AP/Yahoo
Muslim-Hindu punk rock bands part of new movement
By RUSSELL CONTRERAS, Associated Press Writer Russell Contreras, Associated Press Writer 1 min ago
WAYLAND, Mass. – Artwork from the Punjab state of India decorates the Ray family home. A Johann Sebastian Bach statue sits on a piano. But in the basement — cluttered with wires, old concert fliers and drawings — 25-year-old Arjun Ray is fighting distortion from his electric guitar.
For this son of Indian immigrants, trained in classical violin and raised on traditional Punjab music, getting his three Pakistani-American bandmates in sync is the goal on this cold New England evening. Their band, The Kominas, is trying to record a punk rock version of the classic Bollywood song, "Choli Ke Peeche" (Behind the Blouse).
"Yeah," said Shahjehan Khan, 26, one of the band's guitarists, "there are a lot of contradictions going on here."
Deep in the woods of this colonial town boils a kind of revolutionary movement. From the basement of this middle-class home tucked in the woods west of Boston, The Kominas have helped launched a small, but growing, South Asian and Middle Eastern punk rock movement that is attracting children of Muslim and Hindu immigrants and drawing scorn from some traditional Muslims who say their political, hard-edged music is "haraam," or forbidden.
The movement, an anti-establishment subculture borne of religiously conservative communities, is the subject of two new films and a hot topic on social-networking sites.
The artists say they are just trying to reconcile issues such as life in America, women's rights and homosexuality with Islam and old East vs. West cultural clashes.
"This is one way to deal with my identity as an Arab-American," said Marwan Kamel, the 24-year-old lead guitarist in Chicago-based Al-Thawra. "With this music, I can express this confusion."
The movement's birth is often credited to the novel "The Taqwacore," by Michael Muhammad Knight, a Rochester, N.Y.-raised writer who converted to Islam.
Knight coined the book's title from the Arabic word "Taqwa," which means piety or God-fearing, and the word hardcore. The 2003 book portrayed an imagined world of living-on-the-edge Muslim punk rockers and influenced real-life South Asians to form their own bands.
South Asian and Middle Eastern punk bands soon were popping up across America and communicating with each other via MySpace.
At the time of book's release, Basim Usmani and Khan already were experimenting with punk and building the foundation for The Kominas, which loosely means "scoundrels" in various South Asian languages. When Usmani, now 26, came across the book, he was writing songs and sporting a mohawk — just like the punk rocker on the novel's cover.
Usmani contacted Knight, who agreed to buy a bus on eBay for $2,000 to help launch the nation's first "Muslim punk rock tour" in 2007. Kamel, the son of a Syrian father and Polish mother, bought a one-way ticket to Boston to join the tour, and Canadian drag-queen singer Sena Hussain met up with them along the way.
The musicians performed at various venues but were notably kicked off stage during an open mic performance at the Islamic Society of North America convention in Chicago. Traditional Muslims at the convention decried the electric guitar-based music as un-Islamic while others were upset a woman dared sing on stage. The episode was documented by Pakistani-Canadian filmmaker Omar Majeed in his new documentary "Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam."
"These guys are not prophetizing or preaching anything specific about Islam," said Majeed, whose film is set for release in the United States in 2010. "They just happen to be young and Muslim, and they write songs and do art that expresses that idea."
Imam Talal Eid, executive director of the Islamic Institute of Boston, said some traditional Muslims may object to such music because they focus on its sexual attraction rather than its use for spiritual enjoyment. "But I think we can come up with a moderate opinion that distinguished what is forbidden from what is not," said Eid. "It's a new issue among Muslims."
The musical style of each group varies. Some songs on The Kominas' album "Wild Nights in Guantanamo Bay" lean toward the humorous and ironic, including "Suicide Bomb the Gap." In their song "Sharia Law in the USA," the lyrics mock the portrayal of Islamists: "I am an Islamist/I am the anti-Christ/most squares can't make a most-wanted list/but my-my how I stay in style." Their sound mixes hard-edged punk, ska and funk.
Meanwhile, Al-Thawra sings about political events in the Middle East with songs like "Gaza: Choking on the Smoke of Dreams." Their music is closer to heavy metal.
Other bands include the Washington, D.C.-based Sarmust and the Texas group Vote Hezbollah.
Like most punk groups, bands produce their own albums and sell them at shows and online.
.....
The groups have toured since that first Taqwacore trip, playing in small clubs, in basements at parties and in Hispanic cultural centers. Typically, The Kominas and Al-Thawra say they play in front of 50 to 80 people.
The bands have noticed Latino punks getting into their music. Al-Thawra recently picked up a guitarist from Mexico City named Mario Salazar. The cover of Al-Thawra's next album will feature the image of the U.S.-Mexico border fused with the Palestinian-Israeli wall.
Alan Waters, an anthropology professor at University of Massachusetts-Boston, said it should come as no surprise that young Muslim and Hindu immigrants are expressing themselves through rock or that their music would strike a chord with other "disenfranchised" populations in the U.S., such as Latinos and other children of recent immigrants.
"If they're touching or singing about identity, it's going to make a connection," said Waters. "Punk rock is very American, and this is assimilation through a back door."
He called the bands "a good opportunity for stereotype-smashing."
The Kominas, who sing mostly in English, now are trying to break the image they are just a "Muslim punk band," especially since one of their founders, Ray, is Hindu. On their next album, Ray said the band will have songs in Hindi.
.....
Usmani said he grew up as a "nonreligious" Muslim-American so his journey into punk caused few problems, although he admits his family doesn't like the drinking and smoking that pervade the music scene. Khan and Kominas drummer Imran Malik, 25, also said they aren't as observant as their families might like.
"I mean, if you put a sword to us," said Usmani, "one of us might pray."
.....
Read the full story and related links HERE.
Showing posts with label pakistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pakistan. Show all posts
Saturday, January 02, 2010
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Pakistani rappers
MSNBC
Forget the Taliban – Pakistani teens just wanna rap
Posted: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 11:25 AM
Filed Under: Islamabad, Pakistan
By Carol Grisanti, NBC News Producer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – The beat was good. Even the song's title, "Turn Your Swag Off," was catchy – but the lyrics needed some explanation.
"What does it all mean?" I asked.
"It’s just about me rapping how cool and bad I am," said Adil Omar, an 18-year-old Pakistani rap artist.
"I don’t get it," I told him.
"Look," he tried to explain, "I guess you could call it a protest song, but having fun with it, instead of taking myself too seriously. The violence is all comical and the sex is all comical. It’s just a funny song."
"Oh, I see," I said, pretending to get it.
Omar went on to explain that he often writes fictionalized or outrageous lyrics as metaphors for other things.
"In Pakistan today," Omar explained, "there are certain things you can’t do, you can’t promote. There are certain topics you can’t tap into because it’s a bit dangerous – like religion and politics." He said he is not an activist and stays away from rapping about governments. "You can’t target certain individuals in Pakistan," he said, "but if you speak out against the West, then no one really cares."
Some Pakistani musicians have made headlines by tapping into the anti-Western and especially the anti-American sentiments gripping the country. I asked Omar about the band "co-Ven," and their song, "Ready to Die" which was singled out recently by the New York Times for its anti-American lyrics.
Omar didn’t think that was cause for too much concern. "It [the song] was probably for shock value and people are just taking it too seriously," he said. "It’s has always been either the really violent and explicit side of rock, rap and hip-hop that gets the news coverage or it’s the protest side. It’s always been a genre, its entertainment," he argued with a conviction that belies his years.
Privileged Pakistani rappers
Rap music was born out of rage. It began, over 20 years ago, as a cry against the deprivation and unequal opportunities in America’s urban ghettoes. But today’s Pakistani rappers, by contrast, are from the country’s educated and privileged classes and at least by Omar’s account – they are "just having fun."
Omar is a well-mannered and soft-spoken teenager who lives in a posh suburb of Islamabad. He attends a private high school and is hoping to get into an American university next year. He started to write rap lyrics, as a hobby, when he was 9 years old. But it may well have been the death of his father one year later when Omar decided his life’s ambition was to become a full-time rapper.
"My mother thinks it’s a bit extreme, but she is supportive of my music. She understands that it’s the only thing I am probably good at," he said.
I asked him about the lyrics to his song, "The Writer," which say, "The world hates me so I hate the world."
"That’s pretty strong stuff," I said. Omar laughed. "That was all about being so involved in your work that you have the feeling of being cut off from the rest of the world," he said, grinning.
He advised me not to take his writings so literally. "You thought it was anger," he said. "I’m not angry. I'm actually pretty happy, but maybe if I didn’t have this outlet to write this stuff, I would be angry," he said.
Taking it to the Internet
Omar is not the only Pakistani teenager turning to rap music to voice their feelings. Earlier this year, Bakhtawar Bhutto, the 18-year-old daughter of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, mourned her slain mother in a rap rhythm she released on YouTube.
In her song, "I Would Take the Pain Away," Bhutto rapped about her grief: "Shot in the back of your ear, so young in 54th year, murdered with three kids left behind."// "Why did you have to go?"//" Why did you have to leave?" The teenager sang out her pain over a simple hip hop beat and edited video clips of her mother.
Like young musicians across the world, the Internet is the vehicle of choice for young independent Pakistani artists who are looking for their big breakthrough. Omar uploads his music on YouTube, as well as on Facebook and MySpace for maximum exposure.
.......
Forget the Taliban – Pakistani teens just wanna rap
Posted: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 11:25 AM
Filed Under: Islamabad, Pakistan
By Carol Grisanti, NBC News Producer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – The beat was good. Even the song's title, "Turn Your Swag Off," was catchy – but the lyrics needed some explanation.
"What does it all mean?" I asked.
"It’s just about me rapping how cool and bad I am," said Adil Omar, an 18-year-old Pakistani rap artist.
"I don’t get it," I told him.
"Look," he tried to explain, "I guess you could call it a protest song, but having fun with it, instead of taking myself too seriously. The violence is all comical and the sex is all comical. It’s just a funny song."
"Oh, I see," I said, pretending to get it.
Omar went on to explain that he often writes fictionalized or outrageous lyrics as metaphors for other things.
"In Pakistan today," Omar explained, "there are certain things you can’t do, you can’t promote. There are certain topics you can’t tap into because it’s a bit dangerous – like religion and politics." He said he is not an activist and stays away from rapping about governments. "You can’t target certain individuals in Pakistan," he said, "but if you speak out against the West, then no one really cares."
Some Pakistani musicians have made headlines by tapping into the anti-Western and especially the anti-American sentiments gripping the country. I asked Omar about the band "co-Ven," and their song, "Ready to Die" which was singled out recently by the New York Times for its anti-American lyrics.
Omar didn’t think that was cause for too much concern. "It [the song] was probably for shock value and people are just taking it too seriously," he said. "It’s has always been either the really violent and explicit side of rock, rap and hip-hop that gets the news coverage or it’s the protest side. It’s always been a genre, its entertainment," he argued with a conviction that belies his years.
Privileged Pakistani rappers
Rap music was born out of rage. It began, over 20 years ago, as a cry against the deprivation and unequal opportunities in America’s urban ghettoes. But today’s Pakistani rappers, by contrast, are from the country’s educated and privileged classes and at least by Omar’s account – they are "just having fun."
Omar is a well-mannered and soft-spoken teenager who lives in a posh suburb of Islamabad. He attends a private high school and is hoping to get into an American university next year. He started to write rap lyrics, as a hobby, when he was 9 years old. But it may well have been the death of his father one year later when Omar decided his life’s ambition was to become a full-time rapper.
"My mother thinks it’s a bit extreme, but she is supportive of my music. She understands that it’s the only thing I am probably good at," he said.
I asked him about the lyrics to his song, "The Writer," which say, "The world hates me so I hate the world."
"That’s pretty strong stuff," I said. Omar laughed. "That was all about being so involved in your work that you have the feeling of being cut off from the rest of the world," he said, grinning.
He advised me not to take his writings so literally. "You thought it was anger," he said. "I’m not angry. I'm actually pretty happy, but maybe if I didn’t have this outlet to write this stuff, I would be angry," he said.
Taking it to the Internet
Omar is not the only Pakistani teenager turning to rap music to voice their feelings. Earlier this year, Bakhtawar Bhutto, the 18-year-old daughter of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, mourned her slain mother in a rap rhythm she released on YouTube.
In her song, "I Would Take the Pain Away," Bhutto rapped about her grief: "Shot in the back of your ear, so young in 54th year, murdered with three kids left behind."// "Why did you have to go?"//" Why did you have to leave?" The teenager sang out her pain over a simple hip hop beat and edited video clips of her mother.
Like young musicians across the world, the Internet is the vehicle of choice for young independent Pakistani artists who are looking for their big breakthrough. Omar uploads his music on YouTube, as well as on Facebook and MySpace for maximum exposure.
.......
Sunday, October 12, 2008
U.S. Refuge for Pakistani Singer Fleeing the Taliban
NYT
October 13, 2008
U.S. Refuge for Singer Fleeing the Taliban
By BEN SISARIO
The threats started about a year ago, telling Haroon Bacha to stop singing or else.
“There were letters, there were phone calls, there were text messages,” Mr. Bacha said, sitting upright on a floor in Brooklyn, surrounded by smoke from Pakistani cigarettes. “They used to come very frequently back home, just telling me to stop music, or else I would be killed and my family would be. ...”
He trailed off, tears welling in his eyes. Mr. Bacha, 36, is a Pashtun, the Muslim ethnic group of the mountainous northwest of Pakistan and southeast Afghanistan, and at home he is a star, with dozens of albums, slick videos and regular television appearances. In a sweet high baritone, he sings of peace, tolerance and resistance to war. Those liberal themes have endeared him to his war-weary Pashtun fans, he says, but made him a target of the local Taliban, which has been waging an escalating campaign against music and popular culture, calling it un-Islamic.
Two months ago Mr. Bacha escaped from his home near Peshawar, in Pakistan, and came to New York, leaving behind his wife, two young children and an extended family. If he goes back, he said, he will be killed. With a sharply reduced audience in the United States, Mr. Bacha faces an uncertain career, but on Saturday he sang at a small but lively benefit concert in Queens, organized by the Pashtun immigrants who have adopted him and held at an unlikely place: the Forest Hills Jewish Center.
“Anybody who is hated by the Taliban is starting out with a check in my column,” said Rabbi Gerald C. Skolnik, the leader of the center, a Conservative synagogue. Rabbi Skolnik said that an initial phone call from one of the organizers had “raised a red flag,” but that after the groups were vetted to make sure none of the money raised would go to terrorist groups, he was happy to rent the space.
In the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan, the Taliban has intimidated musicians and record store proprietors; recently dozens of music shops have been bombed, reportedly by pro-Taliban militants.
“Cultural activities are badly affected by what’s going on in the region,” said Hasan Khan, news director of the Islamabad-based television channel Khyber News, in a recent phone interview. “We have lost everything. We have lost music, we have lost local games, we have lost children playing in the street. It is almost impossible to visualize what is happening there.”
The soft-spoken Mr. Bacha, who has striking green eyes and short brown curls, is a slightly unusual figure as a Pashtun star; he has a university education and, unlike most Pashtun singers, he does not come from a family of musicians. He said he saw his role as helping to lead a broad cultural resistance to Islamic fundamentalism.
“These people are bringing Pashtuns a very bad name,” said Mr. Bacha, at one of the apartments in Brooklyn where he has been a guest. “The reason I didn’t succumb to these threats is that I should work for my people, for Pashto as a language and rich tradition. I need to promote it and show to the world that we are not like these people.”
Before the concert, held in the Jewish Center’s mirror-lined basement ballroom, Mr. Bacha led evening prayers, facing Mecca in the small lobby. And once the audience of 300 or so had taken its seats — the event was far from sold out — Mr. Bacha began performing, accompanied by two musicians and pumping a harmonium as he sang.
In the first songs of the night he declared his love for the Pashtuns’ land and traditional lifestyle: “Our mud houses are like palaces to us.” But soon his lyrics, which are drawn from old and new Pashto poetry, turned to topical struggles. “This is not my gun/This is not our war,” he sang, “They are bringing it to us.” The small crowd roared and clapped along, as men danced and threw money on the stage, in a sign of praise and approval.
“We are a peace-loving nation,” said Reyaz Nadi, 44, a Long Island architect originally from Kabul, the Afghan capital. “Unfortunately there’s always a war from the outside, going back to Alexander the Great. America is only the latest one.”
There is a historical precedent for the Taliban’s cultural clampdown. After taking power in Afghanistan in the 1990s, it banned public performances of most forms of music — some religious chants were permitted — and symbolically hanged musical instruments in effigy. Many musicians went into exile in Pakistan, but since the American invasion of Afghanistan and establishment of a new government there, most have returned, said John Baily, an ethnomusicologist and Afghanistan specialist at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Professor Baily said it was not clear whether the same pattern was unfolding in Pakistan. “This is a very musical country with a huge range of different music,” he said. “It’s not that easy just to ban music. But they’re doing what they can.”
Mr. Bacha said he was not hopeful about his homeland’s future.
“If it continues like this, and these fanatics get power, our social fabric, our institutions — everything will be destroyed,” he said. “I don’t know what these elements want to have in their lives, what their world would be like.”
In the way of many musicians who come to New York who were accustomed to be big fish in smaller musical ponds, Mr. Bacha is adjusting to diminished prospects. Last week in New Jersey, for example, he played a wedding, something that his associates say he would never have done back home. On Saturday he will play at St. Michael’s Rectory in Bedford, Mass., and on Oct. 24 he will perform again in New York, at the Adria Hotel in Bayside, Queens.
“Wherever I find Pashtuns I can live as a singer,” Mr. Bacha said. “It could be America. It could be any part of the world.”
October 13, 2008
U.S. Refuge for Singer Fleeing the Taliban
By BEN SISARIO
The threats started about a year ago, telling Haroon Bacha to stop singing or else.
“There were letters, there were phone calls, there were text messages,” Mr. Bacha said, sitting upright on a floor in Brooklyn, surrounded by smoke from Pakistani cigarettes. “They used to come very frequently back home, just telling me to stop music, or else I would be killed and my family would be. ...”
He trailed off, tears welling in his eyes. Mr. Bacha, 36, is a Pashtun, the Muslim ethnic group of the mountainous northwest of Pakistan and southeast Afghanistan, and at home he is a star, with dozens of albums, slick videos and regular television appearances. In a sweet high baritone, he sings of peace, tolerance and resistance to war. Those liberal themes have endeared him to his war-weary Pashtun fans, he says, but made him a target of the local Taliban, which has been waging an escalating campaign against music and popular culture, calling it un-Islamic.
Two months ago Mr. Bacha escaped from his home near Peshawar, in Pakistan, and came to New York, leaving behind his wife, two young children and an extended family. If he goes back, he said, he will be killed. With a sharply reduced audience in the United States, Mr. Bacha faces an uncertain career, but on Saturday he sang at a small but lively benefit concert in Queens, organized by the Pashtun immigrants who have adopted him and held at an unlikely place: the Forest Hills Jewish Center.
“Anybody who is hated by the Taliban is starting out with a check in my column,” said Rabbi Gerald C. Skolnik, the leader of the center, a Conservative synagogue. Rabbi Skolnik said that an initial phone call from one of the organizers had “raised a red flag,” but that after the groups were vetted to make sure none of the money raised would go to terrorist groups, he was happy to rent the space.
In the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan, the Taliban has intimidated musicians and record store proprietors; recently dozens of music shops have been bombed, reportedly by pro-Taliban militants.
“Cultural activities are badly affected by what’s going on in the region,” said Hasan Khan, news director of the Islamabad-based television channel Khyber News, in a recent phone interview. “We have lost everything. We have lost music, we have lost local games, we have lost children playing in the street. It is almost impossible to visualize what is happening there.”
The soft-spoken Mr. Bacha, who has striking green eyes and short brown curls, is a slightly unusual figure as a Pashtun star; he has a university education and, unlike most Pashtun singers, he does not come from a family of musicians. He said he saw his role as helping to lead a broad cultural resistance to Islamic fundamentalism.
“These people are bringing Pashtuns a very bad name,” said Mr. Bacha, at one of the apartments in Brooklyn where he has been a guest. “The reason I didn’t succumb to these threats is that I should work for my people, for Pashto as a language and rich tradition. I need to promote it and show to the world that we are not like these people.”
Before the concert, held in the Jewish Center’s mirror-lined basement ballroom, Mr. Bacha led evening prayers, facing Mecca in the small lobby. And once the audience of 300 or so had taken its seats — the event was far from sold out — Mr. Bacha began performing, accompanied by two musicians and pumping a harmonium as he sang.
In the first songs of the night he declared his love for the Pashtuns’ land and traditional lifestyle: “Our mud houses are like palaces to us.” But soon his lyrics, which are drawn from old and new Pashto poetry, turned to topical struggles. “This is not my gun/This is not our war,” he sang, “They are bringing it to us.” The small crowd roared and clapped along, as men danced and threw money on the stage, in a sign of praise and approval.
“We are a peace-loving nation,” said Reyaz Nadi, 44, a Long Island architect originally from Kabul, the Afghan capital. “Unfortunately there’s always a war from the outside, going back to Alexander the Great. America is only the latest one.”
There is a historical precedent for the Taliban’s cultural clampdown. After taking power in Afghanistan in the 1990s, it banned public performances of most forms of music — some religious chants were permitted — and symbolically hanged musical instruments in effigy. Many musicians went into exile in Pakistan, but since the American invasion of Afghanistan and establishment of a new government there, most have returned, said John Baily, an ethnomusicologist and Afghanistan specialist at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Professor Baily said it was not clear whether the same pattern was unfolding in Pakistan. “This is a very musical country with a huge range of different music,” he said. “It’s not that easy just to ban music. But they’re doing what they can.”
Mr. Bacha said he was not hopeful about his homeland’s future.
“If it continues like this, and these fanatics get power, our social fabric, our institutions — everything will be destroyed,” he said. “I don’t know what these elements want to have in their lives, what their world would be like.”
In the way of many musicians who come to New York who were accustomed to be big fish in smaller musical ponds, Mr. Bacha is adjusting to diminished prospects. Last week in New Jersey, for example, he played a wedding, something that his associates say he would never have done back home. On Saturday he will play at St. Michael’s Rectory in Bedford, Mass., and on Oct. 24 he will perform again in New York, at the Adria Hotel in Bayside, Queens.
“Wherever I find Pashtuns I can live as a singer,” Mr. Bacha said. “It could be America. It could be any part of the world.”
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
In Pakistan, the Biggest Star is in Drag
NBC Worldblog
posted: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 7:49 AM
Categories: Islamabad, Pakistan
"Late Night Show with Begum Nawazish Ali" host Ali Saleem in drag. [M&C note: visit original story for a VIDEO of Begum Nawazish preparing for the show.]
By NBC News' Hasan Zaidi, reporting from Karachi, Pakistan
Last year when a journalist from Indian-administered Kashmir asked me what the "story" was behind Begum Nawazish Ali, I was more than just surprised. The Begum (the term means "Lady" in Urdu) in question is the host of Pakistan's most popular TV talk show – "Late Night Show with Begum Nawazish Ali."
I didn’t think Aaj, the fledgling television channel which broadcasts the show, was even seen outside the country. I asked him how he knew the name of Pakistan’s rising star and he said "Oh, we all watch her program off satellite!"
The talk show host making waves in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (and apparently Kashmir) is purportedly a stylish, middle-aged, socialite widow of an army colonel. Her monologues are often laced with sexual innuendo, she flirts openly with her guests, and sometimes embarrasses them with probing questions about their private lives. Her guests include some of Pakistan's most well-known personalities: the urban elite, film and television stars and even some top politicians. Most are nevertheless thrilled to be invited to appear on a program millions are watching.
Viewers are obviously fascinated too. Dinner party conversations here in Karachi are often peppered with anecdotes about her risqué banter and sly digs at Pakistani politics. Women call the television station to inquire about the tailoring of her sequined blouses and where to buy her glamorous saris.
The thing is, Begum Nawazish Ali is actually a man. Ali Saleem, the 28-year-old man who dons lipstick, mascara and a wig to Begum Nawazish Ali, has managed to break many taboos in conservative Pakistan through the character.
A strong, glamorous Pakistani woman
When I nonchalantly mentioned that the host was in drag to the Kashmiri journalist, his eyes almost popped out of his head. That was almost a bigger surprise for me. I thought that fact was obvious to everyone and was part of the show's success. Certainly no Pakistani woman on television could get away with the kind of double entendres she gets away with.
To the actor Saleem, there is little doubt about why audiences are tuning in – they’re all waiting to see what the well-coiffed, manicured character will say next.
Female guests often find themselves comparing wardrobes and jewelry with her, while male guests have had to bear the brunt of a suggestive proposition from her. "Some people compare her to Dame Edna's character on British television," said Saleem, "but Begum Nawazish Ali is much too sophisticated to ever be that crude."
So popular is the show that advertising rates during its weekend prime time slot are triple that of other shows in similar slots. Saleem is now one of the highest paid television hosts in the country and is constantly receiving offers from rival channels to bring the show to them.
During an arduous three-hour hair and make-up session before the recording of a show, Saleem was philosophical about the reasons why the show has clicked with audiences.
"I think Begum Nawazish Ali inspires women in particular because she is a strong, glamorous, opinionated woman who is unafraid of saying what she thinks and of flirting with men if she feels like it," explained Saleem. "Men, on the other hand, find her intriguing because she transcends all kinds of restrictions and plays with their imagination."
More open than outsiders think
So far, despite the thin line Saleem treads between the outrageous and the socially acceptable – overt sexuality of any kind is frowned upon in conservative Pakistan – his celebrity guests have also been good sports.
Surprisingly even Pakistan's firebrand religious leaders have never attacked the show. "We couldn't convince [the head of the main religious parties alliance] Qazi Hussain Ahmed to come on the show," said Saleem, "but he was very good-natured about it. He praised the Begum and said he would rather just watch the show on television."
Even a septuagenarian belonging to Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist political party, claimed that he did not know what he was getting into after appearing on the show.
Saleem got his first big break famously impersonating former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in theatre and on television, but says it's the Ali character that brings out the real woman inside him. "I am happy to openly accept my bisexuality because it does justice to the man in me and the woman in me," he said with a laugh. He claims he has "only received love, adoration and respect, never anything evenly remotely negative."
Then Saleem dropped a bombshell. "You are the first person I am announcing this to, but I have decided to file my papers for the upcoming general elections," he exclaimed. "I am going to run for a parliamentary seat as an independent from all over Pakistan and I am going to campaign as Begum Nawazish Ali!" The note of triumph and excitement in his voice is unmistakable.
"I want to be the voice of the youth and for all of Pakistan," he continued. "The idea was always to break barriers and preconceived notions, of gender, identity, celebrity and politics and to bring people closer. In any case, I think Begum Nawazish Ali is the strongest woman in Pakistan!"
Whether Pakistanis agree or not, the elections at the end of the year are likely to be one of the most uproarious in recent times.
posted: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 7:49 AM
Categories: Islamabad, Pakistan
"Late Night Show with Begum Nawazish Ali" host Ali Saleem in drag. [M&C note: visit original story for a VIDEO of Begum Nawazish preparing for the show.]
By NBC News' Hasan Zaidi, reporting from Karachi, Pakistan
Last year when a journalist from Indian-administered Kashmir asked me what the "story" was behind Begum Nawazish Ali, I was more than just surprised. The Begum (the term means "Lady" in Urdu) in question is the host of Pakistan's most popular TV talk show – "Late Night Show with Begum Nawazish Ali."
I didn’t think Aaj, the fledgling television channel which broadcasts the show, was even seen outside the country. I asked him how he knew the name of Pakistan’s rising star and he said "Oh, we all watch her program off satellite!"
The talk show host making waves in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (and apparently Kashmir) is purportedly a stylish, middle-aged, socialite widow of an army colonel. Her monologues are often laced with sexual innuendo, she flirts openly with her guests, and sometimes embarrasses them with probing questions about their private lives. Her guests include some of Pakistan's most well-known personalities: the urban elite, film and television stars and even some top politicians. Most are nevertheless thrilled to be invited to appear on a program millions are watching.
Viewers are obviously fascinated too. Dinner party conversations here in Karachi are often peppered with anecdotes about her risqué banter and sly digs at Pakistani politics. Women call the television station to inquire about the tailoring of her sequined blouses and where to buy her glamorous saris.
The thing is, Begum Nawazish Ali is actually a man. Ali Saleem, the 28-year-old man who dons lipstick, mascara and a wig to Begum Nawazish Ali, has managed to break many taboos in conservative Pakistan through the character.
A strong, glamorous Pakistani woman
When I nonchalantly mentioned that the host was in drag to the Kashmiri journalist, his eyes almost popped out of his head. That was almost a bigger surprise for me. I thought that fact was obvious to everyone and was part of the show's success. Certainly no Pakistani woman on television could get away with the kind of double entendres she gets away with.
To the actor Saleem, there is little doubt about why audiences are tuning in – they’re all waiting to see what the well-coiffed, manicured character will say next.
Female guests often find themselves comparing wardrobes and jewelry with her, while male guests have had to bear the brunt of a suggestive proposition from her. "Some people compare her to Dame Edna's character on British television," said Saleem, "but Begum Nawazish Ali is much too sophisticated to ever be that crude."
So popular is the show that advertising rates during its weekend prime time slot are triple that of other shows in similar slots. Saleem is now one of the highest paid television hosts in the country and is constantly receiving offers from rival channels to bring the show to them.
During an arduous three-hour hair and make-up session before the recording of a show, Saleem was philosophical about the reasons why the show has clicked with audiences.
"I think Begum Nawazish Ali inspires women in particular because she is a strong, glamorous, opinionated woman who is unafraid of saying what she thinks and of flirting with men if she feels like it," explained Saleem. "Men, on the other hand, find her intriguing because she transcends all kinds of restrictions and plays with their imagination."
More open than outsiders think
So far, despite the thin line Saleem treads between the outrageous and the socially acceptable – overt sexuality of any kind is frowned upon in conservative Pakistan – his celebrity guests have also been good sports.
Surprisingly even Pakistan's firebrand religious leaders have never attacked the show. "We couldn't convince [the head of the main religious parties alliance] Qazi Hussain Ahmed to come on the show," said Saleem, "but he was very good-natured about it. He praised the Begum and said he would rather just watch the show on television."
Even a septuagenarian belonging to Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist political party, claimed that he did not know what he was getting into after appearing on the show.
Saleem got his first big break famously impersonating former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in theatre and on television, but says it's the Ali character that brings out the real woman inside him. "I am happy to openly accept my bisexuality because it does justice to the man in me and the woman in me," he said with a laugh. He claims he has "only received love, adoration and respect, never anything evenly remotely negative."
Then Saleem dropped a bombshell. "You are the first person I am announcing this to, but I have decided to file my papers for the upcoming general elections," he exclaimed. "I am going to run for a parliamentary seat as an independent from all over Pakistan and I am going to campaign as Begum Nawazish Ali!" The note of triumph and excitement in his voice is unmistakable.
"I want to be the voice of the youth and for all of Pakistan," he continued. "The idea was always to break barriers and preconceived notions, of gender, identity, celebrity and politics and to bring people closer. In any case, I think Begum Nawazish Ali is the strongest woman in Pakistan!"
Whether Pakistanis agree or not, the elections at the end of the year are likely to be one of the most uproarious in recent times.
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