What do Burgers call the regular folk in Pakistan? Do they know that they’re being mocked by the regular populous. Do they realize that their antics are extremely poser-like. Do they not realize that by abandoning their culture and following the western one they wont magically turn in to better human beings. Speaking an imperialist slave language doesn’t make you better…
… Now I speak this language because I live in the country. If I were in Pakistan I would speak the most Mirza Ghalib urdu ever conceived. I would also probably be an anchor in PTV and use the “Khalis” urdu during the 9 o’clock Khabarnama. Why do Burgers despise the desi culture so much?
It’s not as simple as you’re making out to be. There is a generations worth of erasure at work.
Someone once asked me whether I was urdu speaking or Punjabi speaking and I had no idea what the historical context of what they were asking was so I said urdu. My family has been living in the punjab for the past 400 years so Punjabi should be my answer but I don’t speak Punjabi. My father can but my mother can’t so there was no Punjabi usage in my house. My mother should have known it too but she went to a school with white nuns so communication was English. Her mother’s Punjabi was broken already because her mother’s mother was taught to read and write farsi urdu (sign of the educated elitist Muslim woman at that time- a burger of her time I guess) but not Punjabi and her father was hanging out with the British lot. Punjabi was erased in my mother’s line and it was erased in my father’s as well.
Now I went to a school with one subject in urdu which was urdu. The rest were in English. 100 times more practice at English than in urdu.
It’s an endless cycle. The way Punjabi was erased in my family I have a feeling urdu will too. And in my school there were girls who wanted to do the whole Mirza Ghalib thing. I got along with them just fine but later I found out they were being bullied. In this burger ecosystem you aren’t the minority, you’re the majority. If I hadn’t gone to the university I had I would never have met anyone who wrote down their notes in urdu. That’s why burgers don’t realise there’s something strange going on when you can’t even understand what change the dukaan daar is giving you.
Very interesting post Strongone. What I like about your theory is how Burgers don’t know that they’re burgers. They’ve become so enumerated in their own world of western decadence that they have stopped following the Desi creed. However some Burgers have become so western that now Burger Dads are happy that their daughters date guys openly.
I have always tried to study the Burger culture. I however know many rich desis who aren’t burgers. Who keep their culture intact, they speak the native languages and still come off as decent folk. What I don’t understand about the Burger phenomena is being a sort of condescending about it. A burger girl would never date a maila guy from a mohallah. Exceptions if he’s good looking and or white.
Same thing with Burger guys, they would totally despise a desi girl who speaks urdu and watches star plus dramas. I think its the language barrier that separates us. Before I came to the states I had an experience with a burger family which shook me so much that I felt like an inferior creature amongst them. They kids wouldn’t speak to me as I didn’t understand much English. The parents of the children wouldn’t talk with me because they thought I was a paindu. What hurt the most that being from the same country and same financial backgrounds, I was ostracized only because I didn’t belong to a “Burger” group. My mentality was desi? It was because I smelled like salan? Was it also because I likedAjay Devgan at that time and wouldn’t stop talking about his movies?
Why must a Pakistani Boy like an obscure western band or eat an obscure Italian dish to be considered cool? Why must a desi boy like western movie stars and not Sohail mansoor’s PTV dramas?! I ASK THEE! But I digest, I forgive the burgers for their pomposity and their complete and utter disregard for the beautiful culture we call “Desi”. I forgive them but only until we have our revolution! When we take over the world with our Urdu poetry. When we run the streets with the smell of Nargasi Koftay (WHICH BURGERS HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO MAKE). When we declare that anyone wearing “Skinny slim” jeans be thrown in to a den full of cute but deadly kittens. That is when we will make our mark. We shall WIN in the race of mediocrity.
It will be then Strongone that you shall witness our glory, written in Farsi and Urdu and Sanskrit in the annals of Pakistani history. When hipsters will line to the Visa of Pakistan and beg to learn Ghalabian Urdu, but we will scoff at their Starbucks Lenti Mocca latte ice-coffee and pull out our glasses of Lassi. It will be then when we will WIN! REVOLUTION MY Dirty brethren RISE SIR, RISEEE YOU mailass…
A burger is a westerinzed Desi person. They go around speaking English around where there are lots of urdu/punjabi speaking people just to feel good about themselves. Burger kids cannot speak Urdu and are completely clueless if you take them to a Pakistani bazaar. They prefer malls. Also instead of eating roti/saalan like the regular folk they eat Burgers for breakfast lunch and dinner. Hence the name “Burger Family” meaning burger khaney wali family.
