Alif Noon


Alif Noon (Urdu: الف نون) was a comedy series from Pakistan Television written by Kamal Ahmed Rizvi.[1] The cast consisted of Rafi Khawar known as Nanha and Kamal Ahmed Rizvi known an Allan.

Plot

Each episode follows 'Allan' shown as a clever business-minded person, coming up with some nasty and immoral tricks to earn fast money. He used to use 'Nanha' as his stooge. He himself was not inclined to work and would rather be the sleeping partner in every saga or telling the tricks to poor Nanha (his front man). The character of Nanha became an instant hit. He was shown to be an innocent, funny and somewhat dumb-looking person from a rural area who loved his country and would dream of earning an honest living. He didn't know the norms of the new society and was therefore used by Allan as the 'front man' for his tricks. In the end, he would unintentionally toss out the whole plot of Allan by speaking the truth to the public. This PTV series was aired in 1981-82.[2]

Pakistani society

Although a 1980's comedy drama, the show portrayed a dark side of the Pakistani society where scams, frauds and such are widespread. The series contained a positive message in each episode, though.

List of Episodes

Allan thinks of an idea. He makes Nanha beg on the streets for money.

Allan starts working with a corrupt government servant who deliberately causes a shortage of basic supplies and later on sells those goods in 'black market' on high rates, after the demand had skyrocketed.

Allan portrays himself as an (eye specialist), and Nanha as optician and they try to make big earnings before the doctor, who is also their employer, returns from lunch.

While their employer is away for a meeting, Nanha pretends to be a psychiatrist while Allan pretends to be Nanha's assistant

Allan and Nanha open up their dairy shop to sell unhygienic and water-blended milk.

Allan opens up a Bakery to start a business in unhygienic and stale products.

Allan calls upon top-notch actors and writers for making a film which wouldn't cost them a penny, instead earn them millions

Allan and Nanha hang around at an expensive restaurant in search of a business deal, as top class businessmen dine in, and make deals over lunch at that restaurant.

Allan plans on faking Nanha's birthday in order to receive gifts, which they would later on sell, to earn some cash.

Allan and Nanha work at Pehalwan's meat shop where they make Bar-b-Que out of dead animals and feed them to the customers without them noticing

Allan starts a bicycle repair-shop where Nanha steals bicycle parts while the bicycles are there to be fixed. Moreover, they rent out those bicycles to earn some cash.

Allan gathers around a number of people who have lost faith, and gives them a new ray of hope by telling them that he and Nanha could send them abroad where they could easily work and earn handful of cash.

Allan and Nanha startup their tailoring shop where a lot of mishaps take place.

Allan and Nanha accept the offer of their employer's husband to shut that organization down as he is sick of their employer(who is his wife) not playing her part in the upbringing of their kids

Nannha is hired by undercover cops in bringing down a group of dangerous mobs

Allan and Nanha start selling stuff, claiming that they're "Antique"

Allan and Nanha pose as Estate agents and sell land at fairly reasonable prices, even though they do not own that land

Allan and Nanha sell homemade, useless medicines

Allan poses as a newspaper editor and a number of people meet him to bribe him so that he may publish his newspaper accordingly.

Allan invites art lovers to his place where Nanha makes some 'dumb' painting in a unique way. The art lovers consider it as "Abstract Art", while in reality it is just paintings made by Nanha

Film industry

'In Film industry' episode, it is shown that inexperience and materialistic type of people have come in who just make dummy films. This could be easily validated from the state of present film industry in Pakistan. 'In Zakhira Andozi (hoarding)' episode, it is portrayed that people may take away the basic necessities only to make double the money. The implementation could be easily seen in the actual 2008 Atta (wheat flour) crisis in Pakistan that happened in real life. There is an episode regarding the state of art and artist, which shows that the real artistic culture that has been the background of the subcontinent has gone down to its lowest level.

References

  1. ↑ http://tribune.com.pk/story/1012067/alif-noon-creator-is-no-more/, PTV drama series 'Alif Noon'- 'Alif Noon creator is no more' (Kamal Ahmed Rizvi), Obituary and biography on The Express Tribune newspaper, Published 18 Dec 2015, Retrieved 8 June 2016
  2. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE0NS04FHOg, Multiple episodes of PTV drama series 'Alif Noon' on YouTube, Retrieved 8 June 2016
  3. ↑ http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x14oj7h_alif-noon-eye-clinic-old-pakistani-classic-drama_fun, 'Alif Noon' episode 'Eye Clinic main' on dailymotion.com website, Retrieved 8 June 2016

External links

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