Fifty-Fifty: Not Pinglish, But Really Funny

Adil Najam

My deep affection for the PTV comedy skit show Fifty-Fifty – and especially for its early years – is well known to our readers. Here is another video comedy clip that could easily be a candidate for the very best of Fifty-Fifty ever.

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Fifty Fifty – Bashira in Trouble

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But after you are done with laughing also focus on the ‘translation’ and the craftsmanship of the translation. It is, in fact, quite striking how much thought and attention to detail has gone into it. These were the show’s ‘perfect years’ not only because the full team of artists – Majid Jehangir, Ismail Tara, Bushra Ansari, Zeba Shahnaz – were still there but also the writing duo of Shoaib Mansoor and Anwar Maqsood were at their best.

This is not just getting a laugh off an intriguing idea – Punjabi into English (but not really Pinglish). This is thinking through the phrases we use. My favorite is when Bushra Ansari talks about ‘birds and passengers’ (panchi tay pardesi) never returning. But it is not just the words being ‘transferred’, it is the inflictions, the pauses, the tone and the expressions.

I guess I appreciate it even more now after I have seen a few of the many ‘home productions’ of dubbing English films in Punjabi. The original idea and execution by Farooq Qaiser were, in fact, masterful (and we should write about them hopefully). But much of the new ‘home video’ stuff is vulgar and shoddy and distasteful. This, on the other hand, is anything but.