Abstract

This article probes into an exploration of Social stigmas and hierarchies in Saeed’s Forgotten Faces that result in the detachment of an artist in society. The colonial rule of society proposed a new value to this research which mainly focuses on discrimination which leads towards the demise of folk theatre and its artists. Demise is the outcome of psychological discrepancies that come their way. This hegemonic supremacy of societal rules compels them to not have their own discourse and their desired way of spending life. They cannot keep their personal lives private. Being in this profession, artists sacrifice many things that a person from another profession can’t dare to think so. In the finale, the present study contextualizes within the boarder of Freud’s theory of personality and social-cognitive approaches to unravel reality. The article results that you lose your soul first and lose your mind at last, which is the final destruction of the artist life: social hierarchies and the stigma of being bad to prove turmoil for artists by destroying their mental peace.

Key Words

Social Stigmas, Hierarchies, Hegemonic Supremacy, Psychoanalysis, Artists Conscience

Introduction

There is an inextricable relation between man and society for the reason that both cannot remain aloof from each other (Ollman & Bertell, 1976). When an artist joins the world of pomp and show, social hierarchies and stigmas that are associated with this profession take artists’ journey of life into the ambivalent situation of to be or not to be is an important aspect of this research which reveals unseen certainties of their lives. How an artist becomes the prey of social hierarchies and what sort of role it plays in formulating the destiny of folk theatre artists. When an artist joins the world of pomp and show, he comes with good intentions in which he promises with social institutions that he makes in his mind to keep himself away from stigmas which automatically get associated with him when he takes the first step in this profession (Saeed, F., & Zaidi, S. 2010). Apparently, everything looks charming and plays an enchanting role to capture the attention of newcomer in this profession. This profession of theatre never proves harmful for artists’ community, but the only thing which proves destructive for them is social hierarchies which give them a sense of insecurity in this field (Athey, S., Calvano, E., & Jha, S., 2016).

Man is a social animal (Pickard, H. 2011). He tries his best to keep his relation healthy with society because it is very important for himself, and if he goes against society, then he suffers a lot. Society gives privilege to those who keep its norms and ethics dear to them. This is like a barter system where the rule of tit for tat dominates. You will get benefit according to your investment. A person cannot deny the role of society because society gives salutation to a person for being part of it. Artist’s community is a prominent figure of a society that remains a part of every person’s life. Artists are a representation of local masses to make them realize their real issues and complexities through their performances. It can be said that they cannot remain aloof from people. Artists’ prestige is society’s prestige.  But society ignores them because of their boldness that is a requirement of this profession. 

Some specific social groups directly hit the artist’s community, and they forget that they are also humans. They are also part of this society, and they should show some concern towards them to keep their motivation and alive. But this social hierarchy plays a vibrant role in making them realize they're lacking. Society blames them, hits them and isolates them for being artists and associates many stigmas with them by calling them ‘Bad”. When people call them bad, then many questions arise in every person’s mind, which answers are ambiguous yet (Aziz, A., Rashid, A., & Yasmin, T. (2020). When someone calls a male artist bad, this thing does not harm his character that much, but when this practice is used for a woman, then their honour and prestige come into doubt. “The stamp of being ‘bad’ legitimizes harassment, abuse, and humiliation, by those who feel they have a right to do” (Saeed, 2011, p.126).

The last few words of the given line refer to the social hierarchy which decides the fate of these artists which are mostly female. In a patriarchal society, the survival of female artist is very difficult because later, they have to explain to their children about their career and discrimination by society. It’s very easy to give a compliment to a female about her character, but no one knows this single compliment destroys her whole life by dragging her into psychological intricacy. She starts questioning herself that she is really a bad woman about whom society also have the same opinion. But the matter which should discuss is who give this right to people to say such things about artists. The answer is obvious. These are the social hierarchies that give people the right to say so. They make the rest of the life of female artist disgust her. They don’t care about their life that how they will spend their life normal. When people call them to disgust for society, then how they will consider themselves productive and valuable assets for their country. These artists then go out of the country; they represent their country and its culture. Like Literature breaks boundaries of a nation’s borders and goes beyond every limit to make people aware of one’s own country’s traditions, society and culture. These people also have literary sense because they feel and practice everything so deeply and when they go outside from their country to protect their country’s traditions and cultures through their performances which foreign people enjoy. They appreciate artists’ efforts because every person has eager to explore new things. The Artist word has versatility in it. An artist can sing, dance and act. Dancing has the worst image in this profession, according to people, while singing and acting has a much better image. In this case, there is also a hierarchy in it. “There is a hierarchy within performing arts as far as the level of stigma is concerned” (Saeed, 2011, p.126).

As earlier, it is mentioned that all performing arts in theatre have stigmas associated with them, but the level of disgust is changed from each other. Some are bearable, and some are unbearable. This is a matter of social preference that what kind of entertainment they want. Everything can be fair if they have concern for it. They are those peoples when they celebrate their happiness; they approach artists’ especially female artists to perform in their weddings and parties to entertain them. This is a double standard of this social setup. That’s why; this kind of discrimination towards art is heartbreaking for artists. Social discrimination haunts artists in many ways, but the most threatening is when society ignores them and isolates them. This is the reason that artists consider them substandard creation of this world, and they make their separate community. This community is the only world of artists where no one comes from the outside world to share their happiness and sorrows. What can be worse than this thing? 

They cannot have a noble status in society, and they are compelled to make their own little world and culture. There are no opportunities for them to earn money or do some other jobs for their survival because they have to leave this profession when they will get old or will be replaced by other artists. After serving many years in this field, in the end, they will get no advantage, and they have to survive in limited resources. “Performing artists have to survive in small pockets of supportive sub-cultures” (Saeed, 2001, p.127) 

Another hierarchy of society is gender division that plays a violent role in the destructing psychological life of artists, which especially affects female artists’ lives. If we examine Pakistan’s folk theatre history, then we come to know that most of the artists of theatre are female artists. Rural folk theatre survives because of female artists because their contribution to the theatre is more than men. Saeed presented this book to pay tribute to those past artists who were part of folk theatre, but her more focus is on female artists for those she writes that they are “Daring women of Pakistan’s folk theatre”. Her dedication of these words to female artists breaks the custom of gender discrimination, and she fights against social hierarchy, which supports masculine power only. “Brave woman like Bali Jatti crossed the gender divide” (Saeed, 2011, p.55).

In the late seventies, the theatre was facing demise, which was quite unbearable for its artists. Especially Bali took this thing to her heart because she was aware of the upcoming time in which she was watching everything drowning. She knew that she had no other financial resources to keep her family and herself safe from poverty. Her investment was in her newly established theatre, which was about to demolish. She was aware that an artist has no noble place in this society. She was watching everything demolish. This thing pulled her into many complex psychological issues. She remained many days in hospital in critical condition. People were saying about her that “She had lost consciousness” (Saeed, 2011, p. 112).

Freud analyzes the human psyche in terms of three elements, which he calls, the Id, Ego, and Super- Ego, which is called the Theory of Personality. In order to obtain an understanding as to why humans behave as they do, it is necessary to examine all three. There should be balance in all three components for proper functioning.

According to Freud, most people should be able to balance the three parts of the unconscious mind in a way that keeps them happy and healthy. A successful person, he believed, would have a strong ego in order to satisfy his id and its superego. Freud believed that when the three components become too out of balance, a person can suffer physical or emotional repercussions. (Roazen, P.1968). 

The proper balance of ego is the foremost important thing that brings balance to someone’s personality. When a person starts considering himself bad, then no power of this world can solve this mystery, and he becomes pray of his own thoughts that haunts him later while the remaining situation becomes more worst due to social hierarchies and stigmas that play a vital role in their marginalization. That’s why artists lose their minds because their psychological world is not strong enough to bear any further loss in her life. In such cases, social hierarchies and discrimination deal with artists very rigorously (Weiner, B., Perry, R. P., & Magnusson, J. 1988). This discrimination leads them towards their demise, in which they fell mentally ill, and their mental illnesses never cure. 

Literature Review

The literature review includes a survey of the topical and historical trajectory of the discipline of the life of Pakistan's Folk Theatre artists who are under societal pressure and narrows it down to the literature review of the present study on Forgotten Faces to identify the gaps and justify the significance of existing research by exploring prominence of social hierarchies and stigmas in their life. Freud’s idea develops psychoanalytic criticism in literature in which important aspects are analysis of the author, its fictitious characters, author’s profile such as his childhood experiences, relationship with parents, psychology of readers, elucidation of symbols in texts, evaluation of gender roles and role of language in interpreting conscious and unconscious of characters (Habib, 2008).

Freud’s demonstration of the theory of personality, which are personality factor, id, ego and superego, has become basic evidence of psychoanalytic thinking. These three parts of the mind cannot separate from each other because these three components play a vital role in the proper functioning of the mind. Id lays the foundation of all mental functions, and it’s a ‘Primary process thinking’ (Bonaparte & Freud, 1954). The ego develops from the id, and then the superego develops. For proper working of the mind of a person, the ego creates a balance between these two. Through his approach, Freud wants to offer a new mental science for understanding the human psyche and its importance in human life which has an influence that cannot be ignored (Kahneman, D., & Klein, G. 2009).

Freud concept of id, ego and superego is a vital point that set a new trend of thinking in the later years of his career. Id is pleasure principle and immediate demand or need for something. It's primary thinking, while ego is secondary thinking and known as the reality principle. Ego gives realization to a person what is wrong and what is right for him by controlling the demands of the id. Superego is related to social morals, ethics and taboos, which give realization to a person what is allowed and what is banned. It rebukes ego when it tries to violate social norms. The Superego of a person should be fully developed because society decides a person’s destiny, and if society’s demands are fulfilled, then that person will be awarded more by society. Life is a continuous struggle between id and superego. In general words, it is a continuous fight between a person’s drives and society’s drives. Similarly, an artist fights with society for acceptance because society marginalized him (Freud & Bonaparte, 1954).

Freud scrutinizes a person’s behaviour as an amalgam of three components which are Id, ego and superego. Id is fanaticized element of someone’s side. Ego deals with a delay of immediate wishes, desires and urges of id till suitable circumstances. The main function of the ego is to avoid negative thoughts and circumstances because it urges someone to behave positively. The ego is a realistic side of a person’s personality. It should not be repressed because of it happens, the person will lose a mental disorder, and his upcoming endeavours will go in the wrong direction. The most important component is the superego, which will have a central significance in this research because it is concerned with moral values, which he adopts because of society. Similarly, artist’s superego is dominant in their personalities. They are under the supremacy of society and its forced norms. If the superego is dominant, then it will increase the sense of guilt in someone’s personality where he will live in chaos, and he will fall into an ambivalent situation of to be or not to be (Weiten, 2007, p.480).

Adler (2011) demonstrates that there are some merits and demerits of the judgment of a soul. A soul is someone’s essence and a real version of a person. According to him, a human can achieve the goal of his soul if he struggles for excellence, self-protection and dominancy for his personality. This thing will differentiate him from others on the basis of qualities. This achievement can be possible only if the mental functioning of a person is proper. If a person is mentally satisfied and happy, then he will be satisfied by his own personality and skills. He will believe in himself that he can do everything. It increases the level of his confidence. But this goal of achievement of the human soul is possible when his psyche is free from the stress which society puts on him. The repressed superego or dominancy of superego puts a person in ambiguous situations where whenever he will examine his image, he will find it blur. Then how repressed psychological world of the artist can have a positive way of thinking when he is not free in his thinking. His soul is shackled by social hierarchies and stigmas, which dominates his superego rather than his ideal ego. All the models of the mind are of equal importance but, because they are applicable to the different levels of the hierarchy, they are not comparably useful in organizing the understanding of a given problem. 

Consistency of someone’s personality depends according to situations, like social cognitive theory reveals that all individual differs in their behaviours and actions according to situations. They have to mould themselves. If they are at work, then they will behave like a gregarious and practical person because it would be the demand of that present situation, and if they are at home, then they will feel affectionate and cherishing. The same case is with artists. They have to mould themselves according to situations. They have to become gregarious when they are at their work in theatre, but when it ends, they realize that show has ended now they are in real life where they are living. Then they feel themselves relax. But society never leaves them alone because social hierarchies and stigmas take them into chaos, and that chaos exists in their mind where they start living a life that is repressed, and they live in regret. This shows the dominancy of an artist superego, and dominancy of superego takes an artist in regret, which never ends (Mischel, W., & Morf, C. C. 2003).

From history to the present scenario, ever since the emergence of artists, they are considered superheroes as they are not like common people. They possess those qualities which a common person cannot have. Art is not any person’s property, but his specific mode of representation can be a person’s property. Similarly, if a person is an artist and he has fame, then it is obvious that he had work hard. It’s not so easy to become an actor. Many people oppose, and few people like this profession and consider this an honourable profession. Sometimes society alienates them when they are not valuable to them. An artist becomes an artist when he undergoes harsh circumstances because being an artist means pain that never lasts. Actors have always been analyzed in consideration of their otherness because society alienates them because of those stigmas which they become engage in when they enter this field that stigmas are disgust, hatred and otherness, and if artists are women, then the consequences are worse. They always fight a war between their mind, real and professional life.

Methodology

The present study probes into Freud’s theory of personality, and the social-cognitive approach is used as key concepts of this research by hiring the method of textual analysis. The research is qualitative and analytical in nature. It is shaped by the facts that are taken from reality. This research is innovative and inductive because other similar works would also be analyzed in order to make this research valid and strong and it discloses that folk theatre artist’ life is under hegemonic control of social hierarchies and stigmas. It emphasizes characters’ mental states, which formulate their destiny. Under this influence, how do they behave, how do they take their life journey, and what are lenses they use to see life is the basic premise of the present research.

Discussion and Analysis

The analysis and discussion of present study tend to explore the prominence of social stigmas and hierarchies in artists life that makes them a stereotypical icon and they consider their self-image as a stigma. The dominance of the superego in their life put them into a constant state of regret, and that regret takes them towards their demise. 




Artist’s life is a Tragedy or a Comedy

Artists’ community is a group of those people who once enjoys their best time of life when the whole world remains beside them, shouting their names in the crowd. This act of admirers gives energy to artists to keep doing their work with the same energy and potential. Every artist enjoys his or her time, but a time comes when he becomes old, and some new artist replaces him, or he dies. But it is said that an artist never stops working, and if he does, then he merely abandons his work. The question is why she abandons doing her work, and the answer to this question is very obvious. She abandons her work due to those social stigmas, which become a hurdle for her survival. Her profession is not the important thing for her in her life. The most important thing is the rest of life which is far away from this magical world that should be normal and prosperous. 

Artist’s life is a tragedy or comedy is an important aspect which should be discussed first. The whole discussion concludes that their life lurks between tragedy and comedy and remains undecided because situations vary for artists. Especially for females and males, male artists’ lives are far above this concept of tragedy or comedy. This discrimination of fate is for female artists only because for being female or mother of children, she has to become answerable to her children and society for her deeds. This is not less than a tragic event for her that why she is only being questioned by society, why society does not question male artist for the same reason. 

Life is a tragedy for those who have lost everything in life because, at the end of everything, there are only memories that keep them alive in this world. These memories should please them, not haunt them. The artist always remains in nostalgia, where he keeps remember his splendid memories, which give him strength and a feel of encouragement that he has done something valuable for people. He will be remembered by people for his work. This is a demand of an artist which he demands from society to keep remember his name. But this is a custom of the world that when a person goes from a place, then he never remains a part of discussion or appreciation for people. Their works are forgotten, their faces are forgotten, and even a time comes when their names are also forgotten by people. This is the real tragedy of the artist’s life that gradually he becomes deprived of every right that he had once in her life and now in his memories only. This thing haunts them because they had never thought that they would be forgotten by people. This is social discrimination that leads them into serious consequences, which put pressure on their psychological world, which collapse after this. This is a tragedy that happens with every artist who is part of Saeed’s Forgotten Faces. Every artist of this document has passed from this world, but their exceptional work in the field of art and folk theatre has forgotten by people. Their efforts have forgotten by people. Their glorious time period has forgotten by people. Even children of these artists don’t want to tell people that they are children of renowned artists who were leading in folk theatre as heroines now stands nowhere, not even in the minds of their admirers. “They seem ashamed of their mother’s past” (Saeed, 2011, p. 123).

Artist’s life becomes tragedy after leaving this profession but a comedy when they are in this profession. Comedy in this sense that he gets ready for everything which authority or society asks him to do. He does everything for them like a joker. The reason for this is that he wants to remain in this field, and he has a fear that if he does not accept, then he will be replaced by a new artist who will willingly do everything for them what they will ask him to do. Despite the fear and social stigmas, they stick to this profession with the hope that encourages them to perform beautifully to take place in the hearts of people. “Despite the pressures of their times, they stood with pride on stage and contributed the colors” (Saeed, 2001, p. 128).

This is a harsh reality of these artists’ lives; they stick to this profession to keep themselves active in this world of colors and lights. The result of these tiresome efforts is that for admirers, they are merely icons of glamour which they enjoy; for the society, they are merely puppets; for their families, they are money-making machines, and for their mind, they are tragic heroes or heroines. This is how their single life divides into a three-dimensional world of mind, theatre and the real world. 




To Be or Not to Be

To be or not to be is a soliloquy by prince Hamlet who was a character in Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet”. This is a question that compels a person to think about the consequences of any action twice to decide what should be done and what should not be done (Jung, 2016). This phrase gives a point that revolves around the present research. This is a pinching point of the artist's life that he or she starts thinking about his or her life in this sense to evaluate about things that why she is in this profession? Why is she suffering abuse for no reason? Why she is the only one to be questioned by society? Why all social norms and restrictions are for her. Many questions arise in her mind, which questions her about her existence in this brutal world. This world is a planet for men only because they are exempted from this burden which women face. This chapter of discussion mainly focuses on human rights and their existence that for normal survival in this world, it is very necessary for society to make its habitants satisfy themselves. Every poor or rich, every famous or common man, every educated or uneducated and every man or woman share the same world, the same society, same culture and same tradition when they live in a nation than why there is discrimination among them for having higher or lower status. Who made this concept of status? Obviously not, God is made by the dominant class, which wants everyone their followers. This is how things become more complex for the rest of people.  These are people when they are happy they arrange grand parties to celebrate their happiness and to make their happiness double and enchanting to show their circle which hold the same status their happiness. They call artists to perform at their private parties and weddings. These artists don’t know that they are just here to make them happy, and they are like musical instruments when they play at a party that remains unnoticed by people because people’s attention remains towards food and appearances of people who are around them. When there is competition between these elite classes, then how they can understand others who are lower in status from them? This discrimination never allows people to live their lives normal. This practice prevails in the whole society, and it becomes a custom. Society is an outcome of the dominant class; culture is ruled by the dominant class, and traditions are controlled by the elite class. This is colonization after colonization and where a strong can exploit others by all possible means to satisfy themself. 

Society claims that it colonizes people because they don’t know what is good and bad for them. When someone thinks to control another person, then his uttermost desire is to bring that person under his supremacy. The same case is with these artists who come under the supremacy of society and the dominant class, which exploits them in every possible way. 

The first thing that society imposes on them is the identity that it gives to them. This identity is that they are not noble, respected and humans. This is a lesson that society gives others and wants others to think in the same direction. Every person loves himself and wants to satisfy his self. But when someone’s self is repressed, then how that person can be satisfied with him. This is a reason which makes artists more uncomfortable in this world of humans. They think that they are not part of this world which is full of people, not humans. It the most difficult task of the world to live among people, not humans. Humans are those who think for others as they think for them. But here, the situation is the opposite. 

Bali Jatti, Naznin Mano, Khurshid Kuku and Rukayya Jabeen and other characters of Forgotten Faces fight against this society and their mind that marginalizes them in this world full of humans. This situation pulls them into an ambivalent situation of to be or not to be. They question themselves about their existence that why they born in this world. They blame themselves for all happening. They find themselves nowhere in this world. When these folk theatre artists left the theatre, they were ignored badly by society. Khurshid was also a renowned folk theatre artist of Pakistan who faced the same demise despite becoming the wife of a theatre owner. About her, it is stated that, after leaving the theatre, she and her children had to work very hard to make a living in a world of “virtuous” people (Saeed, 2011, p. 68).

Virtuous word is an irony that is used to depict those people who mock artists, while the world of virtuous people depicts a utopian land where people are ideals, and they have no bad habits in them. Society itself considers it a utopian land that demands from people to be ideal for becoming its habitant. The same demand is for artists that for becoming part of society, they have to be noble and ideal; otherwise, their survival is difficult in this utopian land. This is a social hierarchy that they just want to marginalize at any cost (Khan, A., Bibi, S. A., & Aziz, A, 2019). 

When a person suffers severe circumstances, he becomes an escapist to lessen his pain and worries. This is an essential attribute of the artist life that he tries to escape from this theatre world to spend his life as a noble and respected citizen of the country. This is all he needs at the end of his career. For example, Bali, who is a legendary artist who ruled in folk theatre, also becomes an escapist, and she tries to keep her family away from this profession. She becomes aware of this world and society that haunts her like a nightmare for the rest of their life where they keep themselves busy in thinking about their past and career. They regret and blame themselves for why they came into this profession. 

A new world starts here that is a psychological world which dominates in rest of their life. This world compels them to think over their matters again and again. This overthinking drags them into the valley of their destruction, where the regret of being an artist dominates. This is a social hierarchy that pulls artists into an ambivalent situation of to be or not to be. 




Personal Gain and Loss

The main concern is what a person gain or loss at the end of his career. An artist rarely gets some benefit but mostly gets loss which is emotional, mental and loss of health. Every loss can be regained, but the loss of health can never be regained. The reason behind their loss is society. When society ignores its artists, then it damages a lot of things in these artists lives, especially the loss of their prestige. Society ignores performing arts as a noble profession which brings the psychological downfall of folk theatre artists. Our society is dangerously neglecting its traditional and classical performing arts (Saeed, 2011, p.10).

These folk theatre artists considered theatrical activities as their desire, and the most important thing is which is above all is that they consider it their life. Forgotten Faces emphasizes the life of those artists who have been forgotten by society, and the reason is that society neglected them. These artists had a tough time. Despite facing many restrictions and violence from society, they continued their journey of performing artists and enriching their traditions which people forgot with the passage of time. They considered performing arts not only as their passion and profession but their life as well (Saeed, 2011, p.11).

Despite all tiresome efforts, they did not get due credit for their work. An artist devotes his whole life to arts when he enters this world, but the same thing he keeps in his mind is that he wants credit for these efforts which he has put in his work. But his wish remains just a wish because you can’t force people to be with you as you want. People chase novel ideas. When some new artist comes into the industry, or some new trend comes, the previous will be replaced by new to bring diversity in this profession. Here his loss starts, which is more than his gain in his profession because he expects much from society, and excessive expectations mostly lead a person towards disappointment. Disappointment is a sin in Islam because until you are taking breaths, there is hope. There is hope; there is life. A person must not ignore this ground reality. But no one has control over his thoughts because these thoughts take him towards his destiny which remains ambiguous. He wants to do something else, but he does something else. This is a malfunction of his thoughts which originates from many psychological disorders in his personality. These psychological disorders are a gift of social hierarchies.

To feel self-repressed is a disorder of inferiority complex. This inferiority complex starts when he enters this theatre world and becomes stronger when it collides with real life. He has a family which has to share their part in society to keep them in it. This complex transfers from generations to generation of folk artists. Most of the families of artists’ community did not want their children in this profession because they have become aware of this world which is just a glitter gold which looks beautiful only from a distance; when you see it from close, it will change your mind about its beauty. That’s the reason they wanted to keep their children away, especially their daughters from this profession. “Realizing the consequences, almost all of these women wanted their daughters to avoid that profession” (Saeed, 2011, p.123).

Folk theatre artists have a wish that they must be remember after leaving this profession as an honorable person. His works should be remembered by its audience but it never happens. Only those artists are being remembered whose children become part of this profession after their parents and this happens only if their children make their good place in this profession by becoming famous enough to keep their parents name alive in this field. This is merely a dream which never fulfils. 

Bali is also one of those artists who expect the same from society. She wants that her work should be praised by her audience because she has presented as they expected from her. She wants due credit for her struggle, which she made despite his husband’s victimization and violence. Later, victimization from society and her family becomes the most devastating thing of her life. Her daughters become productive for her, while her sons never played a significant role in her life. She kept her family away from this profession which people do not consider honorable profession. But there was no source for living and earning for her. But when she became old, the theatre was not productive for her because of her age and was about to demise.  The only thing which was her fate was to say goodbye to this profession which became an endless era of turmoil for her for the rest of her life. Her sons left everything associated with the life of their mother, and they purchased a little house in a less developed area of the city to keep away their mother from the eyes of people because they did not want people to meet their mother or praise her. The reason for this happening is that they do not want recognition of a theatre artist’s children in society. This thing happened with many artists of Forgotten Faces. All the artists who did work in this theatre world aimed to keep their children away from this profession. They educated their children enough to make them part of an honorable society. Bali’s daughter Abida got enough education that after the decline of her mother in this profession, she supported her mother by teaching in a school to earn money while the sons of Bali did not become a rational figure in her life. “The sons who were used to taking money from their mother could hardly be a support” (Saeed, 2011, p. 114).

This is an example of social discrimination that a son can only be a support for his parents while daughters can’t be pragmatic enough to support their parents. Her sons wasted her saved money which was their last hope. Her son Abid leaves her wife and marries a prostitute, which pulls them into more financial loss. This was a tragedy of her life which was taking revenge on her for being a theatre artist in her real life too. Her professional world was chaotic, and her real world was trashed badly. Her third world, which is the psychological world, becomes more disastrous for her because the other two worlds were part of her psychological world which was haunting her psychological world. The psychological world could be the only source of happiness for her to remember her career and praise herself for having a glorious past that leads her towards the heights of the sky. She was a shining star that shown at the peak of the sky but fallen badly and could not survive after this, and the reason was that she did not have enough resources to feed her family. This was the reason that she was more regretful of her career that still she has poverty. According to her, government and society is responsible for this because they must take care of their asset.“Artists in the country are dying of hunger and there is nobody to lend a hand” (Akhtar, 2011).

A star that should be on sky was on earth and was in miserable condition. This time of turmoil she suffered because of social hierarchies which did not leave her in her end days of life.  This was what she gained and lost in her life. A theatre artist who devoted her life for rural folk theatre to entertain masses and to make masses aware about their social issues was in bad condition that spent her last days of life in a regret of being a theatre artist. The same was the fate of many other folk theatre artists who was part of this document. “It was at this stage of her life, when she could not reconcile with her situation and did not want anyone to see the Queen of Hearts in such decline” (Saeed, 2011, p.114).

This was the ultimate end of Bali’s career and life. She left alone in this huge world of humans. Theatre was her life not a profession which society snatched from her and left her in to dark side of her chaos where she is no more a noble lady. 

Social hierarchies and stigmas lead her to spend her early life in a continuous phase of depression and last days of her life in isolation where she was not ready to face the world as she was in regret.  This is how social hierarchies designed her life and took her journey of life and career from glory to demise.  Her psychological world’s exploitation took her into an ambivalent situation of to be or not to be in this world of pomp and show and the real world where the great sufferer was her mind. 

Conclusion

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