I would say that your newspaper has gone overboard in its coverage of Maya Khan and her antics on television.
KARACHI: I would say that your newspaper has gone overboard in its coverage of Maya Khan and her antics on television.
I, for one, am sick and tired of reading about her and how wrong she was to infringe upon peoples’ rights to privacy. She lied, she was wrong. You know it, we know it; she admitted it, the channel admitted it. She apologised, albeit halfheartedly. The time has come when we must put it past us, and move on. There’s more to an average Pakistani’s life than to rant about Maya Khan, and more interesting things, too. There are people dying around us, left, right and centre. Fuel prices are skyrocketing, making like more and more unaffordable for ordinary Pakistanis — why not do a detailed report on that? The poor are getting poorer and the rich richer — a ‘naan’ costs six rupees, and we are giving so much important to a has-been television talk-show host.
How is it that we don’t focus on the more important things going on around us? People were prescribed contaminated medicines by a government-run hospital in Lahore and over a hundred died! Of course there are positives as well. A landmark women’s bill is on its way to being enacted into law, after the Senate recently passed it. Pakistan has received its first Oscar nomination, through a remarkable woman Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, in the ‘Best documentary’ category. A new train, the Business Express, has started operating between Lahore and Karachi, and hopes to rejuvenate the moribund rail system in the country.
That’s Pakistan for you; just when you think there’s no more hope left, it will sweep you right off of your feet with a new ray of hope. Then there are the booming Facebook-based businesses, ranging from people making and selling cakes and confectionery to photographs — and doing well for themselves. An art therapy programme was launched last year, called ‘Artpreneurs for Change’, and it focuses on providing therapy to children with special needs, through art. Again, there’s been little or no coverage of this in the media.
Please stop writing about Maya Khan. We’ll all forget about it just like we forgot about Veena Malik, Reema’s wedding, Shahbaz Taseer’s abduction, Sarfaraz Shah’s murder, Saleem Shahzad’s mysterious death, and so on.
I’m a Pakistani who is sick of opening websites of the print media, only to find them laden with articles about people like Maya Khan.
Tooba Akhtar
University of Karachi
Published in The Express Tribune, February 5th, 2012.
