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Politics, God, Cricket & Sex
By Mowahid H. Shah
Conversation in Pakistan has an uncanny knack of centering around four main topics: Politics, God, Cricket and Sex. People and media obsess about politics as if nothing else matters. Drawing rooms, dining rooms, khokhas (desi bistros), restaurants, campuses, bazaars and barber shops reverberate with political opinions on Iraq, INS registration, America, and the current governmental set-up. Arguments and animated exchanges abound.
Then, too, God enters into conversation. The name of the Lord is taken frequently. Occasionally to mask utterances in terms of piety. Sometimes to bolster points. Often to sanctify, justify, and legitimate a given position.
A case in point is ‘Inshallah’, which more often than not is deployed to get out of commitments. A religious scholar who had promised his son a scooter upon graduation told me that his son asked his father to redeem his pledge. When the father responded, “Inshallah, my son, you shall get it”, the boy burst into tears letting his father know that now he was unsure of getting his promised scooter. Critics opine that while there is emphasis on Islam, there is little concomitant strengthening of Imaan (Faith).
With the Cricket World Cup looming around the corner in South Africa, speculation on Pakistan’s prospects is rife. This time around, there is an underlying disquiet caused by a string of one-sided catastrophic defeats. There is also quiet fury over the perceived un-addressed inadequacies of the PCB hierarchy, management, team captaincy, and the overall ineptness of the selectors and players. One thing is for sure. Heads will roll if there is a recurrence of recent disasters, which may be a bridge too far for the sporting public to cross.
Over the years and with the help of television, cricket has graduated from its elite origins into a mass sport and has become a vehicle of projection of national aspirations. It brought together people of varying ideological hues and class backgrounds together. Fissures in what has become a symbol of national cohesion would carry its own blowback effects, just as it did for the Nawaz Sharif government following the debacle at the Lords World Cup final of June 1999.
Then there is the other conversation staple: sex. Despite its taboo-cum-vulgar status in polite company, its allusions hover over discussions and discourses. Sometimes in the form of jokes, sometimes as a double entendre and sometimes to drive home a point. It has its own titillating factor in a prudish society of dualities. It’s not there but it’s there.
Taken together, all of the above produces a varying mix during conversations in Pakistan.
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