Not the Real Thing

MARCH 2003 - I picked up my first Rolex on the roadside in Hayatabad, Peshawar last month. The wily old Pathan, straight out of the Torah it seemed, gave me a piercing look with his deep hooded eyes, rubbed a forefinger tentatively along his hook nose, and placed the watch at a street value of Rs. 500. I played the incredulous buyer in an award winning performance, threw up my hands in horror, showed utter contempt for the timepiece I had in my hand and offered him Rs. 200. It was his turn to put in a sterling performance. He retrieved the timepiece from my hand, placed it back in the glass cabinet and said Rs. 400. We traded jibes and settled for Rs. 300, but the alacrity with which he agreed proved to me that I had paid at least a hundred more for the watch, but then, hey it’s a Rolex.

There is something about the fake deal that appeals to all of us. The Rolex that I bought has as much to do with Rolex as Bush has to do with peace but the irony is that it can almost pass off as the real thing. This was precisely the same emotion that gripped me last summer in a smuggling bazaar on the outskirts of Abbotabad, where I spied two Ray Bans, in their standard leather cases, for which another wily Pathan offered me a deal asking Rs. 500 for the pair. I did the shocked to death number, told him that daylight robbery was a crime and pretended to stage an indignant walkout. Thereupon, the Pathan who seemed utterly bored called me back and complained that I was being unreasonable since the Ray Bans were genuine number two – as opposed to fake number twos – yes, there is a hierarchy of twisted proportions at work in the number two world. In the end, amidst gnashing of teeth and other tortured sounds of anguish, we struck a deal at Rs. 125 a piece, or Rs. 250 for two. Once again I felt I had played my cards too fast and we could have had it resolved for much less. I might be suspecting it but the Pathan had a very satisfied look as I left with my prize possessions.

Of course it would be far too obvious to say that almost the whole of Pakistan functions on number two deals. The presence of copyrights or intellectual ownership of property is totally alien to us as the entire system runs on well-oiled hinges spreading the net of non-genuine goods from one end of the country to the other. Most of the time, to the chagrin of the genuine users, the counterfeit looks twice as good as the real article. This is indeed adding insult to injury to people who have given an arm and a leg to painstakingly acquire the real McCoy. The worse thing is that those who use counterfeit goods, like yours truly publicly flout their wares and cause general panic attacks amongst the genuine lot, who have to grudgingly admit that the fake looks better than the original. So vast and intricate is the web of counterfeit goods that were it, by some fluke or miracle gone astray, neutralized, trading, as we understand it, would grind to a halt in no time at all. It won’t stop there of course. It would not be an exaggeration to say that all the computers of the country would cease to exist and everything will simply breakdown and disintegrate. It is a horrific thought, but it is true. There is probably no office in the country where counterfeit software is not running the show. In spite of raids now and then by the very brave and quite foolish people at Microsoft, pirated software flourishes and grows by leaps and bounds. The authorities that have made a bit of a racket on this counterfeit business have not even scraped the first thin crust of the mountain of counterfeit goods that swamp the market and the reason it continues to swell and do so well, is because we all make it succeed.

Some years back, tradesmen, vendors, middlemen, shopkeepers, small-time manufacturers, promoters, et al emitted genuine cries of pain when Walt Disney decided that enough was enough and laid down the law about the free and unhindered use of their well-known icons like Goofy, Daffy Duck, Tom & Jerry and other equally talented characters. This was almost like hurling an abuse at people who were convinced that no one had the right to take away their right to have free access to these globally recognized icons. Seeking permission and paying royalties was tantamount to asking cannibals to go veggie overnight. It was simply out of the equation but the legal-eagles who were waging the struggle for Walt Disney, laid down the law and there was a clamp down on free usage. Of course, it was practically speaking, a plan doomed to fail because the big fish indulging in this national pastime, were easy enough to identify and target, but the little guys in the small alley ways were hard to find and even harder to be put out of business.

There is an enormous music business that does roaring business from one end of the country to the other. You can pick up a copy CD from as far away as remote Hunza or the other end near the port of Gwadar and sleep the sleep of the just knowing fully well that you have paid less than a fraction of the cost for what, by all intents, is the genuine article. Walk into any shop in a small town on the KKH or some far removed dusty hamlet well beyond Rahim Yar Khan, and you can find just about all you might possibly need. Indian film songs, feature films, anthologies of the famous singers and musicians, all yours for the asking for amounts that defy description. What might cost US$ 45, will be available for perhaps 45 rupees or at worst, double of that. That dozens of artists whose work is sold in unauthorized fashion year after year don’t even receive as much as a dented coin causes no pain amongst those who are deeply into making money, the easier the way, the better. The very notion of copyrights or intellectual ownership of the property in question is happily absent as the sheer power and drive of filthy lucre entices people into business that starts to pay minutes after you have opened shop. Amongst musicians it is now understood that were they to release their work through the proper channels, they will receive the royal sum of zero for their efforts. The system feeds off itself and grows stronger by the day. If and when, royalties are shared, they amount to paying the tea bills and that’s if you are lucky.

The problem, like all problems is so gigantic that even if the government were to show some guts and take on the mafia that operates at free will everywhere in broad daylight, without fear of any kind, they would be powerless to take the heat. DVDs, the latest fad to hit our lives, are available at prices that destroy logic while still delivering top of the line picture and sound quality. My cynical friend in another America (not the one where Mr. Bush resides) once said that God made the Germans so that someone could pay retail and said that everything in the US was on sale. The scourge of counterfeit business was then beginning to rear its ugly head. Today of course, the monster is loose and beyond control. The great success of this shady side of life is a tribute to the pirate hidden in all of us, the one who wants to get the best deal at the least price and the hell with morality, ethics and other equally irrelevant codes of behaviour.