Enter the Facebook

A few days ago, my wife and i had an almighty row about something i put on facebook.

now, before i begin, both of us don't particularly like facebook. i could have used hate, but we don't really hate it. we see it for its benefits, such as the ability to be in touch with people we have been far removed from in time, geography, culture and directions. we like that we can get connected to a virtual flowing river of thoughts, and responses, and so on and so forth.

but then again, facebook seems to get under our skins and freak the fuck out of us.
i get seriously disturbed by how people are so feverishly fervent in consuming such copious amounts of details about EVERYONE else's life. once i saw someone update their status as "just got back from dinner, loved for the yummy food" and about 12 people had 'liked' it. what is there to like, what is there to appreciate in such a banal statement? yet i don't judge it really, i get overwhelmed by it, that virtual river slamming down on me and pulverizing me into its bed.

as for my wife, she despises how people turn into vapid sheep blindly embracing the latest 'it' thing on facebook with over-exuberant, psychotic and hollow passion. to quote an example, remember when israel bitch-slapped gaza, and facebook was inundated with status updates 'donated' to the plight of the palestinians? these were the same people who had been under blockade for almost a year at that point, and yet it was only when the showbiz happened (the ka-booms and the bleeding children) when people suddenly became infatuated with fatah and hammy over hamas.
so this was her retort to them facebookers back then.
of course, it was only fitting that no sooner had she done that (the links are all to stories about swat which back then no one gave a fuck about) people began to be interested in her opinion as well, because facebook junkies love to follow anything and everything.

ironically, her rant brought little attention to swat, but a facebook viral video turned out to be the gamechanger in the whole politics of that region.
which proved the power, and emptiness of this whole facebook phenomenon.(on an aside, i love how the earliest status created responses absolutely unconnected to the content, as if the controversy of it had forced a response, but the addiction to banality did not allow any acknowledgment of it.)

now what both of us were fighting about was my decision to post my film on my profile page. she felt that i was whoring out because things that existed on facebook immediately lost all gravitas, all purpose, all integrity. she complained that i was denuding my work of art, robbing it of its purity. that which existed on facebook was meant to be consumed, like a can of pepsi or a box of detergent. it was consigned to be eventually relegated to the trash.
i argued that by being on facebook, i was creating buzz about myself as a film maker. in a country without a breathing institution of cinema, a new comer would need to have people know about him, to have seen his work, to have heard about his reputation in order to be convinced to go out and watch his work. facebook is where viral happens, especially in pakistan. by being there, i was reaching out to an audience i couldn't otherwise reach. my blog for example, generates hardly a pittance in terms of viewership, while my completely meaningless profile page gets a lot more. in essence, what i was arguing was that i needed to 'brand' myself as a film-maker, generate buzz about my brand, so that when my 'brand' offered new products, it would have loyal consumers already present to spread the gospel.
i can feel you cringing.

if you are at this blog, you are probably inclined to have a knee-jerk aversion to brands, and corporations, and marketing and all such concepts.

let me enlighten you.

your aversion is surface deep. you are already a brand.

no, i'm not getting all naomi klien on your ass. remember your university applications? remember how you wrote essays about what drives you as a person, and attached certificates of sporting and artistic achievements which provided proof that you were a well-rounded person, and recommendations from experts who attested to your qualities? that was you branding yourself.

in fact, it's not just university applicants. job applicants do the same. and so do rishta applicants.

it permeates even further than that. foucault had argued that modern society was one ruled by discipline. but one of his contemporaries, deluze, reasoned that modern society was not about discipline, but control.

it is a subtle distinction, but a poignant one. deluze felt the reason behind this was that the institutions which governed society, had in contemporary times become highly diffuse, in the form of corporations. hence instead of the omnipotent state you have the omnipresent corporations.and a society of corporations consists of brands.

you present one brand to your parents, another to your grandparents. another to your first cousin, a far more liberal one to your friends, a far more devious one to your lovers, a far more honest one to your siblings, a restricted and much convoluted one to your boss, a domineering one to your subordinates, a squeaky clean one when you are at a religious ceremony, an unabashed one at the party you were dying to get invited to and so on.
it is far more easier for girls in pakistan to relate to this, as their brands have to switch rapidly depending on who can see them or hear them, and they are constantly on display, within their homes, on the street, in their rooms, on their profile pages, and ultimately, alone in front of the mirror as well.

and so, you are left with the essential question at the heart of this debate - is there a stable core sense of self beneath these ever fluctuating identities, brands or masks that we present to the world? or is our sense of self really an amalgamation of the cluster of brands we are putting out there?

is it possible to know one self, or are there too many selves, each fighting for dominance, each arising when needed, discarded when out of fashion, or possibility of use?

to paraphrase pink floyd, is there anybody 'in' there?

To Look or To Love - Voyeurism in Pakistan

This was meant to be a blog post - I had even written out the first para... then i decided it would do better as an idea for my first academic paper in like two and a half years.

so while the writing is not of the usual brilliance you have come to expect, and my non-plagiarized academic work is quite shabby, the contents are pretty contemporary and happening, so as the wise man said, "Enjooay..."

The aim of this paper is to use psychoanalysis to read two pieces of text in the form of e-mails. Both were written by students at a Pakistani university denouncing what they described as the “public display of affection.” But while the authors claimed that their protests were based on their values, this paper asserts that they were in fact a manifestation of their own voyeuristic tendencies.

I
A few weeks ago, one of Pakistan’s premier universities, the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) made global headlines after its administration decided to “ban kissing on campus.” Many of the international newspapers covering this story chose to focus on it as an example of cultural clashes within a country fighting “terrorism.” However, the entire issue speaks of a lot more than a simplistic cultural divide in Pakistani society.

The controversy began with the e-mails themselves – the first text chosen for this paper was the one that sparked the debate. Entitled ‘To Love or not to Love’ it was sent out to all the university’s students. It sparked a huge reaction from the students as well as staff, and the second chosen text was one of the earliest responses to the original e-mail.

(both e-mails are included at the end of this paper in their original format)

However, before turning to read these texts, we must familiarize ourselves with the concepts that inform their reading.

Jean Michel-Hirt, drawing on Freud, describes the concept of voyeurism as a “a deviant manifestation of sexuality that involves looking without being seen in order to obtain sexual pleasure.”

II
Voyeurism however is not merely the act of looking at what is illicit – it actually inhabits a far wider and more complex range of actions. Thus it can also be understood as a “…‘refusal’ to be seen as an object and, thus, a negation of object loss. It is an exclusive concentration on visual mastery, on the first position.”

This drive to gain ‘exclusive concentration’ of looking has been identified by scholars as prevalent in the process of narration. The narrator, by removing itself from the narration, gains the ability to see (and tell) without being seen itself. Hence, scholars posit, “that narrative is fundamentally voyeuristic, concerned with the veiling and unveiling of objects.”

Now let us turn to the texts in question. The first e-mail, which began the controversy, opens with the following lines:

“I don't know what is wrong with the new freshman,and some seniors too,they have a special and an uncontrolled need to seek physical consolation from the members of opposite sex many times in a day,in public,and in places where EVERYBODY can witness it.”

An initial reading would suggest that the author is merely bringing to attention a case of widespread exhibitionism (‘physical consolation’) and its consequent voyeuristic behavior (‘where EVERYBODY can witness it.’) However, the first act of voyeurism is actually the very process of putting this incident into a narrative form. It is this e-mail which establishes a narrator, and hence a voyeur, and through its dissemination, invites others to partake in this voyeuristic act.

In fact, the dissemination of this narrative is also an important facet of both texts. In the first e-mail, after providing graphic details of various incidents the author has witnessed on campus, she goes on to issue this warning:

“…If nothing is done about it then i'll take pictures of such things and attach them with my emails for everyone to see.)”

The author of the second text expresses her agreement with this threat, and also promises to carry it out as well.

“Otherwise I, too, am in. I WILL take pictures of what offends me and send it to everybody to see.”

Now, the very act of narration had already turned the authors into voyeurs in an academic understanding. By expressing their ability to take photographic evidence, they seem to be coming across as voyeurs in the popular understanding of the term as well.

But more importantly, it is the dissemination of this narrative which transforms the authors from voyeurs to pornographers, since according to Charnon-Deutsch, “The narrator is the voyeur, the one who becomes a pornographer in his role as witness and distributor of the story.”


III
Originally, Freud had expounded upon the idea of voyeurism, and its counter-part exhibitionism, as part of a dichotomy based on gender. Thus the male was the voyeur, the female the exhibitionist, and woven intrinsically into this idea was the notion of the voyeur seeking "to resolve the problem of dependency by possessing or controlling the other … by making the other person an object." Furthermore, “in psychological terms narrating means seeing… in order to avoid being seen, exerting power over an object in order not to be mastered by it.”

Thus we understand that narration and voyeurism are in a fundamental way related to power, and the ability to exert control over the object of the voyeur’s sight. In light of this relationship, the authors’ threats of taking photographs, and the very narration of the incidents, can also be seen as their ability to reduce those indulging in exhibitionist behavior as mere objects, over whom they seek to exert control.

And this idea of asserting power over the objects is reinforced multiple times in both texts:

“I openly challenge the fake hypocritical "tolerance" and "liberalism" being promoted on campus…”
“I demand that a set of rules be laid out so that the "sentiments" of not-so-unclutured people are not hurt…”

The author also incorporates another traditional method of differentiating and objectifying those subject to her looking by describing them as

“…people who [are] involved in this proud display of animal instincts in man.”

The idea of comparison with animals has been traditionally used to deny the object “participation in civilization (language, thought, culture) which differentiates [it] from whomever is seeing...”

IV
But further our reading of these texts, it is also necessary to understand the dynamics of the voyeurism. Davis, drawing upon Lacan, writes, “seeing is but a function in a largely unconscious discourse that can be glimpsed in what Lacan calls… the ‘Gaze,’ and… the subject who looks is the one who precisely is ‘seen’ by the nonvisual Gaze.” Silverman further expounds this Lacanian concept by writing that “it is precisely at that moment when the eye is placed at the keyhole that it is most likely to find itself subordinated to the Gaze.”

The reason it is important to understand the relationship between the voyeur and the Gaze is because of the reaction the Gaze produces within the voyeur. Continuing with Silverman, who writes that once the eye is subordinated to the Gaze, “the Gaze surprises the [subject] in the function of the voyeur, disturbs him, overwhelms him, and reduces him to shame.”

And it is this idea of shame that is an integral part of establishing both these texts as voyeuristic.
“I demand that a set of rules be laid out… so that we can go home and NOT for once,hide from our fathers our of sheer shame of what they saw.”

The author expresses a double set of voyeurism here, firstly by witnessing the acts of exhibitionism and finding herself subordinated by the Gaze, and hence reduced to shame. The second act is of seeing her father seeing as well, thus turning his voyeurism into an exhibitionist act for the author, and once again transforming into the Gaze which reduces the author to shame.

This idea of shame and voyeurism is expressed more explicitly by the second author, who writes that:

“The weirdest part is that WE, the ONLOOKERS, end up going red in the face and we try to hasten away from the 'crime site'! As if its OUR fault that we caught them red-handed! Normal human reaction to being caught in such situations is to hide one's face in shame,but in this situation,we,the "not-so-uncultured" need to look away and get OUR sentiments offended in the name of hypocritical liberalism!”

Here, the author has identified herself as the ‘onlooker’ and is surprised and angered by the shame she feels in looking. Rosenman quotes Sartre on the subject, who writes that “I am ashamed of myself as I appear to the Other… I am put in the position of passing judgment on myself as an object…” Rosenman writes that according to Tomkins, the origin of shame also lies in “the failure of distancing that ought to mask an intense investment.”

Thus the shame provoked in the authors is not due to the idea of such acts occurring, but rather by having witnessed such acts and being reduced to shame by the submission evoked by the resultant Gaze.

Furthermore, the idea of distancing oneself from the object is also apparent in the chosen texts. The first author suggests that the ‘offenders’ should find more surreptitious locations for their activities:

“Why don't they go back to using the DRs at night? Or behind the sports complex? or in the hockey fields?”

The suggestion makes clear that the author is not opposed to the acts themselves, for they obviously satisfy the voyeuristic urge, but that she rather opposes their being carried out within such immediacy, which confronts the voyeur’s ability to see without being seen.

V
Despite the various nuances with which this paper has attempted to show these texts as voyeuristic, a certain protest can be anticipated, namely that the authors were not seeking to derive any sexual pleasure from their acts of looking.

Hence we must also understand how a voyeur experiences pleasure from his acts in order to understand these texts more properly.

According to Blank, “The voyeur achieves gratification in a complicated way. He looks at the forbidden, expresses aggression in his defiant behavior, avoids any commitment to interpersonal intimacy and, all the while, in his passive fantasy needs not surrender one iota of his ideals and imagined assertiveness.”

Blank’s definition largely encapsulates the actions of the authors as described in the text. As is clear, both authors admit to having witnessed ‘forbidden’ behavior. Their various threats, most notably that of producing and distributing photographic evidence, can be read as manifestations of their aggression and defiance. And finally, their numerous appeals to ideals of cultural and social values make clear that they do not feel the need to apologize for their voyeuristic acts, or even concede the higher moral ground. In fact, as one of the authors writes the offensive actions are leading to rumors that “most of the girls in the university are not virgins” and it is leading to the university’s “credibility” being challenged. This can be read as a justification proffered for the voyeuristic act within the garb of protecting ideals.

Therefore, we can see the how the authors were able to achieve voyeuristic gratification in accordance with the formula that Blank provides.

VI
In conclusion, our reading the two texts seeks to confirm the voyeurism of the authors. In order to do so, we have looked at how the act of narration is fundamentally voyeuristic. We have seen how narration and voyeurism are about power, and how the voyeur seeks to exert dominance over the object. We have also explored the idea of the voyeur being seen by the Gaze, and how that provokes a sense of shame. And finally we have seen how the voyeur gains gratification. With each intellectual leap, we have been able to read how the texts themselves conform to these facets of voyeurism, and how they can be understood as primarily voyeuristic pieces.
VII
As an afterthought, it is interesting to note that the university decided to ban “kissing on campus.” Since voyeurism is associated with power and control, it is probably no surprise that the exhibitionist act was ‘punished’ and the voyeuristic one ‘rewarded.’


Bibliography: Ahmed, Issam. "Top Pakistan university to ban kissing." Csmonitor.com. Christian Science Monitor, 14 Oct. 2009. Web. 31 Oct. 2009.
Benjamin, J. "The Bonds of Love: Rational Violence and Erotic Domination." The Future of Difference. Eds. Hester Eisenstein and Alice Jardine. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 41-70.
Blank, Leonard. "Nakedness and Nudity: A Darwinian Explanation for Looking and Showing Behavior." Leonardo 6.1 (1973): 23-27. Print.
Charnon-Deutsch, Lou. "Voyeurism, Pornography and "La Regenta"" Modern Language Studies 19.4 (1989): 93-101. Print.
Davis, Robert C. "Lacan, Poe, and Narrative Repression." MLN 98.5 (1983): 983-1005. Print. Freud, S. ‘Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality’, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, trans. and ed. James Strachey, 24 vols. [London, 1953-74], 7:167).
Hirt, J-M, Voyeurism. International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. Ed. Alain de Mijolla. Gale Cengage, 2005, eNotes.com. 2006. 31 Oct, 2009
Press Trust of India. “To kiss or not to kiss keeps Pakistani Tweeters busy” Hindustantimes.com, Hindustan Times, 19 Oct 2009. Web. 30 Oct. 2009.
Rosenman, Ellen B. Unauthorized pleasures: accounts of Victorian erotic experience. Ithaca, New York: Cornell UP, 2003. Print.

Appendix:
(Text 1)
Subject: To Love or Not to Love
Date: Sep 11 2009
Dear All
I have been reduced to throw this out there because of what i have been witnessing in Lums for around a month now. What has to be kept in mind here is the fact that the following has nothing to do with "religion" or with anybody's personal beliefs so please,refrain from sending any emotional "liberal" emails in reply to this.
Public Display of Affection.
I don't know what is wrong with the new freshman,and some seniors too,they have a special and an uncontrolled need to seek physical consolation from the members of opposite sex many times in a day,in public,and in places where EVERYBODY can witness it.
Quoting few instances: (Readers' Discretion is advised)
1) Standing at the main entrance,a girl stands on tip of her toes and kisses a boy good bye.
2) Lying in the lawn in front of the library,a boy rolls over the girl lying down beside him and remains in this posture.
3) Sitting in the academic block, a boy constantly rubs a girl's leg,which are already half bare,with his hand inside her capries.
(These are just few instances,i have no reason to make these up.If nothing is done about it then i'll take pictures of such things and attach them with my emails for everyone to see.)
Our (people who aren't involved in this proud display of animal instincts in man) parents come to lums to pick us up and they have,i can gladly say,some sense of social (MIND YOU,i didn't say religious) sentiment intact so they get offended. Our crediblity, and the credibility of our institution in our society is challenged when aunties spread rumors of most of the girls in lums not being virgin spread all over the city. Even my parents were reluctant to send me to lums just because of the "enviroment" here.
I openly challenge the fake hypocritical "tolerance" and "liberalism" being promoted on campus.If irreligious,uncultured (by this i mean those who don't respect a culture's values),unsocial have the need to be tolerated and have "sentiments" which need to be respected,then so do religious,cultured and social people.
This "tolerance" for each other has to be mutual.If we give some,then these people need to do it too.Why don't they go back to using the DRs at night? Or behind the sports complex? or in the hockey fields?
I have never seen a religious person reading their holy book out in the open then why can't they hide their anti social and irreligious practices too?!
I demand that a set of rules be laid out so that the "sentiments" of not-so-unclutured people are not hurt and so that we can go home and NOT for once,hide from our fathers our of sheer shame of what they saw.
I am hoping that the OSA will look into this so i have not cc-ed this email to the VC.
regards,
Tajwar.

(Text 2)
Subject: (Re:) To Love or Not to Love
Date: 13th September 2009
Thank you so much Tajwar for speaking out.
The weirdest part is that WE, the ONLOOKERS, end up going red in the face and we try to hasten away from the 'crime site'! As if its OUR fault that we caught them red-handed! Normal human reaction to being caught in such situations is to hide one's face in shame,but in this situation,we,the "not-so-uncultured" need to look away and get OUR sentiments offended in the name of hypocritical liberalism!
This is a "STUDENT AFFAIR", OSA stands for OFFICE OF THE STUDENT AFFAIRS. I hope those cc-ed in this email can see the OBVIOUS reaction this issue has raised and can respond and do something about it.
Otherwise I, too, am in. I WILL take pictures of what offends me and send it to everybody to see.
regards,
Nabiha

How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Mullah

(NOTE: There are some truly historical pictures here, and I don't just mean the old Dawn images. I would highly recommend right-clicking and viewing them in full. i lack the tech know how to get them to fit within the margins.)

a pakistani born in the 1980s, and beyond, lives with an acute delusion.

it is not his fault. the country he grew up in had a monolithic response to his questions about history.

we are muslims.
we have always been muslims.
muslims are the best.
we hate india.
indians=hindus=non-muslims=evil bastards.
we are muslims.

this ethos made it the gospel truth that our entire culture, language, history, experience, knowledge has always been proudly muslim, proudly pious and proudly righteous, and nothing else.

thus when the average pakistani confronts questions about his past that seem to make no sense with the monolithic view - such as why was bangladesh created, or why ghalib was an alcoholic - his brain is confronted with nothingness.

nothing that he has been taught accounts for such questions. so he is left with a blank, inoperative mind which he inevitably fills up with delusions.

i used to blame this phenomenon on having just one tv channel, lack of education, lack of access to alternate opinions and a reactionary megalomanic dictator poisoning the country. but the advent of a smorgasbord of news channels, liberal and illiberal politicos, democrats and dictators and even the fucking internet has done jack all in countering these delusions. in fact, it has made monolithic view even stronger, thanks to constant repetition, and shame.

salman rushdie had it right - we are a nation built out of, on, around, within and comprised of shame. i guess the terror we feel of a vengeful god ready to obliterate our sinful asses makes us so ashamed of any action we commit that even if we felt it was ok, we repent it anyways.

one of the joys of being young of course, is that you can get away with not giving a fuck about doing things which you might feel ashamed of later. one of the sorrows of being old is that you often have to face up to the actions of your youth, and try and deal with them.

if you are equipped with a sound knowledge of yourself, of what you believe and your place in the world, you can perhaps deal with such things. if you are someone who has no tangible idea of their identity, and suffers from shame, guilt and amnesia, you become...

a middle aged former pakistani rock star.

exhibit A, of course, is JJ aka Junaid Jamshed. Tazeen has done a great job of ripping into him of late, and as such there is little need to do so here. but JJ, for those of you not in the know, was pakistan's first pop music superstar.

i mean the chicks loved him like he was paul AND john rolled into one. he sang songs about how it was an era for white chicks, how dark chicks were hotter, how his name was written with yours in some random jungle on a tree. he had his hair long, his eyes wide, and fame all around.

then he became fundo. but not just any fundo. he arrived as the messiah of the "Ashamed" - those who live immorally, have acquired wealth immorally, treat their daughters and their wives and their servants immorally yet want to feel like they're good people.

anyone in pakistan who has money, and access to the internet, has immoral stuff going on. like me - my household practices child labor. my ability to speak english gives me access to opportunities others with the same skills minus english speaking ability are barred from. the AC i run, the car i drive, the text messages i send are a massive waste and misallocation of resources, as the inequities in my country are so vast.

the Ashamed are just like me. we suffer from massive delusions. we wish to have something to make sense of their lives, to have an identity. unlike me, the Ashamed find this identity most conveniently in what passes off as religion in this country.

now the prophet, whose ankle lengths, mustache designs, ittar brands and holding-hands-during-prayer examples you all love to mimc was also a dude who roamed around in tattered clothes and lived in a hovel. which can be a bit problematic because we love our AC and our cars and our big house and our servants and our designer clothes and our imported accents.

so what do you do?

you turn to your Messiah. you say, look at him, he is rich, he runs his own boutique of overpriced, ugly clothing. he rakes in the cash for trumpeting potato chips as holy. and yet, he lives the life of the pious. i mean, he must be pious - fucking look at him. he has a beard and he sings naats right before iftar time on geo. that's proper pious. and if he says that being wealthy, and not giving a fuck about the poor, and using charity drives to cleanse your guilt is ok, then it's fucking ok, ok?

ironically, JJ himself turned to this life when confronted with nothingness in his mind. according to NFP, once the signs had become massive, JJ started getting lonely, confused and directionless. it didn't stop him from milking his fame for all it was worth, but you know, he was lost.

He went about as a man tormented by a sense of burdensome guilt; a guilt about something no-one, not even himself was able to define

and perhaps when he grew older, and felt ashamed at his sexual liaisons, his youthful abandon, his lack of responsibilities, he felt the need to make up for it. if he was normal, he might have done something worthwhile. instead he became who he is.

and he's not alone.

exhibit B, najam shiraz is a proper skitzo - at one time he was making videos showing severed penises, then he became a spokesperson for the vaguely cultish Ar-Rehman-Ar-Rahim. then he became a musician again. then a mullah. then sang a shit song whose melodramatic video tamely discussed rape and incest.

then there's Ali Haider, whose entire career was based on songs which had the gravitas of a sugar-free souffle. all his songs had him doing vaguely suggestive dance moves and singing about vaguely suggestive romantic dalliances. it was enough to get him laid, and little else.

when he grew up, he felt ashamed of the absolute shit he had put out in the world. had he been from somewhere else, he would have sought to redress it with better artistic output. in the land of shame, he came on alim-online to announce he was now a mullah.

so what does it mean? all pakistani rock stars, and all pakistanis, are doomed to being born again muslims who are at the cutting edge of hypocrisy.

NO.

there has been one badass mothafucker who has been rocking out ever since this whole shit began. he fronted the greatest paki band ever. and then when it became shit, he reinvented himself as a solo artist who actually put out music that was good.

ali azmat fucked them models, snorted that coke, spewed the bullshit, acted like a dick, took the money and ran - but he always kept rocking, and he never sold out.

wait a minute.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

The Omniblogus - Tangent 2: The Lagaan Discourse

[Part One]

[Previous Part - Tangent One The Man U Fan]

Our particular generation has had the honor of being born in an era where we can enjoy one of the great debates of the ages unfold in front of our very eyes, namely - which is the best Khan?

Salman and Saif can both make credible claims for various parts of their career, but the real contest begins and ends with Aamir and SRK.

SRK aka ShahRukh Khan, had made it big with his roles as what the indian cinema dictated to be the anti-hero.

then he decided to ditch that for DDLJ, and proceeded to become a monster-class superstar.

in essence, after DDLJ the man who gave us the stuttering stalker gave us the stuttering schoolboy, forever 21, forever Raaj, or Raj, or Raju, forever the same character for the next for 15 years.
In contrast, Aamir Khan started as the "papa-kehtain hain" good boy who loved purely and passionately...

...but ended up as the "art-cinema" hero, bringing a unique hollywood sensibility to India, by doing historical movies,

changing his physical appearance for a role and getting in "character,"

and (the number one hollywood superstar move) - making a movie with a retarded kid.

Shahrukh took the crass route, and got a wax statue in London, Aamir went classy, and went to the Oscars.

Shahrukh went meglomaniac, Aamir went anti-colonial intellectual.

but as for me, I never like Aamir. even though i admired his latter-day endeavors, i could never get past his early years. back then, he was one of the few indian actors who would kiss women on the lips. it was a horrid affair comprising of no tongue, and literally a forceful jamming of two awkward pairs of lips, but in those days, in that pakistan, it was scandalous. and what made it worse for me was that he was a Muslim. Oh Lord.

i like to believe my prejudices have altered since then, but i still don't like Aamir Khan. Of course, he did do a great service to cricket. he made one of the best movies involving the game - Lagaan.

this unfortunately, is not the forum for a discussion on how good it was. suffice to say that it was. what was interesting was the cricketing narrative - that the indian team had to rely on its batsmen to get them through, with Aamir of course playing the heroic batsman who remains undefeated.
that speaks volumes about cricket in india. indians like to bat. always have, always will. that predisposition meant that india only had good spinners, and never had fast bowlers.

despite centuries of living together, and having the same culture, memories, traditions and languages, despite all of that, pakistanis and indians are different.

and this is the reason.

in pakistan, the ultimate hero is the bowler.

the pakistani narrative has batsmen as exciting, inventive, breath taking, exhilarating, but also as suicidal,

circumspect,

timid,

spineless

and plain stupid.

inevitably, the pakistani batting fails, it goes out with a whimper, it flatters to deceive, it self destructs, it mutilates, it self-mutilates and flagellates and defecates.

in pakistan, the savior twirls his arms.

a pakistani bowler is all bravado.

he bowls like a dreamer,

he loves the audacious,

he is a born predator,

his sense of vengeance keener than that of Jack Bauer.

he is our "shock & awe,"

only he treads the "Rah-e-rast."

if there was a pakistani lagaan, it would involve us bowling last, the batsmen having been shout out for a ridiculous total, and the opposition merely waiting to celebrate their victory. for the archetypal pakistani victory involves coming back from nowhere, and it involves the bowlers being magnificent.

in 2003, when wasim and waqar retired, it appeared that shoaib and sami would fly the flag. but sami proved to be a mystery.

and as for shoaib - well, he was clearly unplayable when he chose to be, but catastrophic otherwise. just look up genital warts to know what i mean.

As for asif – he was the ultimate case of KLPD. (kharay lun pay dhoka – loosely translated as a betrayal to an erection.)

when sehwag murdered saqlain in multan, it felt like a part of pakistan was slowly withering away, and not to a marxist utopia either.

and if proof was needed that the apocalypse was nigh, india discovered ishant sharma. a genuinely quick bowler who could bowl with pace and bounce.

on the wounds caused by pakistani bowlers attacking one another with bats and pulling hamstrings on esha deol's g-string, the discovery of ishant sprinkled acid-riddled salt.

if india were to have fast bowlers and reverse swing, would pakistan have any purpose left in life? they'd taken away what made us pakistanis, so what would we be left with now? was God dead?