Sometimes, exploitative tactics in a profession remain present like a big elephant in the room until someone like director Mehreen Jabbar and actor Syed Mohammed Ahmed challenge the taboos. The exploitation of man's creative faculties can't be perpetrated for long because either the creativity dies of asphyxiation or the stifling hands loosen up their claws from being cramped.

A recent spate of revelations about the delayed payments by the production houses to actors, filmmakers and crew is a crack in the gilded facade of the Pakistani entertainment industry. Mehreen Jabbar, during a virtual interview with Drama Pakistani, laments the unprofessionalism in showbiz and compares the punctuality of payments to actors and crew in the Pakistani TV industry with that in the US: "You know, in the US, they have many problems, but over there, payment schedules are kept. You know you will be paid. But in Pakistan, with every channel and production house (and yes, some are better than others), you have to chase them like beggars,........

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