The latest buzz suggests that the makers of ‘Burka Avenger’, a Pakistani super heroine animated series, has been approached by an Indian production house for buying the rights of the animated version, to be made into a feature film. Aaron Haroon Rashid, creator of ‘Burka Avenger’, confirms, “I have been approached by a few Indian film companies enquiring about the live action feature film rights to ‘Burka Avenger’.” Burka Avenger is a tale of a Pakistani teacher, named Jiya, who takes the disguise of a woman clad in a burqa, to avenge the wrong done by men. “The idea of Burka Avenger was that the main protagonist, a teacher, fights to prevent a girls’ school from shutting down, which incidentally was taken from a real-life incident in Pakistan. After I created the character, I realised that a full length movie might be too large an undertaking, so we made the game version of Burka Avenger in 2011. Later, we made an animated TV show which was completed in June 2012,” says Haroon. If the live action movie is made in Pakistan, he says, they would use Ainy Jaffri, who did the dubbing for the show and is a beautiful and talented actress in Pakistan. “If we do it in India and use a Bollywood actress, it would be someone who could play a strong woman and who is physically fit too, maybe Priyanka Chopra or Katrina Kaif,” says Haroon. Why burka for the super heroine? I chose the burka because I wanted a locally relatable flavour and I didn’t want to objectify our super hero the way a lot of female superheroes in the West are objectified and sexualised through their costumes, like Catwoman and Wonder Woman. It’s not about how she looks or what she’s wearing, it’s about what she is doing. We all know superheroes wear disguises to protect their identity and in the same vein, Jiya only chooses to wear this Burka-like costume as a convenient means to protect her identity when fighting the bad guys. Furthermore there is no Burka on earth that looks like the oufit that Jiya dons when fighting the baddies. It’s a close-fitted garment giving it a stylized burka feel to allow her to glide and conceal her weapons.
