“Ankhon main kuch sapne mere, rehte hain jo sham sawaray”, plays in the background. A little girl with button eyes runs around with her school bag flailing over her head. She is accompanied by her little brother and her parrot Mithu. Their cheery stride ends when they reach the village school and begins the show that brought us Meena. This is how most of us from the PTV generation remember one of the most celebrated cartoon series of our childhood – “Meena” or more commonly known as Meena Raju (after the brother, sister duo).

Let’s take a walk down memory lane a la Meena and Raju walking to their school

We need this walk because we need our kids to be more indulged in values of friendship, love, equality and respect like Meena, and not the ones that teach them values of war, fighting and revenge.

Meena was a small, beautiful girl who lived in a village with her parents, grandmother and two brothers. The story begins with Meena frolicking around the village, trying to peep through the school window.

The entire series revolved around Meena’s struggle for equal rights for girls and boys

Meena is recording her cute protests against her mother who tends to favor her son with things like giving him more food than Meena. As a very uniquely self-aware young girl in rural Pakistan, Meena goes around making people aware of the horrors of dowry, early marriages and child labor.

The series played a crucial role in breaking the commonly held stereotypes, in Pakistan.

Unlike our other TV shows, Meena discussed issues that actually plague our society. Kids have impressionable minds and hence, they learn what they see their adults doing. Therefore, instead of focusing our energies on banning things, it is better to channel them towards making more cartoons like these that actually engage kids with subtle representations of social issues.

Here is hoping that we get to see more of such initiatives and less of irrelevant criticism, in Pakistan.

Source: unicef.org