Daily Times

Pakistani cinema is said to be experiencing somewhat of a revival. Indeed, it has given us gems such as ‘Ho Mann Jahan’, ‘Na Maloom Afraad’ among others. All of which afford us Pakistanis some light-hearted comedy and a good time. Yet this same industry has also given us ‘Chain Aye Na’, a film that dresses up misogyny in the false robes of romantic drama.

Sadly, ‘Punjab Nahi Jaungi’ is of a similar vein.

From the get-go, it does its best to perpetuate cultural stereotypes with an extra dose of misogyny thrown in for good measure. And there is nothing haphazard about this. For as the film unfolds, audiences are treated to more of the same – with the added ‘frisson’ of violence against women – as all these go on to become major plot points.

From the moment the supposedly loveable cad Fawad fills up the screen, he bombards us with one sexist comment after the other. Retreating to the roof with his pals to celebrate his newly acquired Masters degree, the conversation quickly turns to “girls from the city” and, particularly, those who were at this college; the “inviting” and “easy” ones. After essentially slut-shaming his female classmates – Fawad then goes on to boast of how many approached him. All to the raucous approval of his friends. What else can we expect, director Nadeem Beyg appears to ask, from the grandson of feudal lord?

Enter Amal, the female lead. She appears to be everything that Fawad is not. In other words, a modern foreign graduate from London. Inevitably, all it takes is just one glance at a photograph of her for our ‘hero’ to fall hard. And in his entitled male mind, this makes the match a done deal. However, the poor soul doesn’t factor into the equation that Amal is a young woman who knows her own heart and mind. Thus imagine his utter surprise when, in an assertion of emotional independence, she rejects his declaration of love. Naturally, this is an affront to his pride and he responds in the only way he knows: by being aggressively clingy. Never mind that Amal has stopped what never started, choosing to stay with her boyfriend from London.

Then comes Fawad’s masterstroke. He offers her all his wealth and moments later, as if by magic, there they are all married and shimmying along to an item number. That Amal is suddenly bowled over only serves to further cement notions that ‘no’ means ‘yes’ when coming from a woman. Taken to the extreme – this translates into men rendering irrelevant a woman’s consent.

Of course, Fawad can make such a ‘gesture’ being from a wealthy feudal background. Which brings us to the film’s handling of cultural stereotypes. There is a difference between portraying such representations before calling them out and simply perpetuating them to play to the cheap seats. Yet this is a nuance that appears lost on the director. For Nadeem Beyg has opted for the former. In the ‘Punjab Nai Jaungi’ microcosm, Punjabi families are depicted as being largely feudal. In other words, backwards in nature, illiterate and prone to womanising. All of which naturally lies in sharp contrast to Karachi-ites as being uber-modern-24-hour-party-people.

From the moment the supposedly loveable cad Fawad fills up the screen, he bombards us with one sexist comment after the other. Retreating to the roof with his pals to celebrate his newly acquired Masters degree, the conversation quickly turns to ‘girls from the city’ and, particularly, those who were at this college; the ‘inviting’ and ‘easy’ ones. After essentially slut-shaming his female classmates — Fawad then goes on to boast of how many approached him. All to the raucous approval of his friends. What else can we expect, director Nadeem Beyg appears to ask, from the grandson of feudal lord?

Yet all of the above, as deeply problematic as it is, pales into insignificance as the audience approaches the film’s most irresponsible plot turn. Fast-forward a little and we find that the unlovable cad is even more so. Fawad is seen cosying up to his cousin, a woman in whom he was never interested. Unfortunately, Amal happens to stumble upon them. An argument erupts over Fawad’s obvious disregard for sincerity. He responds by slapping Amal across the face. As this scene played out in the cinema it was met with gasps from the few young children who were in the audience. Yet most alarmingly, this same scene elicited loud shrieks of “very good” from a group of young men seated mere rows away.

Pakistan is a country where violence committed by men against women runs rampant. It is also a country where women are supposed to sit back and shut up. And this is exactly why my, for me, that the above scene was literally heart stopping. Especially as those behind the film thought it would be a good idea to give a little comic relief here – which, to my immense surprise, was well received by the audience. Thus so deeply does the patriarchy prevail that any scenes of violence against women are trivialised because we’re only women? And, women, in turn, end up internalising this to such an extent that violence becomes a secondary issue. Thus is Amal more upset at the suggestion of Fawad’s infidelity than being slapped? It is this internalisation that prompts one woman to mock another in a bid to appear to be the ‘cool girl’. This happens when Fawad asks his cousin if she would have left the house over something as trite as a slap. “Of course not, I would have said ‘once more, please’.” And with that failingly coquettish reply – we have the romanticising of male violence.

Had both the director and scriptwriter been interested in treating these themes with just a little seriousness, they might have succeeded in mainstreaming a conversation that is too often left to the perceived exclusionary zones of feminism or social activism.

But they weren’t.

Thus what ‘Punjab Nai Jaungi’ has given us is little more than a series of misplaced jokes, some of which hint at a family history of womanising and physical abuse. It matters very much who gets to make such wisecracks. When a woman on the receiving end of violence does so, it is likely a coping mechanism. When a man meting out such behaviour does so – he is abdicating responsibility for his actions.

If we are to take this gross fetishising of the male ego as indication of a revival of Pakistani cinema – then, I for one, don’t buy it. And neither should you.

The writer graduated from Northwestern University in Qatar and is currently an Assistant Editor at Daily Times

Published in Daily Times, September 24^th 2017.