I consider myself blessed as I was exposed to some of the finest Urdu literature at a very early age. Our school had a great collection of the legendary writers of our national language. I was deeply into the classics of great fiction writers, such as Saadat Hasan Manto, Krishan Chandar, Ghulam Abbas, and many others. Their stories had a strange fixation. Those stories transported the readers mostly to the pre-partition India, rich in its history, diversity and a remarkable culture. Much has been written about these legends and their classics. Besides making the readers stretch their imagination and walk with the narrators at various locations all around India, those writers exposed the hypocrisies, dichotomies, and the harsh and brutally honest realities of society Perhaps, this conditioning at an early age provided an edge that enabled me to be who I am. Perhaps those harsh realities that many folks struggle with, my system processes differently. I am open to accepting the reality of a tragic or an awfully strange twist that some find really shocking or offensive because it does not conform to the expected norms of our extremely hypocritical society.
The tragic news of another high profile “honour killing” in the “Land of the Pure” hit the news wires, and the pre-programmed condemnation started to trickle in. I must admit that my work keeps me away from the overly mundane social media, and it honestly is a blessing in disguise. By now my receptors quickly scan for any news item, and ignore, what I call a pre-programmed reaction. Some hashtag for a day or two, and then it is something else. The issues are too many and the condemnations, and at times, freestyle abuses are equally too many to keep up with.
I am a sinful mortal, but I honestly have an issue with people who spend a major portion of their lives on social media criticising other people, and especially their character. This is an indication that people have too much time on their hands, and they seek pleasure or their fix for entertainment through other people’s demeanour or character. This is their therapy for their idol minds that gives them this one-upmanship of sorts. It gives them this false sense of their existence being better than some other sorry soul.
Much has been said and written piercing and unlayering the deceased. What I find disturbing are the multi-faceted hypocrisies at so many levels. People try to conceal their real faces, throwing darts at someone who was presumably strangled to preserve the familial honour. I wish if Manto was around to pen this irony in a masterpiece. Show the mirror to this so-called respectable and so-called pious society.
I am no Manto, but for starters all the spectators aiming with their arrows towards the deceased and her seemingly wayward life ought to ask a few questions to her brothers who were reportedly dependent on her. The society self-sufficient in honour was busy gawking and entertaining itself with the curves and the anatomy of the person. Rarely did it focus on why a person was behaving in a manner that was a bit different.
My wayward mind kept on asking a question why would someone act different. The overly simply response was to gain attention. And then attention for what? To gain attention, to get fame, to become a celebrity, and perhaps have a comfortable life. Most people use the tool of a formal education to enhance their social stature. It takes an intelligent person to use the widely available social media to garner attention with whatever skills she had. But most eyes were stuck on her exposed skin or sound bites, as that titillated their senses.
One of her brothers who reportedly in a fit of anger for honour did the “honour’ of strangulation is said to a drug addict. Fingers are not pointed towards this great character who was wasting his life in drugs. It takes immense pride and honour to indulge in intoxicants that make life colourful and pleasurable. There were people who wished that they were in the place of this gentleman so that they could be blessed forever by executing a lady who was a blot on this “pious’ society.
I was painfully amused by some of the comments made by some ladies who were making qualifying statements about the deceased not being a “good role model” but nonetheless she did not deserve to die. Allow me to ask those respected ladies, do most actresses who indulge in item numbers, performing at times overly hideous gyrations, some sort of a role model? There is a demand for such “items” because that satiates the hypocritical society’s lust for skin and suggestive lyrics.
I am no Sherlock Holmes either, but what I found strange was the confession of the killer on live television in a press conference. How often do you see other killers making such confessions? The overly active social media was active enough to publish the photos of the final remains. Where an idiot like me could see that there were marks of physical torture on her face. Why would someone who claims that he drugged her and then strangled her while she was unconscious, indulge in torture to someone who was seemingly dead anyway?
There was the pious moon-gazer who wanted to reform the deceased by marrying her and meet her in the privacy of the hotel in the holy month. People found that meeting overly offensive, because after all it was in the holy month. So it implies that had it been any other month and people were not fasting then this meeting would not be so offensive. That mega hypocrite moon-gazer is now forewarning others not to point fingers towards pious religious scholars, or they would face a similar wrath from up above.
Strange, bizarre, shameful but this is the real face of our society. Whoever dares to question its hypocrisies is either terminated, or termed as a traitor or irreligious or impious. Lucky are those who earn such scornful titles as at least they are honest to themselves and their Creator.
The writer is a Pakistani-US mortgage banker. He can be reached at [email protected]. He tweets at http://twitter.com/dasghar