Daily Times

As a rule, travelling abroad is a safe and pleasurable endeavour, especially if the tourist is a young, westbound, Pakistani male who is on his own. First, it is important to know that the Pakistani definition of the west is a little different and by no means can it be confused with a geographical position nor can it be referred to an imaginary place where the sun sets. For us, the west can be anywhere in the world, even in paradise, as long as it has the abundance of the four infamous Ws: women, wine and more wine and more women. So, for this visitor, we can assume that by heading in the ‘right’ direction, he intends to have the time of his life, or the time he intends to have in his afterlife.

Let us now focus on the measures he has undertaken to achieve his targets. We can agree that his first and foremost objective should be to protect himself — mostly from Pakistanis. As usual, our advice to every Pakistani who intends to stay safe is this: as soon as you plan to leave the motherland you should do everything and anything to ‘look different’. The purpose behind adopting some radical changes to your look is to hide your nationality, which in turn guarantees your safety. You can dye your hair red (please avoid henna; it reveals more about you than it conceals), golden or purple and use coloured contact lenses. Trying ‘fair and lovely’ for the first time (officially) even when you are a male is not a bad idea — it can bring a special shine to your skin even if it does not lighten it up. Similarly, facial bleach can also help regardless of your gender since, at least for a few days, it can bring down the tone of your skin by a couple of shades. If you have a Deobandi-style beard, which means a long untrimmed stubble hanging below your waistline without a mustache, then I must say, you have to pick one of the two choices: you may want to change your destination to the Middle-East or it has to go. At the very least, it needs to be converted into a Saudi-style beard, which is mostly known in Pakistan as the ‘French cut’ or ‘goatee’.

On the other hand, if you are a typical chauvinistic Pakistani male who keeps a big, black oily and curvy mustache spread across half of your face as the marker of your manhood, then I must apologise to you yet again because it has to be erased urgently too. No decent male carries such a ‘bootilicious’ thing on top of their mouth nowadays. Trust me, a typical mustache can relay a big clue about your identity, even more than the odour of the mustard oil on your hair and much more than the scent of fried cumin from your clothes or the fresh breeze of sautéed onions from your mouth when you speak.

After concealing your identity, the second part of this two-pronged strategy to ensure your safety is to stay away from all Pakistanis all the time once you are out of the country. A single moment of negligence can be fatal if you falter. We understand that in a land where no one speaks your language, you will be attracted to a person who looks like you — dishevelled, untidy, brown, fat and ugly — hoping to make conversation. However, ‘research’ has consistently shown that he is going to be far more dangerous for you than anyone else in the world, even more than the ‘Jews’. So, if you have not taken the first step to move towards him yet, then hold back and think about the devastating consequences: loss of money, time, energy, maybe even safety, or all of them.

If you do not have a choice and you absolutely have to make conversation with another Pakistani, then please try to make it as short as possible because the longer you are going to stay with your country fellow, the higher are your chances of future problems. The measures that you have to undertake before this conversation are as follows: never give your true name, correct telephone number or the real city of your origin. Although I know it is hard to hide your ethnicity, be it Punjabi, Pashtun or Bihari, still there is no harm in trying to conceal that as well.

Additionally, for your own safety do not disclose your profession, your marital status, number of children, the profession of your father or the city where your parents currently live. These are little clues that people gather to complete the sketch before they pounce on you. Furthermore, make sure that during a three minute conversation you have mentioned your close association with some influential politicians, well known generals and high ranking bureaucrats even if it is not true. Your connections or even the suspicion of your connections will make the other person think twice before he tries to scam you with his tricks.

The only exception to these rules is that the Pakistani you are planning to talk is not a man. In that case, you can freely and unashamedly share your personal information including your phone number, address, profession and career achievements. You can try to engage in a conversation for as long as you wish or she wishes to continue. Just show her your charms, the charms of a Pakistani man when he tries to be funny, pretends to be an intellectual and acts like a liberal when he is in fact none of them. The point is that you do whatever it takes to continue your ‘friendship’ with her for a long time, way beyond your short acquaintance at the airport. She needs to experience the company of a Pakistani man in her life to realise how crooked a man can be and how difficult life can be with him.

The writer is a US-based freelance columnist. He tweets @KaamranHashmi and can be reached at skamranhashmi@gmail.com