The conversation with Zak continues on ITLoW

My conversation with the amazing Zaheer Alam Kidvai continues. In this episode Zak talks about the Faiz CD, how it came about, the labour of love that went into producing it, and the lessons learnt through the process of creating it.

“Faiz – Aaj Kay Naam” was launched in February 1999 at an amazing cultural event at the PC  poolside – Salima and Shoaib Hashmi were there, as were Arshad Mahmud, Fatima Surraiya Bajia, Mushtaq Ahmed Yusufi, Nayyara Noor, Sheema Kirmani, Ghazi Salahuddin and lots of other famous local personalities, many of whom were part of the multimedia product that was authored by Zak and produced by Enabling Technologies.

The team that created it has since moved on to bigger (and better?) things, but the pride, the passion, the sense of ownership, the fun we had, the attention to every detail, the late nights, the backups that kept disappearing (at one time we thought that Faiz’s spirit was sabotaging the development work), and that final day when the Master CD was complete and ready to be shipped to Singapore for replication – all that – and more – live on in our memories.

It was a small team that worked to create a world class product – Zak, his wife Nuzhat Kidvai (an educator and researcher), Sabeen Mahmud (currently Director of T2F), Muhammad Amir (a multimedia programmer who went and made a name for himself in Singapore), Zubair Ahmad (who is working at BITS) and of course we must not forget yours truly ;).

The question Zak asks in this episode of ITLoW is that in the 10 years since the Faiz CD was launched, why have there not been many more multimedia products of that caliber produced and marketed around the world? We ourselves had thought of developing the following series of products:

Scientists of Pakistan
Heroes of Pakistan
Sufiism
50 years of Pakistani Music
Pakistani Poetry through the ages
Ghalib
Mustafa Zaidi
A Child’s Journey through Pakistan
50 years of Pakistani Cricket

So what happened? Why did we and others not produce more new media products that archieved our culture and our history? For the answers, watch this second episode of ITLoW with Zaheer Kidvai.

The photos of Zak were taken by Jamal Ashiqain (I am sure he won’t mind me using them). 🙂