Yeh India Nahin Hai, Yeh hai Pakistan

Yeh India nahi yeh hai Pakistan

Damnation! Shock! Horror! I am aghast at Fakhr-e-Alam’s performance in Akh Wi Larani Ai/Tai Guddi Vi Uraani Ai on heavy rotation on IM these days. Actually, I am more enraged at the performance of the audience. Boys and girls and uncles and aunties cavorting on beach cum dance floor to live music and all of this being shown to impressionable minds all over the country on IM (yes, even in the Frontier, home of all that is right and Islamic these days). What message would teenyboppers and toddlers (particularly them impressionable girls) waiting for the latest Noori/EP video take from this public display of inappropriateness? Don’t the IM people and all these dancers know that yeh India nahi hai, yeh Pakistan hai? Is this what Baba Quaid-e-Azam and Bibi Fatima Jinnah made Pakistan for? Painful memories of the infamous Vital Signs performance with all those girls swaying with arms up in the air to the band’s music have come rushing back to mind. Back then I was a toddler bug but my sense of decency (Lahoriness I guess as my Karachi cousins didn’t seem to mind) was all enraged and worked up: I actually went ahead and sent a letter of protest to Taalim O Tarbiat and Pakistan Television and I would like to think that it was my contribution that got these godless displays banned on public television. As for all this now, I think there is cause to start the movement again. once more unto the breach, my friend. Or at least that is what a part of me thinks.

Infact, I am, in all such matters, seeking guidance from the General Bug, Mush the Man, who seems to have gone Mullah all of a sudden. He is quite bugged these days I hear with LFO, ISI, JUI and whatnot but he is still sometimes, when not wooing MMA, prone to making some liberal concessions. Consequently, I herewith make mine: If, at all, men and women need to get down and dirty on the dance floor, they ought to do so in a segregated manner. Boys on one side, and girls on the other, dancing with themselves if they have to. It is the only proper and moderate way of doing things. I offer my services to act as a buffer between the two wings in further beach parties. Invitation and info as to time and place may kindly be sent to me at KiraMakora@hotmail.com

Actually, in addition to my reaction to the audience, I am aghast at Fakhr-e-Alam’s performance too. Rather I am aghast at the fact that I liked it. There isn’t any other man so musically talent less who has managed to do so much with what little he has. The poor man can’t sing, yet he still dares to do so. The poor man irritates and yet he has made a career out of it. And talk about putting up one’s own singing for ridicule with confidence. First he released the Falam Connection album and when that did not adequately do the job, he re-released the same material in his latest Ab Tak, a greatest hits collection. Like Ali Azmat, it is his confidence and wise cracks that I feel hold him in good stead and carry the day for him. Plus maybe some good sponsorship deals. He himself however, is still behind the curve in that he hasn’t clued into the fact that mixing Urdu with English is now so passé.

As for his future course of action, I suggest philanthropy. Fakhr can now proceed to make a hospital or a school or maybe a music school or a music hospital to become even more irritating. Fellow hypocrites regarding my proposed anti-dance ban may write in mails of support at KiraMaqora@gmail.com Fakhr may not.

(Published in Sunday Magazine, June 1 2003)