The Obscenity Factor

OCTOBER 2003 - It is now difficult to decide what is more vulgar – the debate on vulgarity that seems to occupy a primary place in the thinking of most Pakistani men or the display of what is really vulgar that goes unchecked. Women continue to be at the receiving end of what passes for society here. Getting bumped off in honour killings or dancing sans clothes for the pleasure of a village full of lustful men, jirgas included or gang-raped by a dozen or more for some offence committed by their men folk, are routine matters. The government gets the shakes even contemplating the Hadood Ordinance. Justice from here is just as likely as snowballs dancing in hell.

The smearing of billboards is on again. The clerics start frothing at the mouth and their eyes pop out of their holy sockets when they see these billboards. Who says advertising doesn’t work? It is a touch and go situation and in the NWFP that can have an altogether different connotation. Chances of their holinesses going crackers at the sight of a demure, well-covered Pakistani woman pushing a brand of washing powder are bright and undoubtedly lead to a large fire inside their loins. Black paint and history will boringly repeat itself. The government’s writ is powerful; it can’t even apprehend loafers armed with paint bags. Expecting it to act or the clerics to change is asking for more snowballs to do their number in hell. It won’t happen.

This country is obsessed with vulgarity and obscenity. Every two-bit administrator has added his two bits to it. Officials pontificate on it endlessly. Our very existence depends on whether a woman bares her arms or not. While serious issues remain serious, it is the non-issues that drive us and madden the faithful who are enraged, angered, outraged and driven bananas every few days. I doubt other than the kingdom of rabbits has a society been so caught up in matters concerning sex. It is a national disease and all the men are infected. No one has had any inoculation, certainly not the men. It was Zia ul Haq who shook up our libidos. He helped us discover our latent caste system just like the Hindus and made the pre-fix or post-fix on our names important. We also discovered that there are no less than six dozen sects in Islam and it is good thinking to eliminate at least one if not all. Karachi which had an enviable record of a live and let live city, now wishes nothing better than to kill those professing a different sect or who live on the other side of the self-created divide. It is a city that’s hemorrhaging as swiftly as the happy effluents pumped by the 2200 industries that make the Ravi the first sewerage river in the world.

For many these may constitute the height of vulgarity, this destruction of the well being of thousands of people, but since the 2200 industries don’t show half-clad women, they are alright. As for Karachi, it is gone – not to the dogs though. They left years ago. They might fix the potholed roads, limit the killings and carjackings, God forbid, even clean up their oil-soaked beaches, dead turtles and bury their dead and shameless officials, but the bleeding won’t stop. Given the state of things, we shouldn’t be surprised if the government doesn’t end up decorating the army officers of the KPT and the crisp white starched naval force that has been fast asleep since the Tasman Spirit sailed in. In Pakistan, the formula for success is make speeches, tell lies, do no work, lay wreaths at the Quaid’s mazar and pocket all the blue Quaid-e-Azams you can.

The debate over vulgarity will drag on just like the ridiculous debate about ‘Indian’ channels. In the wake of public appeals funded by vested groups, refuge has once again been taken behind our ‘values’ and how vulgar Indian ‘culture’ is threatening our nationhood. Actually it is all about protecting personal business interests. When competition hits you in the smacker, there is no better defence than to rally around the flag and throw in the all-time fix-it, patriotism. Viewers are once more subjected to dancing squares on their screens. This breach of our (dead) right to freedom of what we read or hear or see is justified on the grounds of our sacred ideology. In effect, what are screened out are the commercials. Since some overseas channels offer excellent value for money and have a growing, popular viewing audience in Pakistan (no prizes for guessing why), advertisers wanting the best value for their investment have rightly diverted some of their business here. Since we cannot compete, we therefore have the channels blocked. The dancing squares are to frustrate those who may be foolish enough to put their money into these foreign, propaganda-infested channels. The censors have taken to blocking out the station IDs of the channels as well, as if this will stop the viewers from guessing what they are watching. In this mayhem, channels go one and off. It is a parody and yet another exercise in self-delusion. We are now very good at this nonsense, aka good governance.

While all attention remains focused on such meaningless national favourites, real vulgarity flourishes like never before in the Pakistani cinema. Anyone living with access to Cable TV has only to watch one channel exclusively devoted to dance sequences from Pakistani films and cringe with shame and horror at the depiction of women. No words can adequately convey what you see here. Women dance, although calling it dancing is an insult to this fine art form, in tight, cheap, flashy and revealing dresses, gyrate, slither, jerk and act out all the motions you would associate with the sex act, in fields, gardens, drawing rooms, balconies, courtyards – wherever possible. Under instructions from the directors, producers and the choreographers – I guess all from the Gujjar Brothers tribe, they wiggle their behinds, have pelvic seizures, shake their breasts till they are ready to drop, have sex-laden convulsions and make gestures, signs and motions that leave absolutely no doubt that they are asking to be plundered. Even as a man in a man’s country, it is shameful and mortifying to watch this. What women must feel is beyond comprehension.

This vulgar and depraved work is produced ad nauseum by the holier than thou, well-protected film industry. And this sickening show is not all. Every film is washed in rivers of blood and frenzied killings, gang rapes, gunning down of opponents and an entire gamut of false and misleading values, miracles included that have no place in reality. But on that last count, many of us are now beginning to have doubts. Art may imitate life but to what extent is Pakistani cinema conditioning our collective thinking? A great deal of what you see on the streets comes right out of the cinema. The blackening of women’s faces is linked closely with the way women are portrayed in the movies – objects of sexual fantasy whose only role in life is to satisfy the lust of men. Watch the black silk clad lout with a gun slung over his shoulder, shirt buttons open, thick, bristling moustache, bloodshot eyes, hairy torso, the swagger of a gorilla and the utter contempt with which he scorns the writhing, begging-for-it creature, and you might begin to understand what is going on. This vulgarity needs to be blocked and eliminated. If the Gujjar Brothers who finance every such venture, come out guns blazing, we should gun them down in the best Pakistani film tradition. Whatever it is, the question of what is and what is not vulgar is a debate that needs to be banned.

(PS/ Apology for misquoting last week. The correct line from Keats is ‘Amid alien corn,’ and not ‘Amidst the alien corn’. Sorry.)