Twirp : Terrorist Wahabi Islamic Republic Pakistan 3

[Naresh]

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[center]<b><span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'>The Bollywoodisation of Pakistan</span></b>[/center]

Ayesha Nasir

India-Pak relations have once again soured but Pakistan's infatuation with all things Indian continues full throttle, says Ayesha Nasir

Sana Khan, 26, is engrossed in preparing for her upcoming wedding, planned for mid-December. She’s made the rounds of most designer shops in Lahore, checked out the collections of all prominent jewellers in the city and has begun putting herself through soothing facials and body massages, guaranteed to make her glow on the big day.

But Khan, who works as an advertising executive and earns about $650 per month, has yet to venture into the most important part of her bridal shopping – a trip to India. “I am planning to buy at least 50 per cent of my dowry from Delhi and Jaipur,” she said, giggling with joy at the prospect of a shopping spree in India. “I may even order my bridal there.”

Humaira Khawaja, 27, whose brother recently got married in Lahore, has a word of advice for Khan: one trip may not be enough. She herself made three trips to India during the run-down to her brother’s event. The first to choose clothes and jewels for the engagement; the second to pick up the stuff and place orders for the wedding; and the third to pick up stuff for the wedding. “All our clothes came from India,” Khawaja, who works with her father at his carpet factory, declared proudly. “All the clothes we gave the bride were Indian, her jewellery came from India and all of our clothes - meaning my sister, nieces, mother – also came from India.”

<b>Her reason for preferring stuff from across the border is simple : “Their workmanship and design elements are so much better than ours. We are nowhere close to them.”</b>

At a time when relations between India and Pakistan have once again soured – with both sides blaming each other for recent terrorist attacks - the Bollywood-isation of Pakistan is continuing at full throttle. <b>“The effect of Indian culture on our culture is undeniable and it’s constantly increasing,” said Amjad Islam Amjad, a cultural commentator based in Lahore. “We’re so much in awe of them that in every aspect of our culture we bow down to them, whether it’s imitating their clothes or dances.”</b>

While Indian culture is peacefully taking over Pakistani culture, the two countries have shared a hostile past. Since the Partition of 1947, when the British Raj dismantled its empire, the neighbours have shared a troubled history. For many years they’ve remained arch rivals and have fought two wars – in 1961 and 1975. In May 1999, the Kargil offensive surfaced when India launched air strikes against Pakistan-supported troops present in Indian-controlled Kashmir, north of Kargil. During the stand-off, thousands of shells were fired every day and about 50,000 people became homeless on either side of the border.

<b>“The Kargil offensive completely ruptured relationships between Pakistan and India,” said Rasool Baksh Raees, a political analysts and professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. “It has taken us years to mend the situation and the wounds are still fresh.”

Since 1999, numerous people-to-people initiatives have taken place, including bus-travels, cricket matches, joint-productions in movies and fashion shows of designers from both countries. All these moves led to an acceleration of the Bollywoodisation of Pakistan.

“Their culture is more developed, stronger and more powerful than ours,” said Amjad. “Also, they’ve marketed themselves so well that it’s easy for us to believe they are better.”</b>

In Pakistani cinemas, Indian films draw huge audiences while the majority of local productions play to empty or half-filled houses. The popularity of Bollywood celebrities in Pakistan is such that event managers prefer booking Indian actresses and models to Pakistani celebrities – even though it means paying them ten times the price of a local entertainer. At street stalls, vendors market glass bangles by naming them after popular Indian television shows.

Hajra Hayat, a couture fashion designer who is renowned for her heavily embellished bridal outfits, recently became convinced of the Bollywood-isation of Pakistan when she attended a holi function during a friend’s wedding. Holi, a festival where attendees throw coloured powder at each other, is a prominent feature of Indian culture. Recently, the Pakistani elite have begun celebrating holis as part of their wedding extravaganzas.

<b>“To some extent, we’re awestruck by the Indians, more so now than before, which is a testament to the great job their media is doing in marketing their culture,” said Hayat. “I sometimes get brides asking for an outfit to be made in the same colours as the ones that Ashwariya Rai or Kareena Kapoor wore in a certain Indian film. I never get requests from a bride inspired by a Pakistani actress.”

Cultural expert and short story writer Afra Bukhari says Pakistanis are eager to imitate the Indians because they are progressing at a faster rate than we are. “Their economy is doing better than ours, their political situation is more stable than ours and they are held in greater esteem by the rest of the world,” said Bukhari. “We believe imitating them would help us do better too.”</b>

But event manager Ayesha Meezan says sometimes the urge to imitate goes too far. “We often get couples eager to get the Devdas look for their weddings,” she said. (Devdas is a popular Indian film based on an epic tale of love.) “They’re not even willing to consider a theme more indigenous to Pakistan.”

Ever since the new Pakistani government took over after the February 18 elections, relations between the two nations have been strained. Pakistan blames India for supporting the insurgency in Baluchistan, while India blames Pakistan for terrorist attacks on its soil. Worsening the situation are skirmishes over water which are becoming a regular feature in talks between the two countries.

But while the two countries are playing the blame-game, Khan has turned a blind eye to politics. “These two nations have always been at each other’s throats,” she said. “But the people have always been interacting with each other easily. Whatever is going on between the two countries won’t affect my decision to go to India to shop, and neither should it."

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