The Phantom of the cinema

Phantom was the yardstick of much that matters, and much that does not, and much that lies somewhere in between

The banning of the Indian film Phantom in Pakistan would not have made any headlines had it not been for the noise that ensued after the ban. Like most noises, this one was as effective as a deer’s scream during an open season. Talk about making noise; what some callous critics rate, at the most, a mediocre film has been talked about more this August than Imran Khan’s August 14, 2014 long march to Islamabad to change Pakistan. From how it was banned to who spoke most vehemently about it to who the biggest patriot is to who the biggest traitor is, Phantom is no longer a film, my dear readers. Phantom, for a week or two, was the yardstick of much that matters, and much that does not, and much that lies somewhere in between, as well as magically turning into a stick to hit the bigmouths with.

As some erudite social commentators word it, Pakistan, on particularly banal days, becomes Banistan, as it has, very loudly, mastered the dying art of banning things. Ban YouTube; ban this book and that; ban all films of Saif Ali Khan in which he plays a Mission Impossible-ish agent out to eliminate the bad guys in Pakistan, or from Pakistan; ban BBC... or was it Fox News; ban stuff from Denmark; ban loud honking outside the chief minister’s house; ban loud laughter in Gloria Jeans… it could be just about anything, everything or nothing.

And we also ban extremist organisations, notwithstanding the tiny detail that it mostly happens when that distant Uncle Sam wags his long, accusatory finger at the over-zealous, sworn-to-attain-jannat-through-killing-of-infidels 20-something jihadis. Irrelevant is the fact that most of these banned organisations rebrand themselves under a new name; don’t forget that all titles that have the word Lashkar, Sipah, Jamaat, Tehreek (no reference/disrespect meant to the political party headed by Imran Khan), Jaish, Mujahid or Talib are protected under a 200-year-long copyright.

While we ban all films that are ostensibly anti-Pakistan, we also ban Pakistani leaders, who in their nightly bluster and fluster rant about enemies of Pakistan, not realising the importance of zip-the-lip when the words reach a point of incoherence and outright incitement to violence. Then, as their words of contrition become insufficient, one of the 6,067 petitions against them in the many courts and jirgas of Pakistan work, and the mute button becomes applicable. You can’t edit the words; let’s just ban the man from speaking. No fan of Altaf Hussain, but condoning a ban is against my lifelong, yes, liberal allegiance to the right-to-speak-freely-in-a-democracy. If only he could be advised to speak like a normal leader in self-imposed exile: lotsa difference between courage and craziness, and a thin line dividing the two, Mr Hussain.

Yes, Phantom… I’ve a proclivity for going off the topic very often. I’m a huge Kabir Khan fan after the heartwarming and tear-inducing Bajrangi Bhaijaan, and Saif Ali Khan is one of the many Khans I like, and I don’t doubt their love for their country, and their anger at the Mumbai attacks. However, I’m not an endorser of vigilante justice, or covert ops, or droning sovereign countries, or the ghus-ke-marenge bombast. A film that would have been banned by the Pakistan Censor Board didn’t even reach the sanctimonious babus, as the Lahore High Court on the complaint of Hafiz Saeed, the head of the banned Jamaatud Dawa (oh, yes, some jamaats are banned too), axed the already non-existent plans of Phantom becoming a hard reality in Pakistan. Justice should be served for all victims of all terror activities, and Mumbai attacks are no exception. However, let’s not send gun-toting, mono-expression-ed Saif, and wild-tressed Katrina to seek revenge. Let’s devise a bilateral legal system that holds trials and punishes culprits. No? Not patriotic enough?

In all this hoopla, Faisal Qureshi (not the actor) posts a video against Phantom and Saif that goes viral. The nobility of his intention notwithstanding, and while his hyperbole was loud and expected, the issue was the blatant sexism and misogyny… eewww! The us-versus-them, the patriots-versus-traitors, the jingoistic-versus-rational war erupts in all its bleep-able glory, and an inconsequential film and an equally inconsequential video becomes the litmus test for I-love-Pakistan-more-than-you-do. As I write this, the mud-wrestling must be on somewhere, one tweet, one Facebook-like at a time.

Not to forget the lovely Mawra Hocane (Hussain, right?), and the macho Shaan, an old friend of mine. Come on, darlin’, if mere words are the criterion of patriotism, then only PTV loves Pakistan. You cannot ask people, your many, many fans, to ban a young actress simply because she ostensibly spoke against the banning of Phantom. Or can you? Does your opinion matter? Is she banned? From what? I’m confused, my head spins. All this talk of bans…

Let’s ban… bans. And before someone bans me for going yada-yada — questioning hyper-nationalism might just lead me to get my dainty foot in my big mouth — I should stop writing to fork a large bite of the French toast I’m having for breakfast during a strict diet.

P.S. Let’s ban food too.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 11^th,  2015.

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