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Salma Baig
 Have no idea what was around me when I was born so please don’t ask me that question.” She laughingly throws the statement, off-balancing this writer for a moment. But then I am back on track, growing used to her pleasant and harmless one-liners. Such bantering with a beaming smile and warm personality are the most alluring traits of Salma Baig’s inner beauty.
She has been lucky to have met good people in life; has good friends, relatives, in-laws and a husband. “What more do you need in life? I believe that there is love all around you, and we all should be grateful for it,” she says juggling the dictaphone. “I hate people who bicker about the slightest things like why the sun didn’t shine the way it did before or why God didn’t give them the money that He gave the neighbours. I cannot even think of breathing anywhere near them.” As gullible as she is, Salma can either sustain friendships for years or break them the instant she feels uncomfortable.
Though she has conducted many talk shows and programmes, Salma Baig is most remembered for her two popular programmes — Lok Tamasha and Apni Baat. She also did a programme, Bol Kay Lab Azad Hain Tere for women. “My brother-in-law, Uxi Mufti, who used to produce Lok Tamasha, called me once to fill in for his assistant compere who was going on leave. He wanted me to do it also because once she is back, he will be able to sack me, something that he would not be able to do if he hired someone professional. I was in Pindi then for my summer holidays and found the offer tempting. I took it up and was more than happy to have earned around Rs300. I am not sure if I really enjoyed the compering part but I was surely happy to have earned some money.”
Soon, in Karachi, a booster was installed and Salma was asked to compere the show from there. “I didn’t know that it was to go live. It was as if I had been scurried in to compere the programme like cattle without any sense of direction. The big event took place at a local hotel and ministers and the elite of Karachi had been invited to the programme. Soon enough I was doing Lok Tamasha alone. When the programme finally came to an end, Shahzad Khalil called me to start compering on TV which I accepted.” And she did Apni Baat dutifully for 10 long years. “After I left many people filled in as replacements but I don’t think it remained the same.”
‘I shudder at the thought of my failure or bad performance being at somebody else’s expense. So whatever I have done, I given it my heart and soul,’ says Salma Baig
An accomplished compere who manages extempore with flair and intelligence, Salma has been choosy about her work. “I never thought I would work for the television. It was perhaps a coincidence that got me an opportunity to compere on TV. I feel that my confidence also remained at par as my brother-in-law used to be around which was very comforting.” With her husband, Obaidullah Baig by her side, a celebrated documentary film-maker and a historian, she feels that he had been very supportive of her. “There were days when Obaid would be away for months on end and so I would take on the responsibility but then when I was away with the team of Lok Virsa that went into the mountains for a week to 10 days, he would take charge of the house and our three daughters.”
The chirpy compere has another feather in her cap — Salma is quite a sought-after teacher, which she laughs away in humility. Teaching, she admits was for financial reasons. “The principal of a local school offered me a job as teacher when I was seeking admission for my elder daughter. They thought I would be able to teach though I didn’t have any experience. I was quite apprehensive to take up teaching as it is great responsibility. In every batch there tend to be some children whom you are frightened of, that they would ask you some odd question that you would never be able to answer. So you had to be on your guard and go prepared for any untoward question posed at you. But then as I gained more experience, I felt teaching was within my grasp. I have also had good students which I feel is a blessing.”
Salma enjoys teaching because she feels that one learns more by teaching. She basks in the knowledge that she is a favourite teacher for many students who still call her and keep in touch. Coyly she informs that she eventually became the principal of the school. “I did my masters after my marriage and was very fortunate to have nice people who helped through my exams. These were people working for television who had been taught by Obaid.”
Salma feels that compering in her days required a lot of preparation and rehearsals, but not anymore. “Presenters and comperes swing too much these days. I also feel that it’s no more required to be educated to be a compere. There are run-of-the-mill scripted presentations for instance, that you see on national days. The same antiquated comperes and presenters are excavated and brought back to TV programmes. There’s nothing innovative or new.
“Before, words and pronunciations were emphasized in scripts and people wanted to teach and learn from their experiences. Now after 30 years, I feel that there is very little sense of professionalism in people in the business — presenters and actors just stand on the podium and start without a context. So many mistakes are made which let quality compromise but nobody takes notice of them. As a result, the language has suffered,” she says.
Salma’s loyalty to PTV remains intact. She feels that it had been the cradle for many good producers who have now been employed by new channels mushrooming lately. “In PTV they passed through a phase of learning. Today, there are only a handful of people of any calibre. I don’t mean to say that the present crop is hopeless. There are many talented and fine young people in the industry who have excelled individually, but there is a big difference in attitudes,” she says.
Salma has her heart in social work as well and once opened up a welfare house by the name of Saaya. “My friends and I pooled in finances to run it as we felt that we should help women languishing in jails for no fault of theirs, or the mentally deranged and the battered. Anis Haroon used to help us with the victims free of charge. But soon we ran out of money and proved not to be good at collections.” Now, however, she helps the needy in her own capacity and in any way she can. “The Hudood Ordinance has been the most debilitating instrument against women. It surprises me that even educated women have little awareness about their rights. Women who are killed in Karo-kari are justified but when women kill their husbands for injustice, they are not only punished, the whole family shows tremendous ire against them, subjecting them to all sorts of ridicule.”
How does Salma see the future of television in Pakistan? “I see many more private channels opening up. Things have become much more commercialised today. You watch a TV play and beneath runs the reel with all sorts of news on violence in the country, in the world or other breaking news. It happens that while you are watching a sitcom, the reel below would break the news of a bomb blast where many people died. You can imagine how numb we have become to such news and how commercialised things are. You may be watching a monstrosity in a play and women wearing the most expensive accessories money can buy while the news breaking at the bottom of the screen would be that of the stock exchange crashing. There is a contradiction here though one cannot ignore the fact that the channels also have to earn,” she says.
Though the new channels would need a persevering performer like Salma, why isn’t she seen a lot on TV? “I admit I am not a professional in the true sense of the word but whatever I do I give it my best. There are two things that I believe make you give your best: one, that you are paid for the job you are doing, and second, that you are expected to do well. I shudder at the thought of my failure or bad performance being at somebody else’s expense. So whatever I have done, I given it my heart and soul,” says Salma Baig with a smile of utter contentment.
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