Culture Cloning
Shaista Rameez
November 19, 2005
I have never considered myself the kind of a person who is sensitive about the preservation of the culture we consider essentially Pakistani. So, as yet, I have stayed away from the emotionally-charged “we are losing our culture to the satellite channels” debate. I watch and enjoy Indian movies and am a big fan of Shahrukh Khan and Rani Mukerji. And I watch Moeen Akhtar doing his impersonation of a Memon Seth in Such Much and Abrar-ul-Haq sing “Shareekan Nu Agg Lagdi…” with as much interest. If we don’t have a Shahrukh, they don’t have an Abrar-ul-Haq and that is a fact. They are ALL stars and in considering them ALL stars I thought I was a very neutral kind of a person. But there are some things that stir you to the core, and the recent “developments” in our television channels in the wake of the “Pak Bharat dosti” have finally managed to do so.
First it was the Tulsi sponsored Mujra-like songs that are being aired on ARY and Geo… I really fail to understand the idea behind these songs and where Pakistan enters into it… They are not our creation, they are not in keeping with our culture, then why hire Pakistani models and shoot them in Pakistan to try to pass them off as Pakistani and fool people into believing that this is the Pakistani answer to the remix wave engulfing India. If these people think that by airing dances they would be able to capture the Indian audience or compete with the Indian channels then there is really no comparison.
The Indians’ idea of a remix is adding the sleaze factor to the bashful 70’s numbers… Can we tolerate something so thoroughly disgusting and insulting to the female body airing on our television? HEAVENS, NO!!! PLEASE NO!!! Then there is no point of making half-hearted censor-scared attempts in the same direction. We need to understand that the Indians are remixing old numbers to fill up space in their pop charts because there is nothing happening in their pop scene. Our perfect answer to that is Ali Azmat’s “Na re Na” or Zeshan and Sajid’s “King of Self”. YES we are different from them and we are VERY CLASSY, which is proven by the immense response even every Atif, who crosses the border, gets in India.
If you look closely at the Indian television programs, their channels either telecast films or film related programs 85% of the time. Why follow them in TV programming? Zee had been airing the same Antakshiri for over 10 years. What we need to learn is advertising, backing our own talent and presenting it to the world as ours. And believe me, we are learning. Videos and advertisements in Pakistan now are way above the ones aired 10 years ago.
As yet, the major electronic media issue has been the satellite invasion in the country and the threat that Indian satellite channels post to our culture. But I have seen this issue recently take a very different turn. What came as a shock to me was a cooking show on HUM TV namely “billo ka dhaba” and the “billo” (a popular Pakistani TV actress) greeting the viewers with “Namaste”, with her hands joined and all.
What, may I ask, happened to the “Assalam-o-Alaikum viewers”??? Have we all, at the spur of the moment, converted to Hinduism??? Should all we married ladies have a bindiya on the forehead and sport sindur in the maang like Maria Wasti in one of her serials? And it is not just the independent channels, Shagufta Ijaz greets her new bahu in one of the serials on PTV, making circles with “sadqa” money in her hands in front of the bahu like the “arti” in Hinduism. Where in Pakistan are bahu’s greeted that way by there mothers in law? Need I remind us all that Sadqa is given by touching the money to the person’s right hand or the head or if you want to make circles so much, making them above the head and not like an aarti? Switch to Geo and you will catch at least a rush of “Jo baat ghar mein hai…”
It is really difficult to distinguish it from “Kahani ghar ghar ki…” not just because of the title but also because all the females sport sarees and excessive makeup and the evil ones wear snake like marks on their forehead and heavy kajal. What happened to the shalwar kameez??? What happened to the simplicity and realism of Pakistani drama??? Why are our channels airing semi-filmi soap operas like India, whose own dramas have not progressed in the 15 years I have been watching television???
The scariest picture the media presented of the cultural invasion of Pakistan five years back was a little child singing “Aati kya khandala” in the streets. It WAS pretty scary but yet there was that identification of it being an Indian song and the result of the Indian influence on the media. What I am really scared of, now, is a little child singing “Aati kya khandala” and not even being able to identify it as foreign.
If our media progresses this way, our children may be wearing sindur and greeting each other with a Namaste. It is a loss of identity, a loss of culture and above all a loss of religion. If this is what our media gurus have learnt from the national debate on the topic than I am really disappointed. We, as a nation need to take stock of this for we are a different nation, not a shadow of our dear friend India. The good part of it is, that there is no effect as yet on the masses. We still wear a shalwar kameez and don’t need sindur.
But such a trend developing in our channels is not a cultural invasion, it is a culture cloning of the Indians and a cultural marshal law imposed on the masses. I hope our “independent” channels realize that and do what they are truly meant to do i.e. represent Pakistan in the satellite world. Until that happens and The MUSIC’s logo does not read “kewal aik music channel” and the main characters of Indus Vision drama serials are not called “Anahita”, I can only watch and exclaim “dekh tere sansaar ki halat kya ho gai bhagwaan… Kitna badal gaya insaan…” Oops!
