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Zulqarnain Jamil Aali  Please introduce yourself to our readers and tell us about your family, education and background.
I was born on August 14, 1949, and am the second oldest son of Jamiluddin Aali & Tayyaba Bano. Initially, I studied in Mrs. Corks (Pvt) School, later I went to The Happy Home School, followed by the Cantt Public School in Karachi where I matriculated in 1966. I graduated in July 1971 from National College Karachi.
I got married to my Garden Road Colony neighbor of late 50’s - Naheed Siddiqi in April 1976 after meeting her by chance after 18 years. We have three daughters; Sara, Maria and Khaula. Sara and Maria are married; and Sara is a mom of a three year old boy; Nadir. All three of them did their schooling in Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Karachi. They did their ‘A’ levels from Karachi Grammar School and graduated from Indus Valley School of Arts & Architecture. Sara teaches at IVS, Maria teaches at Karachi Grammar School and Khaula is currently on Fulbright Scholarship at the Parson’s School in New York for post graduation in creative photography. In May 2009, she launched her book titled “RAW LIFE”, in which she randomly selected ten creative personalities of Pakistan; including Kamila Shamsie from the UK.
You are the son of Mr. Jamiluddin Aali, who has made enormous contributions to Urdu poetry; tell us about his accomplishments and what it was like growing up in such a culturally rich and poetic environment?
You can visit aali.com.pk to know about his accomplishments. I am blessed to be his son, from my tender age of 8, I have literally grown up amongst great people in literature like Qudratullah Shahab, Ibne Insha, Mumtaz Mufti, Ashfaq Ahmed, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, Shaukat Siddiqui, Perveen Shakir, Zamir Jaffery, Amjad Islam Amjad and the list goes on! I never adopted poetry but I love it for its very essence. I went into dramatics due to the proximity I had with great dramatists and novelists who were daily visiting my house when Pakistan writers Guild was in the making.
You are a banker by profession, tell us which banks you have worked for and where are you currently working?
I started my career in Sept 1971 as a trainee officer with Habib Bank Limited in Karachi.
By Nov 1973, Agha Hasan Abedi, MD United Bank Limited eyed me when I was Manager at HBL Metropole Hotel Branch, Karachi and offered me a senior assignment at his Bank.
 I joined United Bank Limited (UBL) in June 1974. In May 1975, due to outstanding performance as Manager M.A.Jinnah Road Branch, I was awarded foreign posting at Bahrain. In 1981, I was posted back to Karachi where I opened the first branch of UBL in Defence Housing Authority, Phase-V namely Khayyaban-e-Shamsheer. In 1982, I was posted to Doha, Qatar on deputation to Bank of Oman Limited as Asst. Country Manager. In Sept 1984, I was posted back to UBL at Abu Dhabi as Deputy General Manager of the zone with four branches. In 1990, I was posted to Dubai as Head of Recoveries.
Finally, I got posted back to Pakistan in 1994 as GM Planning and Business at the Provincial Headquarters in Sindh. In 1998, I was posted to the head office as Head of Special Assets (overseas) which involved heavy international traveling.
In May 2000, I was posted as the Area Manager of PECHS-Karachi to manage 42 branches followed by AM Airport, FTC and finally back to PECHS by May 2004.
In June 2004, I was elevated as the Regional Chief Executive of UBL’s largest of branch in Karachi. I remained RCE-K till January 2008, having lifted the BEST RCE trophy for three consecutive years!
In Jan 2008, I was posted to Head Office Marketing & Products Group as Divisional Head Business Development and Priority Banking.
My LPR (Leave Preparatory to Retirement on acquiring age of 59) became due on 13th August 2008, but the Management awarded me an extension of one year.
On 13th August 2009, my tenure was further extended for one year and I was posted back to the field as General Manager of South Cluster (Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur and Quetta’s six regions, 18 Districts and 385 Branches), and I am still working at this posting.
By grade, I am a Senior Vice President in the Bank.
 How did you get into acting? How many plays and shows have you appeared in thus far? What has been your most memorable role to date?
It was on November 29, 1967, three days after PTV started its telecast in Karachi that I appeared in a quiz show ‘ZEENA BA ZEENA’, anchored by Amanullah Kheishgi. Incidently I got knocked off in the very first question, which really fumed me up! It was then that I vowed to make a place amongst the TV actors---most of which were from Radio Pakistan then. I had known them from their writers’ guild days, ceremonies and stage plays where my father was the chief guests. This had provided me an opportunity to know drama folks like; Razi Akhtar Shauq, Talat Hussain, Neelofer Alim Abbasi, Farooq Jahan taimuri, Qazi Wajid, Khurshid Talat, Ishrat Hashmi…the list goes on…quite well.
I sought an audition courtesy Aslam Azhar, and Amir Imam took it on, which I passed and instantly got a break in Amir Imam’s series ‘MERI PASANDEEDA KAHANI’, in a play ‘JAHAN BARAF GIRTI HAI’ with Neelofer Alim, Agha Sajjad and Mahmood Ali. I did a three scene role of a daak bangla attendant who helps the pahaari girl in love with a shehri babu overcome certain crises!
Right after that play, Ishrat Ansari took bets on me as the lead opposite to Masuma Latif in his long play ‘TOOFANI DOPAHER’ written by Hijab Imtiaz, Ali Taj, Santosh Russell and Qazi Wajid.
I have—till date, done over 415 series, long plays, telefilms, stage plays and one movie (‘Beyond The Last Mountain’). I have anchored over 50 shows on stage and private productions.
My most memorable role was in ‘KHUDA KI BASTI’ (1969 and repeat production in 1974 written by Shaukat Siddiqui). I won the best supporting actor award for that role in 1969. The version available in black and white is on youtube.com, and it’s the 1974 version which is the re-recording done at the behest of the Prime Minister of Pakistan then, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. He had ordered the telecast of the serial, but when it transpired, the VTR Roll of the serial has been erased by recording something else on it and the serial was re-recorded from scratch by Qasim Jalali and Bakhtiar Ahmed from PTV-Karachi in 1974.
My next memorable role is rather recent, when I played the father of Ayesha Alam in her true to life story produced by Sultana Siddiqui for MOOMAL Productions (2003), and since I had met her father a few times, I got great applause for playing the role close to the exact personality of Shah Jalil Alam, Ayesha’s dad.
Currently, I appear in 5 serials per annum and most in Humayun Saeed’s, who is like my family member—having known him since 2001 when I did a demanding role in his production ‘CHAHATAIN’ in Malaysia…and thereafter scores.
Showbiz is my compassion and not profession! I choose my roles and have not done any negative role, except in a recently aired serial on GEO titled ‘BOLE MERI MACCHLLEE’ which, technically, may be negative but not blatantly and obviously!
Showbiz has taken me overseas several times—for shoots; thrice to Scotland, 25 times to UAE, once to Turkey, once to United States (March-2010), six times to Malaysia, twice to Thailand, once to Nepal and once to Germany and Austria.
Humayun Saeed, Talat Hussain, Qazi Wajid, Hina Dilpazeer, Jawed Shaikh, Filmstar Nadeem, Sadia Imam, Aisha Khan, Nauman Ejaz, Maria Wasti, Vaneeza Ahmed, Nadiya Hussain, Neelofer Alim and Mona Laizza are a few artists I have enjoyed working with—in a few serials, though all in the showbiz are gems.
Pakistani media has made tremendous progress, with so many new channels operating now, has the quality/quantity of work for the actors improved?
Indeed, the Pakistan media (especially TV), has made gargantuan progress both in current affairs and dramatics. However, I strongly feel that back in late 60’s and up till late the 80’s or early 90’s, the focus was on quality and not quantity, while what we see now is quantity ruling with a low focus on quality and much more on commercialism.
 Commercial companies have limited their reach to Humayun Saeed, Faysal Qureshi, Nomy Ejaz and Ajaz Aslam who are indeed good actors; except Ajaz, who survives due to his close proximity and friendship with ARY’s Jerjees and Faysal Qureshi. However, the fact remains that good plays are now seen often for which the network which created a stir by adopting certain code of ethics on choosing the scripts and encouraging new writers. I give high marks to Sultana Siddiqui of HUM TV, who alongside her panel which includes Mehtab Rashdi, Noorul Huda Shah and others have introduced writers like Samira Fazal from Toronto, and Omera. The monopoly has somewhat broken and exactly the same is required on TV artiste - both male and females by introducing new faces in every third serial in order for the survival of TV Dramas otherwise this business may also plunge itself into darkness like Pakistani Film Industry---which just couldn’t recoup after Mohammad Ali, Waheed Murad, Nadeem, Shahid, Kamal……and others!
The quality of acting has somewhat remained static, with a minor progress.
We don’t find powerful dialogues and scenes like those of Talat Hussain and Qazi Wajid, Neelofar Alim and Uzma Gillani; now its just passing the time, going for four serials at a time. Only God knows how they manage to do three shoots of three different serials per day! However, acting has matured on a modern era level, these kids cannot beat the old fogies of past.
There are over 70 channels on my cable, of which I watch hardly three besides HBO, TCM and Nat. Geographic. With so many channels, just passing time, people seem to have lost interest—and mainly watch one or two---that too rarely because of the volley of adverts and repeats.
If there is one thing you could change about the Pakistani media what would it be and why?
I am glad you asked this question!
If I were in some authority in the government, full authority that is, I would pass a bill through National Assembly, a law that every Sunday at exactly 4 PM, ALL, I mean, ALL channels playing in the country through cables will show one serial simultaneously on their network with an iota of advert. The government will meet the airtime cost of each channel on pro-rata basis and the serial will be based on national integerity, nationalism, love, drama, comedy, songs etc. to cover everyone’s interest by extricating what is required to make our country strong as a nation of values and principles. The cable operators will shut all the other foreign channels during the time of 4 PM to 5:30 PM, and only ONE serial will be telecast from all the 75-80 Channels in the country. People may avoid it initially, but eventually they’ll be forced to view it, and the country will slowly start realizing that there’s more than SAAS BHI KABHI BAHU THI in this world, and that Pakistan needs to know how to survive in the international market. I know it’s a DREAM, but Elvis Presley also dreamt that he’ll become a great personality one day!
Besides acting as your hobby, what other interests do you have?
I write in DAWN, THE NEWS, various internet groups and in my blogs with pseudonym as ARJAY. I mostly write on past days interesting facts. My write ups are on www.pakistaniat.com and other internet groups. I love to write about Pakistan’s early days of 60’s and 70’s.
I run two websites on CRICKET that have remained GM Media & Publicity at Pakistan Cricket Board on deputation from UBL in 1999-2000, when I toured Sharjah and Australia with our cricket team with Wasim Akram as Captain and managed media issues (specially Shoaib Akhtar) during those four & half months TEST & Triangular series in entire Australia…
 My top interest is TRAVELING. I love traveling and I must visit some new place every year. I have extensively covered all of Europe in Dec-2008-Jan-2009 by visiting each and every city of Germany, Austria, France, Italy and Spain. I took this habit, I must say, from my father who has traveled the entire world several times.
Lastly, what is your message to the readers? By the first sight on web---I thought its something quite unusual compared to what I have seen on the umpteenth sites I have been invited to.
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