Daily Times

Trust me when you’ve taught English at a public sector institute for 10 years, you’ve got to have a soft spot for Taher Shah. His lyrics are an affront to the English language, but you do get a faint sense of what he’s trying to enunciate. It has something to do with man being an angel or perhaps having the ability to transcend himself on the way to becoming one. It’s a good idea. Only if he hadn’t thought of it.

But Shah is more than a male mermaid, or a hippopotamus with chest hair. He takes the English language and uses it to convey what goes on inside his head. He probably gives a horse’s rear to the formality that what you say has to make sense linguistically. Why the blazes does he want to sing in English? Probably, because he takes it as an achievement. We made him think that. We have to Anglicise ourselves to look and sound chic. Basit Jafar likes to be called BJ. Muzamil next door likes to call himself a ‘rock star’ not a mausikaar (musician). To speak English is divine even if it doesn’t always hit the mark. What I mean to say is some utterances in our national and regional languages carry a flavor that is lost when you try to convey the thought in English. I quote TV host Naeem Bokhari here. He once said that you might feel the urgent need to address someone as a ‘mule’ or a ‘donkey’, or an ‘ass’. The problem is, none of these words manages to convey the true nuance of the endearing term ‘khota’ (donkey in Punjabi). Khota is sublime; mule and donkey are not.

It is largely true that you think in the language you are most fluent in — your mother tongue mostly. With English being an official requirement, most students at public sector educational institutions think in the mother tongue and then proceed to translate the thought into English. Resultantly, you have phrases that hardly make sense when uttered in English. Thought is embellished by language, but, more importantly, it is often shaped by language. Expanding your vocabulary in the language you are required to use makes you more articulate and enhances your ability to make an argument. If you are required to speak in and write a language in which you are not conversant, it will inhibit your ability to think. In other words, a low level of proficiency in the English language in Pakistan often results in apparent low levels of intelligence. What normally passes for intelligence here is the ability to cram information and reproduce from memory. The language limitation has been impeding intellectual development for a long time now.

With public sector institutes on one end of the spectrum, you have expensive elitist private ones on the other. Here you have another class of students. These are people who grow up watching animated movies, discuss Game of Thrones, hum the latest Adele number and make abundant fun of Taher Shah (it doesn’t come across as cruel because somewhere down the line, he asked for it). But it also points towards a deeper malaise. Making fun of someone just because they can’t speak a foreign language can’t be right either. Should we dismiss Mr. Shah for his hideous wardrobe? Lady Gaga often dresses up more bizarrely.

Make fun of Shah all you want, but let’s stop pretending his tune isn’t catchy. Remove the lyrics from Angel; aren’t you left with something hummable? Here’s another idea. Don’t remove the lyrics; just utter them in a foreign accent. It’s a different thing altogether — I mean ‘ool-to-gethaa’ as in a fake British accent. Allow me to demonstrate.

In 1990 the heavy metal band Scorpions released Send me an Angel. It was an instant hit and has been their signature number for over two decades. Here is an excerpt from the lyrics:

Here I am/Will you send me an angel?/Here I am/In the land of the morning star/The wise man said just find your place/In the eye of the storm/Seek the roses along the way/Just beware of the thorns.

Now read an excerpt from Taher Shah:

We can all be angels/A human [is] like an angel/Shines as a star/The angel’s character speaks like a flower/The stars are decorated by angels/Like the dew feels petals of a flower/All angels remain quiet/Like those flower[s] that persist silent

Is he that bad? What if he crooned these words with an accent? Sure, Shah’s video is hilarious. But it’s fun. Why else do we watch TV? Let me take this opportunity to take a wager on Mr Shah. Those of you who’ve seen George Bernard Shaw’s stage play Pygmalion, or its 1964 film version My Fair Lady will get a better idea of what I’m about to say. Six months with me, and Taher Shah will warble his next lyrics in Queen’s English. I am not a musician, so I can’t guarantee it’s going to be a smashing composition. Also, don’t expect the voice quality to improve, ditto for the hairdo and make up. I’m sure he’s going to insist on using his friends and family in the video. And I won’t be able to prevent him from dressing up as Batman. But when he serenades in RP English, the two of us are going to have the last laugh.

The writer is a lecturer in English Literature at Government College University, Lahore. He can be reached at sameeropinion@gmail.com