The Sheep Dilemma

One typical Karachi afternoon; I’m sitting in a predominantly male company listening to predominantly ‘popular rock and grunge metal’ and a die-hard fan puts on a latest Nirvana release (the band is no more, Cobain is no more, this song is a highly touted after death release). Anyway, the O-o-Oh-this-song-kicks-ass starts and after a while I can’t take it anymore. I inform them this particular item has to be the worst offering all its hype and hoopla has given, it lacks element, it lacks Good Music, in short, not good enough…
“Yeah, you go tell Nirvana that, that they weren’t good enough…” (loud male guffaws, What-does-bimbo-female-know-about-music sniggering).

I decide to hold my peace, I can’t compete with that now can I. What do I know about music? One, I’m female. Two, I slandered Nirvana (holy cow). Three, I have a brain and I use it to distinguish between good art and bad art regardless of the artist’s name.

Sound good enough reasons for the returns I get yeah? Sue me!

One typical Karachi evening: out with friends. We’re eating out. We often eat out. Karachiites are very big on recreation: They all often eat out. (Cut the crap madiha). Okay, so we’re at this hip place having this ultimately hip looking and hip-sounding fancy French meal that constitutes of too little portions for too much dough, and tastes like stale and undercooked lizard meat. No, I haven’t had fresher well-cooked lizard meat, but I can fairly predict it would be more delectable compared to this fare. I long for a simple chicken handi or a big fat Mr Burger with Cheese. I keep my longings to myself, though. I’ve paid for this shit; it’s incumbent upon me to enjoy it now. And hey, eating here has its perks you know. Uh…good air-conditioning, peaceful surroundings, there’s a nice piece of abstract art on the wall that looks like…never mind, and this is a very pretty table cloth you know! Did I mention this place is the latest hippest hangout for Karachi hip boys and girls? Oh you think I use the word Hip too much? Well screw you. Bloody paindu with no taste for good food…good eat-outs that is.

The word Paindu reminds me of Yet Another Typical Karachi afternoon. Location: cafeteria of a local business school. My classmates are having this deeply intellectual discussion on the importance of foreign brand names to a privileged Pakistani youth’s life. I vaguely hear the words Nike, Gucci, Adidas, Nine West, Harrods fly about as I try to staple my assignment. My bosom buddy announces in pride: “Did I tell you guys I once ended up dressing in Adidas Head-To-Toe at school without even realizing it! I mean, head to toe…did it ever happen to you?” I cast a sober look at my bosom buddy. She looked normal when we met, should’ve known. The discussion proceeds to the paindu angrezi accent and the resultant intelligence deficiencies of one of the classmates and loud snickering follows. The kid finished top of the class in accounting class the last I heard. But the poor guy really can’t put two sentences together without tripping. There must be something seriously wrong with him. Look at all these self-satisfied smart-asses after all. They, who would rather die than read the Urdu daily paper, who would sing along the latest rock tune every morning and exchange news on the latest (hip) hangout in town, who know the new mall on the block to be the next best thing to heaven. They just know it all. All signs why they should succeed in life before the idiot who can’t hold his angrezi together.

Let’s start the count. One, you consider me another of those stuck-up I-hate-the-world wry-eyed pricks with a problem with everything good in the world. Two, you’re still wondering what my point is after all this. (Okay, nice having you here, have a nice day now). Three, you agree with me on just one teeny-weeny little thing: I’m surrounded by imbeciles.

There is nothing more irritating than an imbecile on a bandwagon, trust me. I’m not a prick, I’m just concerned about where my world is going for God knows, it doesn’t know itself. Ever seen a herd of sheep following the guardian who steers them to this side of the path and to that side of the path with a mere stick. For all the idiot sheep knows, it would be following the guardian into a ditch and it would gladly do. This is what honest to goodness trust is all about. And being brainless. What the popular culture has done to attain and deserve this trust from the modern educated Pakistani person is beyond me.

Wherever I go today, I just HAVE to meet another of those alarmingly-increasing-in-number pseudo intellectual freak-shows with all the latest best selling Kamila Shamsie and Bapsi Sidhwa literature up their sleeves as one could imagine, all unanimous on good music, good literature, good food, good IDEAS for God’s sake. How do a million people become unanimous on tastes and preferences? How can three million people like the same art with exactly the same degree of passion, or at least tell themselves that they do? Cult classics change the way the world thinks. Why? Why does the ‘cult’ keep expanding and expanding? And am I the only one here to realize if the human brain has become so tepid and devoid of originality as to be incapable of differing with the cult, so help me God, humanity is going to dogs!
We wear popular, we like popular, and we live popular. We all sound like a bunch of cursed idiots to me…there’s a movie on TV. I HATE it. But it won an Oscar, madiha! So? I always thought beauty is all about perception, if you think pigs are beautiful, doesn’t mean you don’t have an eye for beauty, just means you have a different criteria of what it should be, period. Nobody has a right to tell you you’re retarded, if somebody does, they’re expecting you to follow their own standards and they deserve being told to go to hell. If I don’t think the greatest best selling classic is that great, does it make me less intelligent than I am? Or even, my admitting I don’t like the profound poetry of Keats for it bloody hell depresses me and goes over my head makes me stupid? I might lack concentration and a taste for depressing profound poetry, but at least I don’t read Keats because I should and because it’s integral to having a good taste in poetry.

In short, I see a dire need for people to start realizing their own, original selves can exist without having to co-exist in shared philosophies and ideals. The curs’t fashion designer with bad color coordination and overdone outfits can go to hell if you don’t like his clothes, no matter how Nadia Mistry or Deepak Perwani he or she is. If your ears ache after the latest ultimately cool black metal band played, TO HELL WITH IT. LISTEN TO SINATRA OR SOMETHING. Perhaps that’s what you would have liked in the first place if you were listening to yourself!

The truth is, if there are too many people praising something and too many people in love with something at the same time, to me, there becomes something automatically seriously wrong with that thing. Be suspicious. Suspicious is good. Better than being mindless after the norm and coming out the Nobody with Everybody stamped on you.