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I can’t laugh anymore
Some days I just can’t bring myself to be funny. To be fair, according to the emails that inundate my inbox every...
The writer is a standup comedian (sami.shah@tribune.com.pk)
Some days I just can’t bring myself to be funny. To be fair, according to the emails that inundate my inbox every week like so much oil in the Gulf, I am never funny. Maybe it’s true. Maybe, I am that guy in your office who thinks he is the resident wit but is actually just plain annoying. Unfortunately, I still think I’m hilarious and that means you will have to tolerate me a little longer. That is until someone in human resources finds out about my using the office computer to download porn.
Regardless, finding the funny can be difficult some days. It can be nigh impossible even. Those are the days when the regular shenanigans of the professional buffoons in political office can’t distract me from the tragedy that is Pakistan today. I can only laugh so much, until the tears start becoming real. I wish, for example, that I could make up some jokes about Hillary Clinton’s recent visit. Perhaps something about how her latest charitable donation of $500 million is much appreciated even if it is written on a cheque made directly out to the president. Or, maybe, I could work up a bit about how the recent talks between Pakistan and India’s foreign ministers were about as likely to succeed as… well… talks between Pakistan and India. It’s bad when the best metaphor for time wastage you can come up with is the actual activity responsible for wasting time in the first place. I could even have made this a column about how we all apparently spend too much time Googling sex acts with farm animals. I had a wonderfully hilarious – I thought so – column thought up about how, maybe, people aren’t trying to decide the best way of responding to the amorous advances of their livestock but were instead simply trying to learn more about the distinguishing features that define gender. Get it? Goat Sex as in: What is the Sex of the Goat? Ha. Ha. I slay me.
But I can’t write those columns. Not today. Maybe next week, although given how things just get worse week after week, day after day, maybe not even then. I can’t bring the funny, so to speak, because I am too full of anger. Too full of hate. I am brimming with rage. How can I not be? How can you not be? How can I do anything but pound the walls with my fists because all day long I’ve been trying not to think about the final moments of a four-year-old girl who was raped and strangled because she wanted to go buy some chips in the middle of a sunny day. Or about the nurse who tried so desperately to stem the sexual advances of a repugnant creature given authority and power over her by whatever vile political party he was associated with. I’ve been trying not to think of how the only way she could save herself was by nearly killing herself.
There is the milkman who was shot dead in Karachi because he didn’t want to involve himself in politics. I try to stop thinking of his four children coming to terms with the absence in their lives brought about because he simply wanted to run a business. I cannot think about the murder of two Christian brothers shot dead after being framed for committing blasphemy. I cannot think about it because I can only rage at the self-indulgent stupidity that would make anyone believe that blasphemy is still being done in Pakistan. These are just some of the stories that make me bite down on my own arm to keep from screaming. There are so many more like them. Every day we find new ways of creating horror.
So there can be no jokes from me today. No comedy. Because I can’t laugh with a mouth full of blood.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 22nd, 2010.
Reader Comments (46)
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best yet.Recommend
Wow (In a good way)Recommend
its not just you……its many hundreds out there sami who feel the same way….and you have put it into words in the best way possible…..Recommend
Your article has perfectly articulated how myself and countless others feel. Our country is going to the dogs and no one can do much about it. It is the most horrible, helpless, powerless feeling in the world. God help us. Some one help us because we arent about to help ourselves..Recommend
We’re living in terrible, terrible times.Recommend
Mikhail Gorbachev put it right: “Life has a way of punishing those who come too late.” And yet some think we are getting there. A good piece. One should be able to laugh at criticism also.Recommend
ExactlyRecommend
Exactly how I feel.Recommend
im speechlessRecommend
“Because I can’t laugh with a mouth full of blood”Recommend
Simply excellent…Recommend
Excellent expression.Recommend
Atleast you are thinking about it. But the question is Mr Sami…what are you going to do about all of the above?
See the “pen is mightier than the sword” is as true as gold at the end of rainbows. You are at the doorstep of change and you can be the catalyst for change(Not really).
Your a smart person and feeling hopless or expressing the same in words isnt helpful to you, me, that nurse, that kid, and every other person that suffers everyday. What you can do is give direction, guidance and a way out of the carnage. Be the fire fighter rather than a critic.
You know its easy to just criticize the system or sulk all day long funny man but doing something is the hard part. However in all likelihood you will be cracking jokes by the end of the week according to your piece above which makes me think can you really recover from instances like gangrape of a nurse after a week or were you just pretending? I’ll give you a week to be funny about this.Recommend
No minority member in full sanity will ever dream of blasphemy against the Holy Prophet if Islam (PBUH). All such charges are invariably misuse of the unique law which does not exist in most civil countries of the world.
Like adultery there should be four witnesses for blasphemy charge and in case of it not being proved, there should be punishment for bring in a false charge.Recommend
Tony Khan: I am sure it is not your real name. Is it? But really, I think blasphemy law should be abolished. I am reminded of what Mark Twain said about moral highhandedness of conservative religion, “Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion—-several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother’s path to happiness and heaven.”
Unfortunatey others have learned their lesson and have taken the path of enlightenment and secularism, Pakistan is getting deeper into muddy waters of intolerance and violence. We are even scared to condemn it by identifying the real cause of this lunacy.Recommend
Excellent piece of writing.Recommend
what a sadden state that we r in…..u seem to be wise enough….what we had to do…to get out of this mess….Recommend
wow.Recommend
Great column this week: you’ve covered the rather bleak current scenario in what I would say is close to a literary masterpiece. It made me remember the heartbreaking but beautiful poem “The Child Dancing” by Gwendolyn MacEwen.Recommend
Sad, but true.Recommend
We can’t laugh with a mouth full of blood.Recommend
Is it just me? Or does everyone age faster in this town?Recommend
“the tragedy that is Pakistan today”
looks like our media and all its puppets have made it the purpose of their lives to spread negativity in the country. the states you think aren’t a tragedy have in fact worse crimes going on. but we simple love to criticize our country and make people believe that things are worse than they actually are. shallow shallow thinking!Recommend
All those in favor on nominating Sami for a Pulitzer Prize say aye!
I going on http://www.pulitzer.org/
and submitting this very awesome link for Sami. He didn’t ask me to, for like all great works, the creator never expects an award. And that makes all the differenceRecommend
well done !Recommend
spot on.Recommend
:) i agree with ali h.Recommend
so true…cant agree more..this actually brought tears in my eyesRecommend
LADY X – Is it just me? Or does everyone age faster in this town?
I saw 10, and I’ve been raised 50! So yeah, I guess people do age faster in this god forsaken town.Recommend
“Every day we find new ways of creating horror.”Recommend
well written, so true and so sad..Recommend
Excellent piece Sami. Love the last line.Recommend
its things like the ones happening in our society that make you just want to go out there and take justice in your own hands.. the situation is so sad though that sometimes i wonder if batman could actually come to life and make karachi his gotham city. It may be a silly thought but it just goes to show how much faith an average citizen like myself has in the authorities that are supposed to prevent this barbarian display that people are capable of displaying. It makes you want to fight fire with fire but that only adds to the fire, so then what do you do? how do you stop this insanity that has taken over the people of this country, why and how are people convinced that blowing up a mosque, a place thats identified as the home of God, with His worshippers in it will lead you to being shown the gates of Heaven by that same God?
We’ve all been prisoners too long, its time we did what the citizens of NYC did when things got out of hand back in the day, act as vigilantes because the ones who are supposed to look after our society will never do so. Just yesterday i was on the road with a car going ahead of me which had protocol backing it up. It was a narrow road and the drivers were driving far too slow, just as i tried to get on the side to overtake the cars because i was in a hurry, i had three guards sticking out of the hilux pointing theirs guns at me. This wasn’t even a government official and the guards were just oridinary men, civilians, not even police. What day and age have we come to? However small this problem may be, i just wanted to share it because it adds to the frustration and because of how wrong this act was based on the principles of society.Recommend
This, is what you call a column.Recommend
Couldn’t have said it better..Recommend
Great ColumnRecommend
Aren’t you supposed to be a comedian?
I can read plenty of news articles to make me feel miserable, I read yours to make me laugh. What a disappointment.Recommend
I have always looked to you to see (as well as show me) the lighter/darker side of every situation using humour. But to see you write such a visceral piece, has broken my heart. Makes me feel hopeless that wit has betrayed even you, and helpless that I can’t fix it. shudderRecommend
very emotionalRecommend
Congratulations Mr. Sami. You have a rare gift. You acknowledge, feel, attribute your emotions to certain happening etc but of someone other than yourself. How many of us actually do that anymore. Its not ‘in’ nowadays to comprehend such emotions because today we only feel what we want to and the rest just becomes ‘live & let live’. So Bravo!!Recommend
I can feel the rage emanating from this article. Very nicely written indeed nobody wants to and should laugh with a mouth full of blood…Recommend
Vampires on the loose! No nation can survive on the basis of evil deeds. We must mend our ways in order to exist. Otherwise many nations have been doomed by Allah. The signs and symptoms are more than visible. Wake up Pakistan!Recommend
wow….hands down…thumps upp….Agreed!!Recommend
Brilliant Article. KIU.Recommend
Very well written. As far as somebody’s comment goes about what are you going to do about it than just write? Well, in your capacity, you’ve done your duty. You’ve brought out a set of emotions that were just beginning to get swept under “indifference”, what with all the channels (newspapers/channels) throwing news out in our faces in a certain light(s).Recommend
It’s bad when the best metaphor for time wastage you can come up with is the actual activity responsible for wasting time in the first place.
I loved reading this because it’s relevant, funny, sad and sharpRecommend