A Nation of Ches

so as some of you may know, i have repeatedly professed my distaste for blogging about politics. but the kind of job i have means that i am always involved in reporting on them, and of course i have opinions on that. so i decided to write a political-flavoured post for this blog's sautan, my dawn blog. unfortunately, i decided to make a "statement" by posting an early draft of the post as a tweet, instead of mailing it directly to my long suffering editor. by the time we got around to cleaning it up, it was wednesday. and by then a far more famous and respected columnist who i've been accused of copy-paste-materialing had sent in his piece, which referenced similar themes as mine. and so, in a twist which is rather fitting considering my penchant for introspection, i am left as the che i was railing about. here is that never-to-be-published post.



Last week, I was part of a momentous, historic occassion. I was present at Tahrir Square when Hosni Mubarak announced his resignation. Almost immediately, the crowd went into raptures. People young and old hugged and kissed one another, communists and Islamists began to engage in consensual copulation, women emerged simultaneously adorned in burqas and bikinis reading aloud Germaine Greer's tafsir on the Quran while calorie-free chocolates began to sublimate out of thin air as everyone's bank balances were stuffed with all the money they had dreamed of.

Oh no wait, that was the fantasy I concocted after reading what all of the Pakistani corner of the blogosphere had to say on the events in Egypt. 

Which is surprising, because the more appropriate Pakistani reaction to the events on the Arab street should have been "Been there, Done that."

Yet it seems that all of us are afflicted with the sort of short-term memory loss which only a prolonged usage of opiates can bring upon. 

But in either case, a simple visit to google would have reminded the Sons of Revolution that Pakistan has not only been always "with it" when it comes to global revolution fads, it has actually been ahead of its time in the latest version. After all, its only been three years since a prolonged civil society instigated popular movement upended a decade-long military dictatorship, benevolently enlightened as it was.

And that was only the latest in a long history of "people power" movements in Pakistan. After all, when the entire world from Paris to Prague was whipped up in revolutionary frenzy in 1968, Pakistani students were leading their own marches in the homeland. The decimation of our eastern half, and their subsequent genocide, was also instigated when people power demanded its rights. And Mr Bhutto's decision to lengthen his proverbial beard and ban discos, daroo and 'deviant' sects was also on the back of street protests. And these examples don't even begin to consider the rent-a-rallies every other social/economical/political/veena malikal issue seem to spawn in Pakistan.

And yet, without ever considering these stone-cold events of reality, there are those complaining that Pakistan's revolutions are fake, reactionary, chaotic, and futile. 

Anyone making this claim seems to forget that traditionally, revolutions involve lots of blood shed, lots of chaos and violence. And in the recent past, these have ended up with regimes which rack up the repressiveness. Those that don't bequeath an all-powerful Eternal Leader/Supreme Ayatollah/Venerated Sun God leading an all-draconian Big Brother government end up with a lot of the old faces trying to dance to different tunes. 

But still, we Pakistanis act like the crazed Mom visiting Shaadi.com, convinced that someone better out there exists for their molly-coddled ideals of revolution and freedom.

So the obvious question is - why do we do this?

The answer lies in a t-shirt. 

The one I wore in the prime of my youthful naivety, the one that so many others have also bought in similar moments. You know the t-shirt, the one with the black-and-white picture of a forgotten revolutionary looking really damn hot? You know, this t-shirt. The t-shirt we all bought believing that wearing it would somehow proclaim us as intellectual radicals, a t-shirt which would deliver us from injustices and a t-shirt which would redress inequity while still giving us time to party. The t-shirt which was little different from any other sold at Voo Doo Tees or Zainab Market, the t-shirt which allowed all of us to buy into a culture of heady literature, rousing rock, timeless slogans, and the t-shirt which allowed us to pretend that all revolutions were as simple, rewarding and comforting as the joy of wearing a cotton t-shirt on a warm day. 

The t-shirt which would make us Che.

The irony being of course, that we all succeeded into turning in to Che, just not in the language we had intended to be.

Smokers Cornered

A few days ago i posted a blog on dawn, which was ostensibly aimed at NFP, but not really. it appears that people are having trouble posting their comments on the page. So, feel free to speak your mind here.


Smokers Cornered

One of Pakistan's most famous columnists recently wondered aloud on these pages, as he so often does, 'how its no surprise Pakistan's current generation is so"conservative and intransigent."' The former student activist and veteran 'surkha' delved in subversive, philosophical and political contexts, and traced the problem back to his favourite hunting ground - the Islamization policies of General Zia-ul-Haq.

I'm talking, of course, about NFP.

Now, before I begin, I am at pains to stress that I don't wish to ignite a flame war here. I apologise in advance if it feels like I am resorting to petty and personal attacks, because I have no intention of doing so.


Disclaimers done, let's move on to this hit-mongering argument.



NFP, if I am correct, seems to be upset about the political leanings of the most young people of today, or rather their blatant lack of political concern amongst the rest. The current situation strikes a discordant note with his own past, those heady days when young people chose (and choose they did) the Left or the right with great fervor. 


Now it seems, the youth has no interest left in politics.



At the face of it, this claim sounds preposterous. Young Pakistanis of all stripes are obsessed with politics, and the youth with their politics-based blogs, the politics-obsessed tweets and facebook statuses seem to be no different.



But this is confusing the reality. 



If there is any sort of politics being professed by today's youth, it is the politics of individualism.

immediately, this sounds like a dirty word. individualism means selfishness and greed, it means consumerism and strait-jacket capitalism. 

thats all probably true. 

but lets try and understand why this came about.

for starters, our generation grew up during a time of the collapse of collectivism. 

in a strictly political sense, this was a time when both the Left and the Right collapsed upon each other.

ideologues on the left were reduced to hacking each other into factions. witness the fact that the pakistani left split into possibly as many factions as the PML.

but in a social sense, the right was equally undermined.

a lot of this had to do with technology. our generation saw television channels morph from the ubiquitous PTV to a cacophony of hyperbolic hosts, vengeful saas-bahus, and 24/7 hungama.

we saw the esteemed familial tradition of the telephone landline, so often an extension of patriarchal authority, become fractured into individual mobile lines for everyone, including the woebegone "common man."

we saw the already defunct system of household postal services replaced by the ravenous onslaught of the internet with individual mail addresses, and individual profiles and statuses galore.

we saw the VCR give way to the personal computer and youtube. the one dayers give way to t20s. the cassette to mp3. radio pakistan to FM 100.
 

the one common thread to all these changes was that they were all about being catered to our own individual needs. which is why men like zaid hamid and imran khan, so frequently the source of NFP sahab's ire, are so popular amongst people of our generation. 

because unlike ideologues of that past, with their rigorous demands for unflinching devotion (anyone from thatcher to mullah omer, from mao to imran khan the cricket captain) these guys offer their followers choice. the choice to wear jeans and jackets, but still spout anti-western rhetoric. the choice to speak in english and yet denounce the english speaking world. 

and that is also why their popularity can never translate into actual feet on the ground. because when they switch from offering choices to making demands, their very appeal gets eroded. 

witness the damp squib that was mr. hamid's takmeel-e-pakistan rally, or the number of seats won by the PTI. because even while our generation of individuals enjoys echoing the thoughts of these men, they don't allow them to subsume their own individual self. whenever the call goes out to follow an individual, the generation of individuals decides to choose its own path instead.


and its within this individualistic ethos that our generation finds its redemption as well.



it is why while the older generations respond to natural disasters by bringing out the begging bowl and fretting about pakistan's 'image' abroad, our generation focuses on doing what we can on our own, setting up camps and relief teams.


it is why while our elders cry themselves hoarse over whether our president is the dajjal or misunderstood, whether our cricket team cheats because of structural reasons or a few bad apples, our generation finds the roots of both evils within ourselves.


it is why while you criticize us for being politically apathetic, we continue to populate the internet with some of the most incisive political debates in recent pakistani history. 


and it is why, Sir NFP, i take umbrage to your thesis: because it robs us of our context, and reduces it to your own. 

A Quick One While You Were Away

why do we - pakistanis - discuss politics non-stop? before you perform some vigilante justice on me, hear me out.

a few hours ago there was a lot of anguish over politicians and journalists baying for another coup. i realise the need to speak out against this. yet i can't help but feel a great futility in such practices. to me, they seem like a way of venting frustrations. since we on the internet are not concerned with the next meal, our drowning lifestock or our dying, starving children, what is the basis of this frustration?

a hopeless future? a poor national image across the globe? a desire to feel superior and important? a reflection of our own personal conflicts - which we have failed to resolve, so we turn to battering the politicians, the generals, the journalists?

there are those who will dismiss this as another example of our elitist chattering class professing disdain for the downtrodden masses. you will paint my rants as belonging to a fiddling feudalistic nero.

i don't give a shit.

because i personally believe that at the end of the day its a question of intelligent. an intelligent society can be trusted to find intelligent answers, and not just those that think-tanks and pol-sci textbooks deem correct. and i don't think people discussing politics are not intelligent - its just that discussing the same old shit repeatedly is an insult to said intelligence.

but ahsan at fiverupees has an interesting point. perhaps my grievances are down to the fact that i don't know the right places to look. there may well be amazing blogs out there discussing non-political stuff, or at least a non-nauseating amount of it and are also written by intelligent people who aren't resorting to copy-pasting whatever the Big Blogs are currently discussing.

so here is my clarion call - do we have intelligent, articulate people out there talking about pakistan, but not about whats on the news, whats in the papers and whats in their faces?

post recommendations and suggestions in the comments below.

3 Days in Karachi

if there's one thing i truly hate about abbas, it's his bhenchod paan. every time he has it in his mouth, which is all the time, he's constantly letting out these poisonous pichkaars. 


when he does that, it produces this repulsive little sound, like a sharp hiss or a brief puckering sound, which rises during that brief moment when his lips tremble apart slightly, and a sharp sting of spittle pierces through the crevices within his teeth. 


to be sure, if there is one thing i hate about that choot, its his paan.


now, this is no fanciful statement. abbas is a truly despicable human being, so there is a lot to hate about him. 


to begin with, he is ek dam kala bhujjang - black as sin. i mean kala. but i don't mind that. 


his heart is much darker than his complexion. he was the child who would use elfy on the cats and shut their eyes. he was the boy who would slap his sisters for fun. he was the son you kept your valuables hidden from. 


and on top of that, there was his bhenchod bharham. i mean obnoxious level bharhams. constant bataein chodna. constant bravado. he was a spindly little lund, but he talked as if he owned the bhenchod city.


and as he kept talking and slurping his oral cesspool, he kept pissing out those pichkaars. 


II


there are two boys, and they are standing under a tree. there is a thin dark one who keeps pacing and spitting pan, and waving his assault weapon in the air. the more muscular one remains silent most of the time. i cannot be sure if he is saying anything at all, because i'm too far, and the thin one doesn't look like he's stopping.


abid thinks that we should move. i know we can't get a good shot of them from here, but if anyone were to come by that road, we'd have a kutta shot of the whole scene. i tell abid to be patient.


the thin one has not put his gun against the pavement, and is using his free hands to make crude gestures. he accompanies these mathira grabs with thrusting his pelvis. soon, a simple narrative emerges from this dance. 


the thin one seems to be saying that someone with large breasts encourages him to adopt a slow, languid pace during intercourse, so that he concentrates on kneading. but a lover with smaller breasts compels him to pinch and squeeze with wild abandon, a luxury which necessitates that he perform the act with a furious vigour. 


abid tells me he didn't have time to re-charge the spare battery. 

III


Asim thinks he's some bhenchod poet, some udaas aashiq who's going to take this randi world and hide all her oozing warts and fix her up so that he can marry her and take her to his gandoo village.


Saala lund.


he thinks like he's the guy who's on some mission to rid us of our sins, like he is some bhenchod avenger, like he's that gandu baazigar. 


and oh how he loves to give me this chutia smug look. how he loves to takes these deep, meaningful breaths which he uses to cover up the fact that he's got lund to say. and then there's his taliban routine every juma, where he makes this big show of going to offer the only namaaz he does all week. but oh no - somehow that makes him some bhenchod philosopher.


fact is asim is just as much as a gandoo as the rest of us,  but he's decided that he's going to ignore that. he's going to ignore the fact that he's a third class ghunda with mobile snatching as his primary vocation. he's going to ignore the fact that he is just as khwaar as all the rest of the qaum. because he is asim bhenchod ashiq. asim bhenchod hero, asim bhenchod leader.


Saala lund.

IV


The two boys now descend
Into a fight that never ends
Between them.


They speak of women they'll never see
Of how they would seduce them in their sleep
One Day.


One speaks of the goddess Katrina
Another extols the virtues of Kareena
Ad Nauseam.


Screaming, straining, pulsing
Throbbing, lashing, excreting
Screaming, screaming, screaming.

V


EXT. EMPTY ROAD, DAY


          [We track across a wide, empty road in Garden, stopping bang
          in the middle of the road. there is a slight haze, and its
          cloudy and cool. The two boys are on the extreme right of
          the frame, under a tree. we hear them talk, but not
          audibly.]


                                                          CUT TO:
          CLOSE UP of ABBAS:


          [Abbas suddenly whips his head around. We can hear the faint
          sound of a rickshaw in the background.]


                                                          CUT TO:


          CLOSE UP of ASIM:


          [Asim follows suit, and instinctively, grips and squeezes
          the gargantuan gun he holds.]


                                                          CUT TO:


          [We return to the original shot. The boys are now getting
          animated, and we see a rickshaw chugging slowly towards them
          in the vast empty road.]


                              ABBAS:
                    Chal bhenchod! Aaja beta asim teri
                    baari aa gayee hai! Chal gushtee
                    kay shurroo ho ja (lets out a
                    stream of paan spittle)


                              ASIM:
                    Lun Pay aa...


                              ABBAS:
                         (screaming)
                    Kya ho gaya hai lun ke siray? Chala
                    goli madarchod yeh wali Katrina kay
                    liyain! (breaks out into maniacal
                    laughter)


                                                          CUT TO:


          [We now split the screen, with close ups of both boys. We
          see Abbas screaming as a rush of emotions wash across Asim's
          face. The background music, and general sense of chaos
          continues to rise, until...]


                                                          CUT TO:


          [We see Asim face on, screaming loudly. He opens fire, and
          holds the gun with both arms between his legs. We see
          bullets pulsing out of the weapon, with Asim's body
          convulsing with each release of a bullet, each burst of fire
          coalescing as an other-wordly experience on his face. His
          mouth hangs open, his pupils dilated, his entire being
          sublimated into the gun he holds between his legs, the gun
          which continues to spit out bullets...]


                                                          CUT TO:


INT. RICKSHAW, DAY


          [The camera is now within the rickshaw, which is a
          smouldering, burning, bleeding carcass. We see both boys in
          the background, with Abbas gesticulating wildly, while Asim
          stands there, spent, in a daze.]

VI


Holy shit!


I turn to Abid and ask him if he got it, and he has. And although we both know its not going to run on-air, the confirmation has me elated. i was already nursing a semi having witnessed that first hand, but this is too good.


The boys continue to stand there. The psycho who completely ravaged the rickshaw continues to stand still, while the other prances about the rickshaw. I keep wondering whether I should move or go in, but Abid keeps me in check. I want to send a message to the assignments desk, but I have no idea whether to call this one ethnic or not. 


I realise that they might have the same problem too. The rickshaw driver is fair, ruddy type, but his passenger, an old woman, looks much darker. The dark boy continues to run around their smoldering bodies.  


Suddenly, the killer speaks. He seems to have made up his mind and barks instructions to the other. They grab the woman, and carry her corpse to the nearby gully. The fair one then returns alone, and stands by the rickshaw which he now begins to douse in petrol.

VII


More die as violence and arson continue in Karachi


KARACHI (Staff Report): The death toll in the city rose to 85 this morning, as raging gun battles continued through out the city, with the authorities continuing to be missing from the action...


... In Garden, at least two bodies were recovered early on Saturday morning. Aasia Ahmed, a 55 year old local resident, was found dead in an alley near her home, having been shot multiple times in the head and torso. Aasia's son was an activist in the MQM, and police confirmed that her death was a target killing.


Police also recovered the body of Asfandyar Khan, a 42 year old rickshaw driver from the same vicinity. His remains were found within his rickshaw, which had been set on fire. The authorities confirmed that they were treating his death as a target killing, pointing out that several bus drivers and rickshaw drivers had been similarly burnt alive due to their ethnic origins. 

Breaking is the new black

This blog is an original work. all the politics are entirely fictional, and any resemblance to politics, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

i didn't spend all my life in the big city, as my name would suggest. i was born there, 

but i grew up in another area, a very wild, frontier like place.

it was known as mirc. 

everyone there had names you had never heard of. panty-utar-di, sinn3r, xcalibur, iNsAnE, 2hip4U etc.

but if no one knew who you were, you could be anyone. it was wonderful. 

but then the area become a bit run-down - there was a lot of violence there, and lots of dangerous, angry people started coming there.

so we had to move.

my parents got jobs in the city, and we moved there.

it was a simple, fun neighborhood - anyone could go anywhere, everyone's gates were always open. 

i spent my youth in orkut. it was a great time to be young. we roamed as we pleased, did what we wanted. 

but then things became bad. people started finding out things that were best hidden. and pictures started appearing. it was no longer safe there.

fortunately, things improved. for us.

we moved to a new place.

it was, finally, a chance for us to move bridge ke uss paar.

we moved, to facebook.

it was a very clean, organized area. and you decided who to meet, and who could see what.

finally, we were living in a safe area, where others could not harm us.

so everyone was happy there. always.

in facebook, every one was very happy, excited, going to new places, liking new things. 

and since you know everyone, they are free to always be there - going through your walls, and digging out your pictures.

and you are always happy.

i started hanging out this cool place, which had the best burger in town. it was called blogger. 

i really loved it. the burgers there were so delicious - especially the roast beef burger.

but then, they expanded, and added three family sections, and all the people who worked nearby would come for lunch. 

and sometimes get angry and scream in CAPS LOCK.

if i want burgers now, i go to this other place - wordpress. its got these lovely things no one else has, and the blogger clientele still haven't heard of them. 

of course, gangs of trolls still operate around these areas, but if they chase us we can run back to facebook.

so yeah. 

there, is this other place i have heard of.

its like in a place the british used to be at, but now its desi as well.

they have these amazing nights, which i wish to go to one day. they also have epic bitch fights, which i could do without. 

its like in the part of the city that used to be the elite area, until it got unsafe till it got super duper safe.

so now even i am one of the people who are deemed unsafe, and i haven't been there ever.

i can look out from the broken hotel across to it.

and maybe one day i'll be able to get in and live in twitter.

Whaaa? = The Day After Post Mortem

a few weeks ago, i married someone who does not like facebook, and thus i will not provide any further details about the wedding, or her.

i will reveal something about myself - she is my love and she's like crazy about me.

i will also tell you this about our wedding.

on the first event of the marathon affair, baitullah mehsud 'died'.

on the second event, rehman dakait was killed in an 'encounter.'

when it was time for the third, we kept watching out for Geo to break the news of a death of the no. 1 "two number" of pakistan, live from the Presidency.

good or bad, it didn't happen.

anyways, i had made this video while i was learning how to use video editing. i add this detail because there are some parts i am not sure how well they would be recieved. aesthetically.

anyways make your own conclusions.

The Joys of Quality E-Mail FWs

You are definitely staring at a monitor right now. but you may or you may not have your speakers on, or have headphones either.

Similarly, when you are watching the tv, there is a way to mute the sound, but you can not mute the picture.

it is perhaps why music aficionados don't like videos - those who access videos inevitably become viewers, rather than listeners.

but even the visual sense has its own class markers - much the same as everyone on the blogosphere cares more about the class and ideological differences amongst themselves rather than realizing that they are all part of the smallest pyramid on the income distribution chart.

so, there is text, images and moving images. clearly, text is the clear loser, because it is slower, useless unless focused on and thought about, and requires the greatest effort.

the difference between the image and its moving counterparts may be difficult to split on aesthetic differences, but the moving image category provides you the most bang for your buck, so that's where people end up going the most.

so, it's all about what you see, often over what you read.

now, i received an e-mail this morning proudly exclaiming that

"FW: Most Good Looking Man In The World Is a Pakistani! (Internal)"

now my eyes saw, but they did not believe. but, as the Oracle says "Believe"

but why take my word for it. who am i to tell you what to believe and what not to. 

why.

don't you see.

for yourself.

TA-DA!

it's ok. 

you can scroll back up.

do i really need to write anymore?

well, what you saw up there was the straight-on to camera, look-me-in-the-eyes, understand me, know me, luuvvee me style. it's important to note that even if not visible, the hands are not on the hips, in a threatening or aggressive manner, but probably pressing lightly against the thighs. it suggests a laid-back, lackadaisical, almost bohemian approach sprinkled liberally with good-clean-fun. but that is not what is arresting you.

it's the eyes. 

as mansoor malangi put it so eloquently, "teray naiiiiin, tere naaiiiin, te-ray naiiiiiin..." 

a set of eyes almost perpetually behind some dapper set of shades are presented in all their un-tinted glory. and it's a sensual, almost holy experience. these are not the eyes of a politician, a statesman, a deeply respected icon... 

 these are the eyes of a young boy, 

playing on a karachi street, 

in the blazing afternoon heat, 

and he's asking you...

... to love him

but it doesn't end there.

Chotay, agli slide lagao.

After all the eroticism, it is perhaps almost a relieved soul that greets this image. the maddening ecstasy induced by the last picture can now subside into a calm ocean of wisdom and gratitude, the waves of reverence gently lapping on your grateful feet. 

when the continued encroachment of the Taliban *coff* Pathan*coff* worries you, when the hollow words of the media and Imran Khan compel you to take the streets in the month of May, when the issues of federation, feudalism and fucking-staying in power are not to be found in any political party's manifesto, you need not despair. 

because somewhere, in England, in a small garden, in the morning, a well dressed philosopher is slowly composing his daily voice-mail,  issuing instructions for you, your family and your friends.

and it's not just there, in the garden, where the creative grapes are fermenting to produce the intoxicating wine of wisdom. the thoughts are just as powerful when composed in a coquettish glance away from the lens, into the lookspace of the mysterious realms of the metaphysical world

and now, what do we have here...

as mentioned above, the placement of the hands is a lovely indication of the disarming, unarmed, welcoming tone of the body language. but here again, one sees the vision on display. that glorious path towards fascist emancipation that we all await deliverance upon. and that smirk - that gentle, mirth-filled little scrawl made by the positioning of those full lips that signify hope, elation, contentment and eventual salvation. 

but it's not all about being a leader, forever frozen in thought amidst middle-class English town surroundings. a leader also immerses himself in the cultural milieu, a leader's heart beats with the passions of the masses, a leader is he who lives the lives of his people.

i'm not sure if he's dressing like Osama bin Laden would at a qawwali. i am even further unsure about how much i like the people around him - i hope they are not his companions. the guy on the right seems to be sleeping, and has a large camera bag, which surely has no place at a performance such as this unless it involves a cameraman, which snoozing beauty over here clearly isn't. and those guys on the left - what is the guy in black wearing, and why are they talking. i mean, what the fuck is so important that you have to talk about it during what was clearly early-era Salman Ahmed doing the solo for "Do Pal Ka Jeewan". I mean, what else would move the Bhai of all Bhais and their Behens to such a pure moment of bliss? 

The eyes are focused in concentration, the arm extended in simultaneous appreciation of the sound, as well as creating a symbolic connect - like an antenna - with the fabolous energy floating in the auditorium. 

Rock on Altaf Bhai, rock on.

At first, this picture seemed to have too many colours that the BJP likes to wear. That can never be good. But then, it becomes obvious that Pir Sahab is visitng another Pir and the ecsatsy of the divine union has climxed into an orgasm of colours which have flocked to  the shareer of the Bhai who is Pir.

In fact, such mortal divinity causes collective cumming across the confounded devotees, and they often like to express their honor and love. Sometimes, they do that through a placard. 

"Welcome In Delhi, 

Mr. Altaf Hussain

A Man Loves To All Folks

By - Indo-Pak Friendship Forum"

A Man Loves to all Folks. 

How true. How poignant. 

No other man has the amount of loves that he can dispense upon all folks like my Saathi. So many loves, so many folks. It is truly incredible. And don't be put off by the cringe binge expression he's carrying, he likes it - he likes it a lot. 

but sometimes, a man who loves to all folks also sends his love to all tribes. and the nomadic peoples of the desolate stretches that is Bumfuckistan, Pakistan. and as i had mentioned, the leader is one with his people, and his people are the Mohajir. Those who migrate. And since all of us are forever migrating, forever in transit, across time, space and the ether, we are all migrants, we are all Mohajirs, and we all have one leader - a man with the ability to effortlessly lose himself in to costumes of any one. His visceral link with the common man means that even in strange costumes, he immediately appears as the perpetual native. it is only when you look at that visage, that self-content mystique of the seer that you realise it is not just a common man, it is the Common Man. 

Pir Saab can also be the Nawab, the Khan, the Malik, the Makhdoom, the Chaudhry, the Mian and the Malik, the Syed and the Thakur, the Saeein, the Saaaaaaaaaattttttthhhhhhhhhiiiiiiii...

But then there is one pitcure I can't really say much about. Only a question, if you were the handsomest man alive, and you went online, what would you look at?