Karachi:Belonging to Bahawalpur and having lost his parents at the age of three, Saquib Sumeer, brother to three sisters and two brothers, came to Karachi four years back to do an MBA and ended up going to NAPA (National Academy of Performing Arts).Sitting in the garden of NAPA and waiting for the rehearsal of his upcoming play, Saquib shared his journey from Bahawalpur to Karachi with The News.

“When I performed at my graduation ceremony in Bahawalpur, my teachers sarcastically told me to become a singer or a dancer as I was a below average student and they believed that that was the only thing I could do and at that point in time. I had never imagined that one day I’d be sitting in a performing arts academy and talking about theatre” Saquib told The News.

Explaining his quest in the metropolitan , he said that it was a tough one, when he came for an MBA there was sometime in the admissions so he started to work in a telecom company but when he saw the advertisement of a state run performing arts academy run by Mr.Zia Moheyeddin then his search for NAPA began. “When I entered the audition room at NAPA, the people I saw around me had long hair, very expensive clothing and spoke very fluently in English with each other and at that point of time I lost half of my confidence and the rest of it was gone when I entered jury’s room and saw the finest artists of Pakistan judging me” Saquib told the The News.

Right after the mishaps in front if the jury and the awkward environment in the audition room, Saquib directly went to fill in the admission forms for MBA which he was delaying for quiet a long time as he was thought the field was never for him. But it was the never ending pursuit of acting that forced him to see his name in the final admission list and to his surprise he was amongst the top five names in the list.

Coming from a financially unstable background and the brothers being the only breadwinners of the family, Saquib could only pay the fees for the first two semesters which at that time was Rs2000 per semester and felt guilty asking for more from as he had two unmarried sisters. “Despite my pathetic performance in the first two semesters the academy agreed on exempting my fees as I told them about my background but my senior faculty said that I had to show some improvement if I had to cover up for that money and since that day I never looked back and was amongst the top three students till I graduated and am a proud NAPA graduate today“, Saquib told The News.

However, for Saquib the real test of survival started after his graduation. Notwithstanding the fact that his family never believed in what he was doing and considered him a musician, the more important question for him was how to earn a living after graduation. “Once I graduated, the NAPA RTC was quiet a support for me but later on when it became contractual, I had to do something to earn a living and writing was the only option left for me because survival in Karachi was never an easy task and, accompanied by family concerns, even more difficult” Saquib told The News.

Although not related to writing at all, Saquib and his room mate Saqib Khan, who shared a rented apartment started to write for different channels and production houses but in the field of writing nothing is fixed which resulted in a lot of suffering for Saquib. “For two months I had no work to do, there were no writing projects, there was no theatre happening and no work for TV and I suffered from severe anxiety and was even hospitalized. With such phases coming, it seemed that the world has ended for you and the worst part was to call back home and tell my people that everything was fine because it was my decision to stay in this field “ Saquib told The News.

Disappointed about the state of the theatre industry, Saquib believes that talent and training is of no value because if you want to earn in the acting industry you either need to have a beautiful face, contacts in the industry, or a lot of money and said that he didn’t have any of the three. “You should open a Biryani outlet instead of acting because at least people will eat the food you sell and your craft won’t go unnoticed at all and you’ll get a return for it “ Sumeer told The News.

Despite loads of issues Saquib is working day and night to keep on earning something in return of his talent. Writing soaps from morning till afternoon, rehearsing for NAPA plays till evening, practising for Aisa Keroge To Kaun Ayega troupe till midnight and writing sitcoms till 3 in the morning, Sumeer is working day and night to keep the household running and has no regrets.

“Once I establish myself in Karachi then I plan to go back to Bahawalpur and make an academy of my own and I have already started working with the Arts Council in Bahawalpur. Whenever I go back to my hometown I conduct acting workshops at different schools because there is more to theatre than local Punjabi dancers and it’s my duty to pass on what I have learnt here” Saquib told The News.