It is not that Pakistan had not inherited a rich cultural past but the excellence has continued to diminish from the gamut and all forms of art and culture have capitulated rather unceremoniously to mediocrity over the decades. There has been a sheer dearth of state patronage in this regard and public followed suit in recognizing art forms as a luxury and not a need.

The idea that art forms are a means to cope with emotions, an outlet to suppressed sentiments and social rage and a source to battle bigotry and intolerance is being allowed to slip into near oblivion .And this practice of neglect dates back to the rule of Gen. Zia ul Haq , when anything even remotely connected to entertainment was declared off-limit for the people, under the garb of Islamizing the society. And a permanent grim mood of the nation has found no let-up since.

Being cultured involves having developed an excellence of taste in the arts. Loss of excellence of taste begets substandard production of art forms and vice versa.

We see a thorough decline in the standards and tastes of public. Owing to the fact that Class was treated as a pariah and general scene was left open for below average art forms that could attract public interest but at the cost of compromise to standard.

In the recent years we have witnessed a mushroom growth of tv channels which has mainly been dominated by the pecuniary interest of the investor and no where an intention of endorsing quality art is proved.

The national tv channel once produced the drama that would make streets deserted at the prime time of telecast. Those simple plays touched on themes of social oppression and injustice that wallop a deep chord with people subjected for years to insidious violence. This seriousness of theme is now taken over by repetition of hackneyed and stereotype stories, with little reflection of public sentiments.

Once the cinemas were thronged by people who came to watch movies that had a well knit , serious presentation. Even the imaginary world presented, that involved usually a love story, had a logical plot that satiated the fix of people for quality celluloid. And the film was backed by outstanding song numbers rendered to it by great composers and ‘ghrana’ singers that had a training of classical music running in their families for generations. The number of both the cinemas and the serious cinema goers has seen a demise, when what we see mostly in the name of film are, cheap dialogues, vulgar dances and moronic themes. The stage and theatre too have been occupied by people with little concern and training for art in true means when under the dual standards of state the trained and serious artists were ousted from the scene. We have seen bedlam like banning singers like Hassan siblings who ushered the birth of pop music in India tailing on the success of their British endeavours and a failing to give due promotion and recognition to singers like Nusrat Fateh Ali khan in his life time. Worst, still was rendered to standard forms of dance in this society, labelling the art as a mere taboo. And tragically ironic is the fact that vulgar hip grinding in name of dance continues as a normal manifest on the Stage which has been starkly commercialized.

Creativity starved youth of the country has obvious reasons for living a life-less life where a quality open air music concert or a serious stage performance has become a rare event. Either they have cheaper forms of art at their exposure or there are cavalier events for the elite class that are more under ground and that might involve debauchery as a straight mock at the face of the state.

Engulfed by extremism the nation can hope but little for the rise of excellence in all art forms. Apathy and ennui of our leaders in this regard is even dismal. The only art we have developed best all these years is art of falling Apart I surmise