By Irum Saleem
Senior journalist Ashiq Chaudhary is no more. Perhaps the first Film journalist in Pakistan who took the profession to new heights in entertainment media.
Editor Showbiz and Culture Daily Jang and GEO TV has died this week in Lahore. He was 82 years old. He was not well from the last a few years.
He served both print and electronic media for more than Fifty years. He has long standing affiliation with the largest media group in Pakistan i.e. Jang Newspaper and GEO TV as editor Culture and Showbiz. He was awarded with Sitara-e-Imtiaz for his services in journalism in 2015.
In his outstanding career span of five decades he wrote more than Twenty-Five Thousand articles, interviews and features for daily Jang, Akhbar-e-Jehan and Musawer. He laid and strengthened foundations of film, showbiz and cultural journalism in Pakistan. He played a pivotal and effective role in film industry revival after the fall of Dhaka in 1971.
Entertainment media growth in Pakistan owes its development to Ashiq Ch. He did not only inform the readers about the Film, TV, Theatre, Radio, Fashion and Music, but also created awareness among the masses about the impact of these media on Pakistan’s politics, economy, culture, and society. He also produced, directed and scripted more than fifty documentaries for Television. He served as member Pakistan film censor board from 1990-2003. He also worked as cultural representative for BBC Asia Network from 1995-2004. He was the first Pakistani journalist who started daily coverage of showbiz and culture in print media and also set the tradition of exclusive weekly editions.
He also introduced, explained and analyzed the important phenomena in Pakistani media. These include globalization, cultural invasion, cultural fusion, piracy, media integration, plagiarism and technology.
He played an important role in normalization of Pakistan Indian relations from cultural perspective. His journalistic work has been extensively referred, quoted and cited in several postgraduate (MA) and doctoral (PhD) researches and theses completed in different Universities across Pakistan. He received several awards during his career including three National Film Awards, Graduate Awards, Bolan Awards, Asia Film Awards, Golden Jubilee Awards of 23 March and several others.
Ashiq Chuadhry represented Pakistan in many countries including USA, India (FICCI), Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Dubai and Iran (official representative for cultural celebration of Iranian revolution & international film festival).
Ashiq Chuadhry’s youngest son Fahad Mahmood is serving as Assistant Professor School of Communication Studies, University of the Punjab whereas his eldest son Kashif Mahmood is associated with journalism as senior producer central news desk Neo TV. PAK DESTINY
