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Ten things about fat people - 28 Dec 2010
Fat and skinny people - 27 Dec 2010
10 things I hate about fat people - 27 Dec 2010
10 things I hate about skinny people - 27 Dec 2010
Veena Malik does not represent me
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The year to offend
10 things I hate about fat people: Pick on the angular all you want, but have pity on the bloated.
The writer is a standup comedian [email protected]
You offend me. Want to know why? Well, that right there is a good enough reason. You offend me because you don’t know anything. Like the reason for your being so offensive to me. But that’s okay because I offend you too. I am sure of it. If I don’t, then I’ve done something wrong. Our relationship depends on it. Indeed, our very national survival depends on it. So quickly, get offended by me, just as offended as I am by you.
Still nothing? Fine (tough crowd). You’re fat.
There. That should offend you plenty. Given the reaction to an innocuously written list published in this newspaper’s weekend magazine, apparently being criticised for being fat is the greatest insult issued in the history of the world. Sandwiched between pictures of the same 12 celebrities seen in every socialite pictorial and reviews of movies I illegally downloaded weeks ago, was a list of reasons why portly people should be hated. It was a response to a list published the previous week about why skinny people should be loathed and despised. Having spent most of my life sporting the physique of a famine victim, I skimmed the anti-skinny article and moved on. As did any other readers of the gaunt persuasion. The following week’s anti-obese piece, however, caused such offence that rotund people everywhere heaved themselves off their potato-chip-dusted couches and pounded out letters of complaint on groaning keyboards. They were offended and they were going to let the world know. Pick on the angular all you want, but have pity on the bloated. What if it’s a thyroid problem?
Being offended might as well be the theme of 2010. As this wretched year groans to an exhausted end, we can look back on its months filled with enough trauma to create a calendar of misery and see nothing but people being offensive and getting offended. Faisal Shahzad began it all by offending any Pakistanis with the hopes of travelling abroad without being vigorously unmolested. He also offended al Qaeda with his incompetence. Hamid Mir was offended by his voice, deciding to go off and advise terrorists. Facebook offended us, not just by adjusting its privacy settings and thus putting pictures of all the girls we secretly stalked off limits, but by supporting blasphemy. The Lahore High Court subsequently offended us by not understanding what the internet was and how it worked. President Zardari offended us by first remaining president and then by dodging a Birmingham bootie. Cricket offended us by… well, who can keep count at this point. Veena Malik offended us because we confuse someone promoting her celebrity status with our national identity. Fasi Zaka offended us by comparing us to insects and George offended us by misunderstanding why we love violence. Jamshed Dasti offended us by existing. The list goes on.
To our credit, we give offence as effectively as we suffer it. In 2010, we continued to offend any sense of humanity that might have once existed in us by ignoring the mass murder and continued persecution of Ahmadis. Our collective neglect of the flood-destroyed nationals in our midst is fairly offensive too. As is our continued patronage of a blasphemy law that justifies a murderous mindset. Every child raped and killed this year, every woman beaten and traumatised, every human lynched without trial. Offensive, offending and offended. That list too, sadly, can go on.
It’s enough to make one hungry for apathy. Maybe in 2011 we should resolve to go on a diet of offence, if you will. After all, we can only suffer and offer so much of it. Instead of expending valuable energy by causing and being offended, let’s try to limit the opportunities for it.
I hope that idea doesn’t offend you too much.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 30th, 2010.
Reader Comments (26)
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your sir are Best at ET, Exceptional article, thank you Recommend
I would love to see you write for indian publications, wonder what your take would be on the 2G scam.Recommend
Your writings always made me laugh, today it made me cry ! Recommend
You know, I youtubed you once, and almost died laughing, you’re hilarious but for some reason, for me, that same hilarity doesn’t come across in your pieces here. See, you compared fat people with skinny people. But no one has a problem with skinny people do they? They look gorgeous, are curvy in all the right places, look amazing in trendy clothes. Fat people on the other hand, you look at them and you know something’s wrong with them. Its like writing ten things I hate about crippled people. I don’t mean that being fat is a disability obviously, but that you are mocking someone for their weakness, even if said weakness is liking food a little too much.
Secondly, yeah, I hate my friends and sister for being skinny, but, you know, my loose shalwar kamiz looks really pretty too and geez, I’ve seen my size, I am not going to wear jeans on my waist size, I do have some dignity. The thing is, no one mocks me as much as I do over the weight issue, so I vstarted reading the list expecting to laugh my butt off. Instead, I was mildly hurt because I found out exactly what people think when they see me. And it isn’t “does that girl know she’s wearing a pink sweater over blue clothes” or “geek alert” due to the glasses and books threatening to fall from my arms. Its “oh lord, look at that fat, disgusting, sweaty pig, I’m going to go have my sandwich elsewhere the hog will probably give me a stomachache staring at my food with her greedy little eyes.” And I like my eyes. My late grammy told me they were pretty and sparkled. And I’d like to point out that a lot of people that were offended by that piece stated that they were thin and still offended. I’m going to stereotype here, just like Mariam Tariq did, and chalk up your disgust at the protests on you being a dude. Guys are confident, don’t have weak self-images, aren’t insecure, don’t worry about their appearance, don’t care about their weight, don’t feel like people are judging them, etc. See, you didn’t like that much, did you? Well, neither did many people reading that piece of crap. And for a daily that’s affiliated with the IHT, such low standards are unbecoming.Recommend
Shah ji- diet of both “offence and defence” needed but “defence” needs more salaries and more toys.Recommend
Hahahahahaha….. not at all!Recommend
i tried so hard to be offended but i kept crackin up sorryRecommend
not offended =P
gotta agree with expert.Recommend
The best thing I have ever read on this paper’s opinion pages. Thank you Sami Shah, for making us all stop for a moment and think: what are we getting out of it all.
Refreshing! Thanks much. I’m a fan.Recommend
Great write up Sami Shah.Recommend
@Ghausia, I was one of the people who were offended by the ‘I hate fat people’ post and wasn’t amused by the ‘I hate skinny people’ post either, but I do agree with Sami here. I read his comment on that piece in the newspaper today, and he wasn’t justifying bullying anyone. I think the point he’s trying to make here is that it’s a little tragic that so many people can get more riled up over something trivial like a badly written piece among celebrity gossip and film reviews, but not nearly as many people get as incensed when it’s the right time to get angry and productive.
“Our collective neglect of the flood-destroyed nationals in our midst is fairly offensive too. As is our continued patronage of a blasphemy law that justifies a murderous mindset. Every child raped and killed this year, every woman beaten and traumatised, every human lynched without trial.”
However, I’m still glad Express Tribune reacted quickly and took down the post. They acted responsibly and frankly, they’re above that, content-wise. Sami, even you agreed that it was badly written.Recommend
LMAO!!! The best op-ed i’ve read in ages and one of the best by the author!Recommend
@ghausia, re: ‘Guys are confident, don’t have weak self-images, aren’t insecure, don’t worry about their appearance, don’t care about their weight, don’t feel like people are judging them’ Actually, I’m a guy and I like those comments you made a lot! Generalise away.Recommend
This article is disappointing. I’ve never watched any of your shows but I’d read decent reviews, so I was expecting a decent article. Not only is this article offensive (at least you met that goal), it’s also misinformed and badly written.
Do you know what it’s like to live in Pakistan-the land of the politically incorrect-as an overweight girl? As your article indicates, you don’t. You have no idea what it is like to suffer through rude stares and unwanted snide comments disguised as advice every day, to live in a country where being overweight means that you may not ever get married (another unforgivable state for a Pakistani girl to be in), to live with people not seeing anything (in you) beyond your weight. Pakistani’s are not polite or politically correct. So when an English newspaper-one of the rare liberal politically correct platforms in this country- goes on to publish a condescending article as a humor piece, I think the reaction was justified. Please note, the offended commenters were probably liberal politically correct people who were offended at the persecution of Ahmadis, continued patronage of the blasphemy law and violence against women. Your attempt to prove the outraged readers as hypocrites fails.
Do you even live in this country? Have you met our middle class? The majority of citizens in Pakistan are not offended by Hamid Mir or Faisal Shahzad-even if he did make travelling more inconvenient. These are the people who still can’t condemn the Taliban and blame suicide bombings on RAW or the CIA. They may be offended by Veena Malik but, hey, at least she’s not fat!Recommend
Seems like you’ve taken offense at the reaction to the fat-people article! Recommend
On matters of national interest the people are past being offended, it has now morphed into a deeper more intense feeling.
This was a fun read.Recommend
no, not the best opinion piece out there! i am a fan sami, but this right here is you being lazy at your job! sure you can go on and on about nothing in a witty manner and still keep the piece interesting…but you make no point at all today!
unfortunately not everything has a correlation as you seem to believe! and frankly the ‘how can you care about this when xyz is happening’ argument is a little too convenient and run-of-the-mill…all of us care about the bigger problems, the bombs, the drone strikes and the like….but when did caring about the trivial and the personal become such a problem?
for such a witty guy, you have to admit, this was rhetorical frippery…Recommend
hahaha a very interesting piece! thoroughly enjoyed it :D and that reminds me i recently ‘offended’ someone too! Recommend
Offended. Offended by Hamlet, brown cigarette paper, Oberon, lavender lipstick, the side walk and its lack of inhabitants, dried raindrops leaving marks on my windshield, organic eggs, duck eggs, century eggs, plastic utensils. Queen offends me, not the band or the monarch nor the intransitive, just the way it is spelled, it is offensive. I am offended by the television because it has four sides. Trees offend me because they have bark and one of my dogs audible means of communication have nothing to do with a tree and yet he barks. I mean he humps a tree every now and then but he does because he is offended. Soccer offends me because the only means of offending in soccer is by kicking a ball. The dictionary offends me, it’s got words, offensive words, nasty offensive words, its got the word offense in it which is how people know what it means. Maybe we should destroy the dictionary or maybe distort it, so that people instead using Sami Shah as a synonym for offensive, use Sami Shah instead of the dreaded word. I am offended.Recommend
Just because the year was ending you had to muster something up. Substance be damned. Time that could have been spent more constructively.
Sorry if this offends you (well, not really!).Recommend
Everything offends us. As a nation we are becoming sensitive. But its not our fault I think.Recommend
@the only normal person: On the contrary, we are becoming insensitive. When I try to get people to care about cruelty to animals, I can’t sway anyone who isn’t already convinced that it’s an issue. If I say that medical students should care more about the people whose bodies we dissect, they say I should get over it. When a bomb went off, I heard people moaning and complaining that the fun fair would be canceled because everyone would be too busy at the hospital, where a state of emergency had been declared. We aren’t offended enough by these things, maybe because we’re busy being offended by Facebook and Veena Malik and whatnot.Recommend
Thank you for this, Sami. Made my…end of a crappy year a tad less so.
Sadly, the responses to your post alone highlight that ‘taking offence’ is a national sport (given we no longer have cricket) whatever would people do without it. Heaven forbit they have to grow up, move on and rise above such pettiness and actually focus on REAL issues that are causing this land of the oh-so pure to dissolve in on itself.
Nope its easier to make fun of fat people and for the said fat people to bounce back (no pun intendend) with vitriol. Recommend
A very nice post! Zardari bit DID make me laugh..Recommend
pretty much summed up the whole year.
“President Zardari offended us by first remaining president and then by dodging a Birmingham bootie.” totally loved this!Recommend
great piece!Recommend