So Much For A Smooch

In an environment where warm embraces lead to cold-blooded arms races and handshakes at Wagah are a prelude to the Kargil saga, we must remember this: a kiss is not a kiss. It's yet another strategic pass that must be defended. When fundamentalists and their cohorts—the funded mentalists of the press—are threatening to scale the abandoned ramparts of reason, 'the fundamental things' will not apply, as time goes by. Even if we ask Uncle Sam to play it again, mediatively.

But we are to blame. The kiss has long been banished as an art form and as an expression of affection in our cinema. Lovers cannot pay lip service. In cinema the birds do it, the flowers do it, nodding suggestively together, raising the pollen count, just as the hero and heroine are about to get their first whiff of Close-Up confidence. It's all so much mouthwash of the porcine variety!

This hypocrisy's not only come home to roost—it's terrorised the poultry farm. The silly season lasts the whole year round, with no let up, no asylum. Mindblowing winds stir up the dirt and deposit it on our front pages. Yellow's the colour of somebody's dirt and somebody's hurt. Khushwant Singh will probably include this incident in his repertoire of very, very Sikh jokes. Jehangir Qazi will dread opening his diplomatic pouch, bursting with hate mail with the choicest expletives undeleted. His poor daughter will never turn the other cheek, especially if a cheeky old Sardar's lurking in the shadows. But there've been others whose innocence has been grist for the paper mills. And there will be more so long as reason stays a synonym for treason.

Shabana Azmi was told to adhere to emotional apartheid when she kissed Mandela. If Winnie didn't say Pooh, why should anyone object? When Madiha Gohar, Pakistani theatre's dragon lady, embraced Gujral, it caused eyebrows and blood pressures to rise.

Poor ImRa(m) Khan had to undergo agni-pariksha for cavorting with his Sita. When Daler Mehndi came visiting here he was ambushed by Punjabi starlets who kissed his robust cheeks and went away with evidence of this rash action singing Tara ra ra all the way to moral oblivion.

Atiqa Odho and Reema, two popular actresses, were summoned to a Senate parliamentary committee for the crime of singing Dil Dil Pakistan, Jan Jan Hindustan in Antakshari. Had they sung off-key, one would've understood. Junoon only recently got rehabilitated, courtesy, according to sustainable rumours, the army chief who is the father-in-law of the director of Sayonee, the International Goofy Group's music video. A chastened Junoon sang patriotic songs on PTV in honour of the martyrs of Kargil, thus dismounting from the high horse of detente and reunification. What awaits them in India now is anybody's guess. Meanwhile, everyone's favourite king of tragedy, Dilip Kumar, found himself dangling in the medal of a controversy. If Iqbal had been around he would be hauled up for writing Saare jahan se achha, Hindustan hamara. Pretty poor judgement for a poet who dreamt up Pakistan, it must be admitted. China is quite annoyed at his peculiar claim that Cheen-o-Arab was also hamara, not counting countless West Asian potentates who question his poetic annexation.

It's all a culture thing. Pakistan's been under attack for a while now from Madhuri Dixit and her ilk. Their navel bombardment's unrelenting. India's defence against Ghauri are its delectable Gauris. The more flesh we see, the more we force our public face behind the veil. We must be different. In our parent's days, Pakistanis collectively winced when Nargis went all Aah at Raj Kapoor or Waheeda looked with Pyaasa eyes at Guru Dutt, or Meena Kumari, Nimmi and Surayya cavorted with Dharmendra, Premnath, Dev Anand. The original Muslim hot spice girls behaving badly. These days there's a swagger in the steps of the post-Partition generation. The Khans of the Indian screen are doing the right thing: turning Hindu lasses into quivering masses. Of course, the themes still annoy. What was Manisha doing in Bombay in her sexy burqa? What were they trying to say in Henna? How could that Khanna boy even think of converting to Hinduism in Earth? (The conversion rate's tilted in favour of India these days, stupid.) For obvious reasons, Earth was shot in Delhi pretending to be Lahore and had Javed Akhtar's lyrics that were pure Muslim social Lucknow. So much Garam Hawa, yaar. Tragically, the distances are growing. We are now caricatures. When we meet we refuse to conform to our stereotypes. Two nations separated by the same language. Amar and Akbar separated at birth while Perfidious Anthony washes his Pontifical Pilate clean at a safe distance. Two nations divided by a kiss.

THE English language newspapers in Pakistan are, by and large, unmoved by the earth-shattering peck that shook the guttural press. Most liberals (those who indulge in mmmah type air kisses at social dysfunctions) don't like Qazi. He was the one who sent in a damning report that served as a pretext for Najam Sethi's mindless incarceration. Serves him right, argued one columnist. He got his just desserts with this kisshap. The Urdu press is taunting and hitting below the Equator. If our daughters have to be given away on a platter, why not to Clinton? At least we'll get our next tranche from the IMF. (Joke: What have Nawaz and Monica got in common? They both go to Clinton on bended knees.)

So what's to be done? What detergent can be used to combat centuries of brainwashing? It's the censor board's fault. Send them to Ajanta on a fact-finding mission. They might end up, hopefully, kissing in action. Perhaps to clear the air, Khushwant Singh can write to Nawaz Sharif in thet Punjabi, advising him to visit Amethi and blow a fatherly kiss in the general direction of Priyanka. After all, his previous actions might have won Vajpayee the elections. Congress could do with a Nawaz intervention. 'Kiss(a) khatam!'

(The writer is a senior editor of The News in Pakistan.)