All in the family

The final installment of the series.


What quips, quirks, snafus and scandals does Pakistan’s future hold? Tazeen Javed time travels to 2021 and blogs about what makes the Land of the Pure tick – or is it explode? – in the coming decade.

April 1, 2021

ISLAMABAD: The newly-elected government of Mr Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has completed its first 100 days in office. The landmark event was celebrated by a national holiday here on Tuesday, which takes the tally of Bhutto family-related national holidays to seven (the other holidays were birthdays and death anniversaries of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto and Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the annual commemoration of Mr Asif Ali Zardari’s 10-year anniversary in the presidential office, and the wedding anniversary of Prime Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari).

The notable constitutional amendment passed under PM Bhutto-Zardari’s parliament is the imposition of tax on royalties of all creative art forms, including sales of books, music records and art. However, it has not improved the condition of the national exchequer as only two books were published in the country last year and the pirated version of all the music created in Pakistan is available online, which results in absolutely no sales for the recording labels.

While addressing the nation, PM Bhutto-Zardari shared the good news that Pakistan has entered the Guinness Book of World Records for a single family holding the maximum number of ministries and other official positions in a country. In addition to the office of the president (held by the father of the prime minister) and that of a federal minister (his younger sister Asifa Bhutto-Zardari fills that spot), various ministerial posts are occupied by an assortment of uncles, aunties and cousins.

Leader of opposition, Mr Hamza Shahbaz called it a black day in the history of Pakistani politics and vowed that when his party assumes office, it will purge the government of the element of nepotism. He said that only a handful of positions would be held by his immediate family and substantiated the claim with the fact that in his family, women do not participate in politics, which automatically decreases the number of family members seeking official positions.

Meanwhile, Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussein sent flowers to the prime minister on this auspicious day. In a televised phone call from London to the PM secretariat, Mr Hussein said that Bhutto-Zardari would make a historic leader. Hussein added that PM Bilawal’s achievements have been exemplary since he was a little kid and had a famous chowk named after him in the port city of Karachi at the ripe-old age of five. He performed fateha for the PM’s martyred mother and cried a little while remembering the shaheed leader.

The evergreen Pir Pagaro congratulated the young prime minister and said that there would be a phoenix rising, adding that Sindh will be waterlogged and papers will fly. When asked about Pir Sahib’s message, the prime minister said that the Pir never made much sense – even in his lucid days – and that it would be futile to expect such an old man to make any sense at all.

Jamaat-e-Islami’s amir Qazi Hussein Ahmed initially announced a long march to protest the lavish celebrations to observe the first 100 days of the government, but had to retract after his party members refused yet another long march. One young member of the JI, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that per diem provided to long march participants has remained the same for the past five years and it has become almost impossible to recruit anyone to take part in long march at the old rates. Imran Khan, who now runs a successful media consultancy, agreed with the Jamaat’s new direction and suggested an online virtual march as a less expensive option. It is still not known if Jamaat plans to go virtual.



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TV 2020: Anchors away

The fourth installment of iRant, with a brand new logo.


What quips, quirks, snafus and scandals does Pakistan’s future hold? Tazeen Javed time travels to 2020 and blogs about what makes the Land of the Pure tick – or is it explode? – in the coming decade.

April 1, 2020

ISLAMABAD: The centre for ethno-historical research in Quaid-e-Azam University is holding an exhibition of tools, gadgets and other items of daily use from earlier periods to educate youngsters about lifestyles in their parents’ times. A series of seminars is also being held alongside the exhibition to educate the youth about the norms and practices of previous generations.

The seminar on ‘Television Viewing Habits of the Past’ was quite popular amongst the young crowd. Not only were they amazed to see huge LCD televisions from the old days, but they were also fascinated by the concept of family TV viewing. When they were told that PTV continues to sell itself as a family channel, they were suitably surprised – not because family viewing is still considered a saleable point, but because they did not know that we have a TV channel called PTV. Indeed, a quick survey of the seminar participants revealed that an overwhelming majority of 92 percent had no idea what PTV is.

Youngsters were dumbfounded when they were told that biggest entertainment during the earlier part of the century was watching current affairs programs and talk shows on TV. They were shown clips of big names such as Hamid Mir, Shahid Masood, Talat Hussein, Zaid Hamid and Nadia Khan, who in their time commanded huge salaries. Unfortunately, their huge salaries proved to be their undoing – the channels that employed these anchors collapsed because they had nothing left to run operations after paying those enormous salaries.

Youngsters were curious to hear about the current status of the erstwhile anchors, so the institute prepared an interesting documentary detailing their current lives. Mr Masood is currently heading Muqtadra Qaumi Zaban. Although he is not a man of letters and has never studied Urdu formally, he was given this post because of the sheer verbosity of the TV monologues that he passed off as news analysis (his close ties with the president also helped).

Mr Mir finally found his true vocation: he is now an inspirational guru and lectures on politics, current affairs, war and peace. His most frequent guest speaker is none other than Imran Khan, who is an expert on religion and justice. Mr Khan started his career as a cricketer and later turned into a philanthropist. He tried his hands at politics, failed at it miserably, hosted a TV show, but met failure there too as he did not let any of his guests speak. He later took on the job as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan’s spokesman, but became redundant after they went under because of rampant infighting. Apart from the lecture tours which are immensely popular, Mir and Khan now run a media and politics consultancy where they provide services to political parties and young politicians on dealing with the media.

Mr Hussein used his popularity with female fans to full advantage and his foray into the world of acting and performing arts proved to be extremely successful. Not only is he acting on TV, film and the stage in Pakistan, he is working on a film in India and another in Bangladesh. It is also rumoured that he will feature in a German film soon. In addition, he has just launched an accessories label for men and women called ‘Interaption.’

Effervescent Nadia Khan, for her part, is running a successful finishing school for girls where they are taught to sharpen their claws to deal with future mothers-in-law. Her school has a separate wing for people who want to break into the TV industry despite being not very bright. She teaches aspiring anchors how to become successful with limited skill and knowledge. There are additional classes which are open for everyone titled ‘How to Take Pride in Stupidity’.

The only exception in this group is that of Mr Hamid. He took the demise of the Taliban a little more seriously than the rest. He now wears a straitjacket and lives in a padded room in a big hospital in Hyderabad. Those who live in the vicinity of the big hospital do hear someone screaming, ‘Inshallah, dushman ko khatam kar dain gay,’ at times. It is rumoured that whenever Hamid surfaces from his medicine-induced stupor, he does fancy that he is back in 2009 and makes such claims. But the good doctors at the hospital take care of his situation and send him back to where belongs, in deep sleep.




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Pakistan’s cultural renaissance

The third installment of what future holds for us.





What quips, quirks, snafus and scandals does Pakistan’s future hold? Tazeen Javed time travels to 2019 and blogs about what makes the Land of the Pure tick – or is it explode? – in the coming decade.

April 1, 2019

KARACHI: The wait is finally over. After a tussle that lasted for over a decade, 2019 will see the second installment of the fashion week being held in Pakistan. The idea first surfaced in 2006 and Karachi did come up with a fashion week in 2008, but it fizzled out after just one event. In a time like this, when major fashion capitals have wrapped up the idea of actually having a fashion week as obsolete and most big designers have taken to use holograms to showcase their ware, the fashionistas in Pakistan seems quite excited about being able to claim that they too have taken part in/attended/organized an event where fashion reigns supreme.

Several reasons were cited for this decade-long delay: security concerns in the country, infighting in the fashion council of Pakistan. But the most pertinent reason was that there were only three models who were at least five feet, eight inches tall – a standard that is followed everywhere in the world except Pakistan. As one cannot have a fashion week with just three models, we kept delaying the event. It didn’t help that no new girl joined the fashion industry in the past decade because of threats from various jihadi groups. Now that the militants have all fought and killed each other, things are much calmer and a new breed of models have joined in to make the fashion week a possibility.

Of course, the fashion industry is not the only one that has gained momentum after the jihadi burnout. The film industry is also in for a revival and is attracting financing from all over the world after Shaan was declared the most prolific actor of all time. He has continued to work throughout the jihadi period and single-handedly ran the film industry while in exile in Timbuktu. He recently returned home and was interviewed by none other than Oprah who is visiting Pakistan as the cultural envoy of US President Condoleezza Rice. Shaan has not only worked in more than 4,000 films as the leading actor, he also wrote, produced, and directed at least half of them. He is also the only actor known to have played the proverbial college boy well into his fifties. As all his films required him to be involved in a blood bath before the credits rolled, he is being considered to become the spokesperson for the National Blood Donation Drive. As he only wanted farm fresh ketchup to be used for blood in all his films, he is also responsible for introducing tomato farming and the ketchup industry to the dusty deserts of Timbuktu. Members of the Association of Tomato Growers and Ketchup Makers in Timbuktu came all the way to Lahore to pay tribute to the legendary actor, secretly hoping that Oprah would also give them a two-minute slot in her show.

The music industry is not far behind either. All the bands that were underground for the past decade have finally seen the light of day and are making themselves heard. Although they were underground for political and security reasons, they took their state of being underground a little too musically and all they now produce is hard rock and grunge – the type of music underground bands have been associated with in previous years. The only performers of good old pop music are the children of pop musicians-turned-naat khwaans who have been busy selling their Naat and Hamd CDs and DVDs for the past dozen years. Pakistan has also seen a surge in rap and hip hop music after the successful debut of the first female Pakistani rap artist Bakhtawar Bhutto-Zardari, who was nominated for two Grammys last year. Bhutto-Zardari is the daughter of the slain former prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto and longest elected president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari (11 years and counting).

Apart from all the new and exciting musicians, the only band to have lasted this long is Noorie. When contacted, Ali Noor – the lead vocalist – said that the reason the band survived is because all band members hail from his family. In the past, they have had band members who were not part of their family, but they could not survive the family-like atmosphere of their jamming sessions. Currently, the band comprises of Ali Noor, his brother, his nephew, his son-in-law, and his nephew’s mother-in-law. After all, it is all about loving your family and your nephew’s mother-in-law.

The sole person to whom this positive and much-needed change can be attributed is our young and dynamic Minister for Cultural Affairs Asifa Bhutto-Zardari. When asked what made her work so hard for the revival of the performing arts, she said it is in her blood. With a sister who is a rap artist and a cousin who is married to Hollywood royalty, performing arts and its promotion at all levels is a cause very close to the minister’s heart. Like Ali Noor, our esteemed minister also believes that it is all about loving your family.



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Short Order Fatwa

Here is the second installment of iRant published today.


What quips, quirks, snafus and scandals does Pakistan’s future hold? Tazeen Javed time travels to 2018 and blogs about what makes the Land of the Pure tick – or is it explode? – in the coming decade.


Short-Order Fatwa

April 1, 2018


MURIDKE: The fatwa capital of Pakistan, Muridke, has been under the media spotlight for over a week. Muridke Institute of Instant Religious Decrees (MIIRD) has beaten Egypt’s Jamia Azhar and India’s Dar-ul-uloom Deoband for issuing the maximum number of fatwas. Unlike the other two institutions which are centuries old, MIIRD has surpassed the feat in just five short years. The institute prides itself on its speedy delivery of fatwas. This bastion of religious declarations is home to 225 scholars who address queries through a call centre that takes questions both via phone and online and responds to them in the shortest possible time.

The website of the institute very clearly indicates that every religious query will be answered in less than 180 minutes. The religious call centre is operated like any other call centre – scholars work on eight-hour rotational shifts. The scholar who issues the maximum number of fatwas in a month’s time gets selected as the scholar of the month and gets his photo streamed on all the televisions in the institute as well as on its website. Maulana Faish Hoshiyari has been selected scholar of the month for eight consecutive months and now has a 123 Facebook pages devoted to him with over a couple of millions fans to date.

Apart from the online fatwas, the institute is running a 24-hour religious TV channel called ‘Akhirat’, which not only helps in the proliferation of the aforementioned fatwas, but also airs other programs. One such program is ‘Banking: The Halal-Haram Dichotomy’, which repeats the premise that interest taken by other banks is haram but profit on investment taken by halal banks is perfectly fine.

Another important and highly rated program is ‘Halal Dating’, where religious-minded folks are hooked up under the ever-vigilant eyes of the Maulana, who is also the executive producer of the show. Another program that enjoys immense popularity amongst the masses is ‘Istakhara for all Seasons’. Not surprisingly, the program that has broken all records in religious TV viewing is ‘Halal Food Guide’, which combines two main passions of Pakistanis – food and religion. The cooking show features famous chefs who prepare food with halal ingredients. The food shown in the programs is also available across the nation at MIIRD restaurants called ‘Al Halal’. That is why the institute, at times, is affectionately referred to as ‘Fast Food Fatwa’.

Interestingly, the institute was the first religious school to go on Twitter and pioneered the custom of delivering the latest ‘fatwa of the day’ right into their subscribers’ cell phones.

In addition to adding their name to the Guinness Book of World Records for maximum number of fatwas, the institute has also pioneered the MIIRD clothing line which consists of topis, kifayas, pagris, burqas, hijabs, kurtas, and pajama designs. All born-again Muslim celebrities-turned-designers contribute to the line. It is believed that MIIRD will be the biggest clothing label in Pakistan soon. Moreover, the institute has just launched a chain of saloons where men can get their beards trimmed in true halal fashion while women can get their hair dyed with henna – in separate sections of course.

After completing taking over the Hajj and Umrah travel business, MIIRD’s board of directors are now planning to commence the first all halal airline, which will offer separate sections for male and female travelers and Jama’at prayer sessions for men during the flight. The in-flight entertainment programme will exclusively broadcast snippets from Akhirat, the institute’s television channel.

It is said that after achieving the feat of issuing the maximum number of fatwas and building an empire based on the Pakistani masses’ incessant need to seek religious approval for all things trivial, MIIRD will be taught as a business model at Harvard Business School

When contacted, the CEO of MIIRD Empire, Al Haaj Mufti Sheikh Syed Maulana Mujawar, about being taught at Harvard Business School as a business model, a feat that no other Pakistani company or business plan has ever achieved, Mufti Mujawar said that he is extremely pleased to put Pakistan on the business map while serving his people and fulfilling their socio-religious needs. When it was pointed out that some segments of society are not too pleased with the instant fatwa empire and think that various – and at times, conflicting – fatwas are adding to anarchy in the society, the esteemed Mufti dismissed it as mere heresy. ‘Society is chaotic because it the natural state of being and peace can only be achieved in afterlife,’ he says.



PS: While you guys are at it, have a look at this live blogging session.



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The First Rant

Dawn launched its new website and I have been asked to write a series of blogs about what Pakistan would be like a decade down the road. Here is the first installment of iRant.





Shoaib Akhtar: Conscience of the Superstars


What quips, quirks, snafus and scandals does Pakistan’s future hold? Tazeen Javed time travels to 2017 and blogs about what makes the Land of the Pure tick – or is it explode? – in the coming decade.


April 1, 2017

LAHORE: The last remaining super star of Pakistani cricket, Shoaib Akhtar, is still battling it out with the Pakistan Cricket Board. When the TV cameras caught up with Akhtar outside the cricket board offices, he vowed to make it back to the team and shared with the media his new fitness regime, which consists of him walking 100 meters without either a walking stick or power enhancing drugs. He also blamed the board for his poor performance and lack of consistency and said that he spent a better part of the day getting the cricket board to pay his old unpaid medicals bills dating back to 2009 – as a result, he cannot concentrate on his game.

Apart from the long drawn out battle with the cricket board on unpaid medical bills, Akhtar is involved in 11 other cases and is being considered for an award for his role in keeping the lawyers community afloat. He is a joint contender for the award along with Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who has been fighting for a free judiciary for a whole decade. Of the 11 lawsuits that Akhtar has been fighting, one is against Kolkata Knight Riders for unceremoniously dumping him eight years ago. The team has changed ownership twice since then (Shahrukh Khan’s wife got the team in divorce settlement, but later sold it to Karan Johar. The erstwhile Mrs Khan was of the opinion that Johar can appreciate dirty, sweaty men a lot more than she ever could). But Akhtar is still battling on.

Other legal cases include, but are not limited to, a hit-and-run incident on Rawalpindi-Lahore Motorway, growing marijuana in his backyard and gifting it to neighbours’ under-age kids, two cases of assault against teammates, three paternity cases in two countries, and a couple of lawsuits against a cola giant for dropping him and causing him irreversible emotional damage. In order to pay for his ever-mounting legal fees, Akhtar has decided to auction his infamous bat with which he assaulted a former teammate. It is rumoured that the former teammate, who now supplies soft drugs to the whole of the Middle East since their legalization following 2010’s Dubai’s real estate market crash, will be buying that bat for nostalgic reasons.

Last but not least is his ongoing battle with the Indian judicial system, which has repeatedly denied his attempts at adopting an Indian orphan. It was almost nine years ago when Akhtar first revealed the intention to adopt a child from Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. When asked why he singled out Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, he said that as he was always partial to the name Teresa and would want it to be part of his adoptive child’s life. When contacted, a member of Indian judiciary revealed that it is not his history of violence and substance abuse that is hindering his chance at adoption, they are more concerned about the probable influence of Akhtar’s former teammates who are now running Hajj and Umrah tours and have close ties with Osama Bin Laden and Junaid Jamshed. It is heard that the state of Malawi slackened its adoption laws, especially for celebrities from far far away lands. Akhtar, being the philanthropist softie he is, does not mind adopting a child from Malawi, as long as it get the same media coverage as an adoption would get in Mumbai. Unfortunately, adoption agencies in Malawi cannot guarantee that as they do not take care of adoption-related PR. It is clearly stated in the standard adoption contract that the celebrity is required to arrange his own post-adoption press junket and cute baby photos.

Like the original playboy of Pakistani cricket, Imran Khan, Akhtar is also building a hospital. Unlike Khan, who built the hospital in honour of his mother who perished from cancer, Akhtar’s hospital would be devoted to cure skin diseases. It is still unknown if it is being built to honour a particular person or if it is something he likes to be associated with? Some detractors of the national hero said that there would be a special ward in the hospital for the ‘thick skinned’, to honour the cricketer himself.

Akhtar believes that he is the most misunderstood celebrity of our times and blames the cricket board and media for the PR debacle that is his life. Although many would disagree, Akhtar fills a huge vacuum in Pakistan’s media industry. We do not have people like Prince Harry and Paris Hilton, but we need people who can fill the air-time of local TV channels and serve as tabloid fodder. Akhtar is doing just that. Who can help but be charmed by such social service?


PS: Can someone please fwd this link to Shoaib Akhtar if they happen to know him?


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