Shoaib Mansoor made a movie on moderate Islam for an over-sensitive people and won over his home audience. His film, Khuda Kay Liye, is also the first Pakistani film to release in India in 43 years. The forthright debutant director on racial stereotyping, Islam and Indian television

Why don’t you like being photographed? Is it because of the security threats posed by the fatwas against your film?
There is no security threat to me. I live in Pakistan with my family and I am still alive. I insist on anonymity because I dislike the way creative people are getting addicted to self-publicity, even at the cost of their work. They are working hard on their films but working harder on exposure. I want to be recognised by my work, not my face.  

After spending 30 years in television, what made you make your first film Khuda Kay Liye?
The film is an expression of the anger that I have felt since childhood over the wrong interpretations of my faith. For instance, the dilemma faced by the singer brothers in the film seeks to dispel the notion that Islam prohibits music. It also shows the post-9/11 volte-face of the West towards Muslims. Suddenly, every Muslim became a suspect. The way Muslims were identified with their names and segregated at airports compelled me to tell this part of the story. The film tells the paradoxical tragedy of an average Muslim like me. Radical clerics at home consider me a bad Muslim because I wear Western clothes and don’t have a beard. And the West just reads my name and labels me a terror suspect.

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