Veteran actor and playwright Shoaib Hashmi passed away on Monday afternoon after a prolonged illness. He was suffering from a brain hemorrhage. He was 84.
Shoaib Hashmi wore many hats of a prominent intellectual, educator, and playwright. He is remembered for his productions Akkar Bakkar, Sach Gup, Taal Matol and Balila for TV before the 1990s and the columns he wrote for The News and Gulf News.
نامور ڈرامہ نویس، اداکار شعیب ہاشمی انتقال کرگئے
شعیب ہاشمی نے لازوال ڈرامے لکھے،وہ ایک عظیم استاد تھے
شعیب ہاشمی نے الحمراء میں بھی بطور سیکرٹری اپنی خدمات بھی نبھائیں
حکومت نے شعیب ہاشمی کی خدمات کے اعتراف میں انہیں پرائیڈ آف پرفارمنس اور تمغہ ِ امتیاز سے نوازا pic.twitter.com/PN0DW0cTkr— PTV Home (@PTVHomeOfficial) May 15, 2023
In his personal life, Hashmi was known for his personal connections. He was married to Salima Hashmi, the daughter of renowned Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, and the couple had two children.
Senior actor Simi Raheal, lamented the huge loss and said, “I had never known anybody like him. He was the most incredibly generous human ever that I’ve met. He had the most amazing way with children – he spoiled them rotten.”
She continued, “He was an Imagineer: a creative genius. Nobody had wit like his. He laughed a lot. He was beautiful to look at and also inside. We grew up idolizing him my entire life. I had never known their front door to be locked. Anybody and everybody was always welcome to eat, sleep, or hang out – always.”
Renowned actor, composer, and singer, Arshad Mehmood, spoke on how Hashmi impacted his life. “He taught me economics in Government College Lahore,” stated Mehmood, “and then took interest in my music activities and then invited me to compose music for his TV program for children titled Akkar Bakkar. If today I am still making music, then it is his encouragement at every stage, which helped me to be what I am today.”
Filmmaker Sarmad Khoosat shared his views on Hashmi’s unreplicable influence on him. “I don’t think that anyone who even came across Shoaib Sahab, for once even, would have a sentence or a word or a brief response to define the relationship or that experience,” Khoosat said.
Continuing further, he said, “He had that vastness – that kind of infinite compassion and that energy – there was no way to escape it. It just left something with you. I grew up watching him – he was my father’s mentor, teacher, and guru. My father has this veneration for him, and he always calls him his teacher. And he was his teacher.”
Actor Saba Hamid remarked that it “was a blessing to know” Hashmi. “It’s heartbreaking news. May you rest in eternal peace, Shoaib sahib,” she wrote on the micro-blogging site.
Indeed, it was a blessing to know him, heartbreaking news, may you rest in eternal peace sohaib sahib💔 https://t.co/NR59Y5qQ5T
— Saba Hamid (@Sabhamid) May 15, 2023
Simi Raheal, Sarmad Khoosat and Arshad Mehmood’s Quote source: The Express Tribune
Images Source: The Express Tribune
