Pakistani men are very possessive: Maria Wasti
By Sadia Malik

ISLAMABAD—It is a hot and humid Saturday afternoon when one reaches a local salon to meet Maria Wasti, who happens to be in Karachi for a drama serial she’s shooting. Dressed casually in a T-shirt and jeans, her hair all over the place, we settle in comfortably, she with her cup of chai and me with my tape recorder, notepad and pen. The conversation begins with the much cliched query: how did she come into acting?
“God I hate this question! I’m sick of it,” she says. “I guess you have to ask it. Bakhtiar Ahmed, who was the programme manager of Lahore TV at the time cast me in a long play called Sarah aur Ammara.” This was around eight years ago. The story revolved around two sisters who were settled abroad, and whose parents tried to match them with possible suitors from Pakistan. The other sister was played by Resham. After her first experience in acting, Maria realized her passion for the art. Her family, she says, were very supportive, but did tell her to treat acting like a ‘real’ career and pursue it in a professional manner.
“We’re not making plays that deal with today’s issues: Relationships, drugs, Aids, communication with parents and spouses and the increasing divorce rate. You don’t necessarily have to be explicit and vulgar if you are dealing with a sensitive issue,” says Maria Wasti “Although my father wanted me to become a doctor, I was lucky that my parents weren’t the type who force their opinion on their children,” she says with a grin, “and they’ve let me and my siblings pursue the careers of our choices.” She adds that the main reason she didn’t want to pursue a career in medicine was basically because she “wanted to look at people in another way rather then dissecting them. I’m a pure romantic, and that line of work is hardly romantic.”
Maria views acting as a vehicle which she uses to express herself, something she feels that everyone needs to do in order to be fulfilled and happy, irrespective of the medium. “I realized that I was really not the type who could do a 9 to 5 job — I hate waking up in the morning. I still cannot get used to it.” But she has no regrets, despite the ups and downs that she has faced. “I’m lucky that I came into this field; I feel that I wouldn’t be the person that I am and would be out there somewhere, miserable and unhappy, if I hadn’t come into acting.”
After her first TV appearance, Maria began to get a lot of offers, and ended up doing numerous plays for Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi television. Plus, besides enjoying her work immensely she also managed to explore another one of her passions: travel. “Travel is the best university in the world, you get to learn so much through it,” she declares. And what were reactions from people within the industry like when she first entered the field?
“People were sceptical in the beginning, but that is the case no matter which career you opt for. But once I proved myself, people began to accept me and things changed.” Things did change for the better and since then, Maria has played various roles and characters in a comparatively short span of time. She’s proud of some of the roles she has taken on and speaks fondly of them. “I did Kallo, which was a little different. Written by Bano Qudsia, the play was about a girl who is very dark — I had to put on tonnes of make-up to look really dark. It was a romantic and beautiful story.”