Research For Design Reflection

On 31st October 2020 we watched Puff Puff Pak as part of Chalta Phirta Doc Festival. This documentary film is by Fahad Naveed and it begins with Naveed’s journey with cigarette that started as a teenager, and then followed him from time to time. Later in life when he moved to New York, he documented the struggle to smoke in a country where cigarettes were comparatively expensive and smoking in general was discouraged by the people and the government.

The screening was followed by a Q and A session moderated by Anam Abbas where the film’s director Fahad Naveed, shared his experience and insights. This film shows how smoking holds different connotation for men and women in this patriarchal society. Sadia Khatri and Samya Arif were documented in the film as they shared their experience of smoking as a woman. They discussed how society catcall them and use abusive language against them. This is actually the reality.

Naveed documented his primary research by sharing advertisements and role that television commercials play in expressing the thought of a society and he further improves his research by interviewing and documenting firsthand experience of the young girls who smoke.

In any scenario be it man or woman smoking is injurious to health and should be excluded from every society. This doesn’t mean we should go around insulting people regardless of their gender. We’re no one to judge anyone.