucha said should be discussed more. "It might not be based on true characters but a lot of truth has been explored in the series. There is so much child abuse in our part of the world. There are so many children being abused in houses or on the streets where they have to make a living from a young age. These issues are close to my heart as I am a mother myself... Our series does not beat around the bush, it talks about things clearly,” she said.

Bucha said it would be limiting to see it merely as a show where women are depicted as drinking and smoking on the screen for the first time. “The point is not that there are women smoking and drinking. The point is that these are women who are standing up for each other and they are from different walks of life. This is an accurate depiction of characters in our society,” she said.

Recently, ZEE announced the return of its much-loved content brand Zindagi on ZEE5. "Churails", which has garnered a lot of critical acclaim, is the first Pakistani-original commissioned by Indian streaming platform ZEE5, and Bucha bats for more such collaborations. "As artistes, this is what we need and if we can support each other (then why not)? If Pakistanis can have access to India's market and resources, we have so much talent in terms of directors or storytellers or performers and the same is true for India.

“I would love to be part of more of these projects. This is not political. Political only gets in the way of artistes. As neighbours we should be able to share, perform and make art together," she added..