Two Delhi weddings and a Gulf protest

Tunisia, Egypt and now Bahrain have ripped off that veil of hypocrisy and subjugation that has consumed them.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh bared his resolve and his distress in front of TV cameras this week, the World Cup got off to an India-Bangladesh start, women in hijab demanded equal rights in Bahraini protests that confirmed the Gulf was catching the Egypt-Tunis democracy flu, Fazlur Rehman flew into India from Pakistan to unite the warring Madani brothers over Deoband, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan was arrested at Delhi airport and the Indian capital celebrated 27,000 weddings on Friday — two of those celebrations were my own.

It’s been that kind of a week. Several friends from Pakistan were denied visas to attend my family weddings because of the Indian home ministry’s reactionary rules that kicked in after David Headley’s deadly role in the Mumbai attacks. Some Pakistani friends based in third countries like Dubai and Manila circumvented the rules, mostly by pulling strings in high places, while we, as hosts, sent a box of mithai to the local policeman to seal the deal. He knows well they’re not about to blow up the nearest TV channel — not even if it belongs to the Tamil Nadu-based Kalaignar group, owned by the DMK’s (Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam) all-powerful M  Karunanidhi, whose political party props up the Manmohan Singh government in Delhi, and who is right now in the dock for alleged bribe-accepting.

That could be bride-accepting, which is what happens when young people get married to the sounds of the moon and stars and in the light of the waxing moon. Beyond the remit of Bollywood pop, Delhi’s traffic simply gave up. Many of the guests just couldn’t arrive for the celebrations. The Bollywood pop reminded me of the time I visited a family in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia some years ago and was promptly sent inside to the ‘zenana’ section. All the women were in various stages of dress, including negligees, and were obsessed with the film stars of Bombay. I couldn’t help marvelling at the schizoid lives they led. Under cover without and daring to bare within.

Well, first Tunisia, then Egypt and now Bahrain have ripped off that veil of hypocrisy and subjugation that has consumed large parts of the Middle East and Gulf. Young men and women are standing up for their rights and dying in an effort to save the future. No wonder all those oil-fattened rulers are trembling in their magical oases in the sands, those Manhattans-in-the-deserts. But the question is, how long can the owners hide from the rumble of the streets?

It makes you wonder why South Asia’s so different. After all, Pakistan is an Islamic republic, and despite its long trysts with military might, has never allowed the spirit to die. Faiz’s ‘ham dekhenge…’ is only a derivative of the sub-continent’s war cry, ‘ham bhi dekhenge…’. Manmohan Singh’s unusual interview with the TV gods this week was an attempt at staving off the growing crisis of confidence in the middle classes, who want to know why the national wealth is finding its way into Swiss bank accounts.

Cricket, anyone, in Sheikh Hasina’s Bangladesh? That country has clawed itself back into the limelight, because it refuses to give up. Next week, maybe, once the weddings are over.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 20^th, 2011.