nicols_john

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!

http://www.chowk.com/show_article.cg...=179&page=11#1

shweetdreamz

"eggjaaactly!-the hens of houses like the beans!"
(crocodile dundee)

Mehnaz

Nichols, do you ever actually have anything to say?

Blitzkrieg

Aunty Mehnaz gets upset!

pakjangjoo

i loved it. for the first time, they've made something genuinely funny. sorry... egjaktly...

Crescent

Yes, we're not pakisatni anymore.

Those who fight for "pakistan" give it up, we should just join with india.

One one side we are absorbed into their culture. On the other side, you want to send your 'brave' pakistani' soldiers' to fight at the border.

Grow up. Either give up the indian culture, and realize your own. Or join with them. We pakistanis act tough thinking we are all this and that.

we are nothing but Indians from inside.

UNtil we realize it and make our own identity - as jinnah wanted it to be. Muslims.

Akbar Raj

^ Jinnah "wanted us to be Muslims"? or Muslims to be Pakistanis? There is a big difference.

Crescent

^ So are we either right now?

nikhil25

lol, this woman seems to be tormented and paranoid by this. i'm sorry that Indians are causing her sleepless nights.

you won't see any Indians going "OMG that HINDU SAID SALAM!!! AHHHH!!!! DAJAL!!!"

lansing

They already do...

metromomma

lol, I wonder who she is trying to convince, herself or others. If you have to shout it, you don't have it.

Blitzkrieg

Blitzkrieg

The thing with Pakistan is that it has been reduced to an artificial banana state where nothing is discussed (including the identity of Pakistan).

We have atleast 2 distinctions (pathan / balochi closer to persian / central asian while sindhi, mouhajir, punjabi closer to india with some sharing indian roots).

We just cannot classify ourselves as pure indian, arab, persian, central asian country!

Das Reich

This is the biggest problem
Like our national language our culture is a mixture of our neighbours' culture At the time of the Moguls the persian/central asian culture dominated and now the Indians dominate it.There is so much similarity in culture between the people of India and Pakistan that it is frightening
Unless we think our selves as muslims first and Pakistanis second we will always suffer from this identity crisis regarding our culture.If we do that we can take those things of all the cultures which are permisable in Islam and form our own.But again that will lean more towards the Arabs and Persians than the Indians,which is great cuz the grts threat to Islam comes from the East not the West.No matter what Jinnah thought of it at the time of its creation Pakistan is a Ideological state based on Islam if we dont stick to it rigidly it will mean the end of pakistan as a indepentent state.

Akbar Raj

^ what would the general people do different beause you want to think Muslim first and Pakistan second? It's good slogan for shouting but what it do? only just like another slogan shouting 'Pakistan first'...only shouting slogans first but always coming seond or last sometime!

why people cannot be both at same time and do what they want? one person like God and religion then he go do what he wants. Another one likes stock market he do want he wants. One person not dictate to other and so both stock market and religion grow!

parissenoor

on another hand mixture, diversity is a wealth I love this mix, and a mix is somewhat unique!...and that is this special mix, that unique recipe which makes Pakistan different from India, iran, Afghanistan or any neighboring country...Who wants to be pure something?....extremists...modernity is about mix and diversity, i guesss most poeple on this site are residing outside of Pakistan, so diversity and joint cultures should be appealing to most
it does not mean to loose one culture...but mix makes greater nations!

Das Reich

Take only the good things from foriegn cultures as this thread is about indian cultural influences I would say that the indian culture has nothing to offer

Das Reich

Well for one thing stop aping the Indians in every way esp. on TV
How is stock market related to religion???

Fret Wizard

Pakistan doesn't have their own culture. Everything that was "Pakistani" came from India.

Prince of Persia

The author is right, it's really quite sickening how Indian culture is taking over.

I myself find Indian culture quite nauseating, it's over glamorised on their TV and cinema, our people need to realise that entertainment is not reality and they shouldn't ape everything they see.

Our women should stick to the elegant Shalwar Kameez because saris look like cocoons and we should make an active effort to avoid Hindi words in Urdu because "avishmahraj, sassumaa, batbatding, avasna shavasna" Hindi is an ugly language, stick to Urdu it's probably the sweetest and most elegant tongue on earth, I would say an improvement on the languages it derives from.

Nonesense, the Indian and Iranian branches are only linguistic not cultural or racial, Punjabis and Pashtuns for example are closer to each other than Punjabis to Bengalis or Pashtuns to Kords, anyhow all that is quite irrelevant now because last time I visited Pakistan everyone from Lahore to Peshawar to Karachi spoke Urdu, it is only a matter of another generation before their is linguistic homogenity and language as we all know is the most important component and identifier of an ethnicity/culture, race is really quite irrelevant as even the same South Asian ethnic groups people are racially quite diverse.

We're not Iranian or Indian or Arab anymore, we're on the crossroads between all these regions and whilst we share cultural similiarities and our heritage crosses with them all we are now quite distinct, we're Pakistani and that's it.

There is really no need to feel a part of a greater "subcontinent" or any such nonesense, yes we share similarties with northwestern India, yes we share simialrities with eastern Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan but we are not of those nations anymore, we are unique and different, a flavour of our own, we'ree more vibrant than our dull western neighbours yet not circus clowns like our eastern neighbours.

We're Pakistani, Urdu is our language, Shalwar Kameez our costume, our cuisine is distinct from India we eat unleavened bread and meaty stews not curry and paper thin waffer things or daalsaawal, our religion is Islam not ringing bells infront of Babar.