Author: Arindam Banerji
Publication: Sify News
Date:
URL: http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13450047&page=1
You probably did not know 5-year
old Zahida of Doda; truth of the matter is, neither did I. Sadly, I've
come to know something of the last moments of her life. So, let me relate
to you what I now know.
Late on the night of March 21, a
small group of LeT terrorists forcibly entered the home of Zahida's father
Fetah Mohammed in the mountainous hamlet of Tanka. Feta's reluctance to
entertain the Pakistanis proved fatal. The terrorists simply grenaded little
Zahida and her 4-year old brother to their deaths. Two more Indian children
added to the weekly death score of the LeT.
But, there is another story yet.
A day or two or three later, while flipping through the news, I happened
to hear about an Indian actress profusely apologizing to Pakistanis in
Lahore, for "hurting their sentiments".
The incongruity struck me as odd
to say the least, if not a little nauseating. You see, both Indian and
Pakistani newspapers have reported multiple times, that LeT (or Jamaat-ud-
Dawaa as it now likes to be called) has been raising unheard of sums of
money in donations from ordinary Pakistanis in the last few months. And
its not as if the LeT, in its brochures, periodicals and posters, is shy
about announcing its intentions or even depicting trophy pictures of dead
Indians.
Yet, we had here, an Indian actress
who was groveling and asking for forgiveness from a people, who openly
and knowingly funded the killing of little Zahida and her brother.
So, if you're anything like me,
and had the misfortune of putting two and two together on these news pieces,
some nausea and indigestion had to have happened.
But, before I get too far ahead
of myself - let me suggest that the rest of this article is best viewed,
if you go up to your browser, look under internet options and turn on the
sarcasm tag. For some of you, this tag may be turned on automatically.
First let me introduce you to Iqbal
Durrani, a bollywood writer-director, who is helping Imran Khan, the ex-cricketer
and a hardliner on Kashmir, raise money for a cancer hospital in Pakistan.
Says Iqbal bhai: "I have known Imran and want to make a documentary on
his cancer hospital. I felt that now that Indo-Pak relations are improving
why not make a film which both Indians and Pakistanis will identify with...Imran
is such a humanitarian that if he were president he'd remove all soldiers
from the border! Titled 'Nahin Nahin', the movie involves an Indian, a
Pakistani and a Kashmiri"
Two questions for Durrani ji? First,
when is he making the film about an Indian, Pakistani and a Marathi or
what about the movie about an Indian, Pakistani and a Tamilian or that
one about an Indian, Pakistani and an Assamese - after all isn't that what
Imran and his Pakistani buddies really want you to do? Secondly, this great
humanitarian Imran? Isn't he the same dude who announced in a pompous press
release of his party: "We must continue to support the Kashmiri Jihad against
Indian repression and oppression in Kashmir". Ah!!! A humanitarian and
a terrorist supporter to boot or is it that you have to be a terrorist
promoter to be considered a humanitarian, in Bollywood these days?? Who
knows!!
Wonder what went through Mr. Durrani's
mind, when he thought up this one. Quite probably, the thought process
went something like this "Who do we help raise money for today (a) Indian
kids orphaned in the Gujarat earthquake and riots? Nope, Nope (b) Indians
displaced due to terrorism in Kashmir and the North East? Nope, not worthy
enough (c) Some alleged Pakistani hospital, that no one has seen, promised
to you by a shady Pakistani playboy turned politician, who strongly supports
killing Indian women and children in Kashmir? Eureka, (c) it is, (c) it
is. What could be a better choice? Why did I not think of it earlier?".
Nice thinking, Mr. Durrani, Keep
it up!! It would seem that the Pakistani people agree with you whole-heartedly,
too? In fact, on the holy occasion of Eid, as the Friday Times of Pakistan
reports, Pakistani citizens also decided to donate to people who support
and promote the killing of Indian women and children? Only, in their case,
they gave the money directly to the Jamaat-ul-Dawa. Of course, it is yet-another
matter that this year's donations of Rs 780 million for Jihad-e-Kashmir
far exceeded last year's donations for the same cause? This can be explained
away as part of the "on-going peace efforts by ordinary people of both
nations". You know the same kind of reciprocal peace efforts, where we
fix holes in the hearts of their babies, while they fix bombs in the school
buses of our babies. You get my drift? Equal-equal, peace initiatives from
people on both sides.
Lately, JP Dutta, the man who made
LOC, has landed himself in quite a soup. He had the nerve to make a somewhat
pro-India movie. Of course, he clearly misinformed us, by not showing the
gruesome 22-day treatment of the Lt. Saurabh Kalia and other such representative
accounts of the Pakistani army. But, we won't hold that against him. Poor
guy is in enough trouble as it. But, what's the world coming to? In these
days of peace and sublime acceptance of Pakistani terrorism, this man has
stooped low enough to make a pro-India movie in Bollywood? Hai Ram!! Drag
him out into the town square and castrate the B******!!
Oh! For those who would like some
light bedtime reading about the recreation activities of the Pakistani
army, see http://www.gendercide.org/case_bangladesh.html.
The ultra-liberal Hollywood, from
which our tinsel town often gets inspiration, regularly makes big budget
movies to keep reminding us about the horrors of the Jewish holocaust.
Today's Bollywood would never imagine showing Pakistani perpetrated Bangladesh
or Afghan genocides, whose horrors in many cases far exceeded the Nazi
holocaust. Could be worse though? Seems there is a self-proclaimed Gandhian
running around with a perverted fetish for tying rakhis on the very same
genocidal army-men from across the border.
This constant whining and sniffling
about anti-Pakistan movies, which really means, "movies that show Pakistanis
somewhat like they really are" has reached quite a crescendo. It started
with Akshay and Urmila, followed by Shahrukh and then everything got lost
in the din. Smaller stars had to rise above the din? Visibility is a must,
you see. This was going to be difficult, since many of the tricks have
already been used up.
What would you do to get some attention
in this love-fest for Pakistan? Hug and kiss some terrorists? No chance,
Urmila's already done it (as you'll see later). Maybe, praising or absolving
all Pakistani terrorists would do? Wrong call again, Sharukh's already
gone ahead in this game as in "they [the terrorists] must be having their
reasons for doing it, not questioning who is right or wrong". Aahh! here's
an approach at visibility that's probably not been tried? How about helping
out Pakistani terrorists carry out operations in India? Been there, done
that? At least, Sanjay Dutt has.
So, where others may have failed?
Bright-eyed Shilpa Shetty stepped to the plate? She had to go that extra
mile to prove her loyalty to the terrorist cause. So, she did. In Lahore,
as I mentioned in my opening, she showed her allegiance to the Pakistani
flag by kissing it and apologized profusely to the denizens of the terrorist
state for "unintentionally hurting Pakistani sentiments".
Think about this for a second? We
now have Indians apologizing to the Pakistanis for, I repeat, "hurting
their sentiments"!!! Essentially "Hai, hai, how bad, we Indians are yaar?
How could we even think of calling some Pakistanis terrorists, just because
they go around killing our women and children in bulk- this is not fair".
Most civilized people, rarely apologize
to, or pay allegiance to the flag of, a people that are openly killing
their countrymen in the thousands, but, Shilpa ji ka kya kehna. "Good show,
Shilpaji? That sure was original - the grieving parents of 5-year old Zahida
and her 4-year old brother, would undoubtedly appreciate your "humanitarian"
gesture; maybe little Zahida's father, Fetah Mohammed will even send you
a thank-you card.
Gotta admit though, this kind of
undying allegiance is difficult to buy? Must have cost Pakistan a pretty
penny. Here's a suggestion? Maybe, just maybe? That apology from us Indians
could wait till ordinary Pakistanis stop raising money to kill babies like
Zahida or may be after they shut down the offices of the United Jehad Council,
whose only purpose is to kill Indians? Just a thought!!
Backslapping aside, we must give
serious consideration to what a semi-intellectual and yet another of the
"humanitarian types" has been telling us, of late. Of course, as we have
already discovered, in Bollywood to be a humanitarian, you must have strong
sympathies for terrorists. Case in point - apparently, the peripherally
Bollywoodish, Nandita Das, recently played a leading role in a movie called
"Lal Salaam", which as the Tribune puts it "virtually portrays Maoists
as benefactors fighting for the cause of the poor and tribal folks? Although
the movie failed commercially, it is reportedly a hit among the PWG cadres".
Yeah, yeah. PWG and Maoists, the
very same terrorists, that execute families, kidnap children, rape at will,
assassinate elected leaders and force farmers not to grow crops, all in
the name of their anti-national motto. I can scarcely imagine what a Hollywood
actress would have to go through, if she dared to glorify, say the Nazis
or perhaps even the Al Qaeda. But, then again, I sympathize with Ms. Das?
In our tinsel town, things are different? To be called an activist or humanitarian,
you must be pro-terrorist; not quite as remunerative to be anti-terrorist,
it seems.
But, we digress again. So, Ms. Nandita
Das pontificated recently on many things. First, she suggested that 70%
of the audience was just not smart enough to understand her movies like
Earth and Fire. Fine, building castles in the air is not a crime? But,
then after some rough finger-wagging at the media about biases and partial
representations, she informed us that "making films like LoC and Border
was not a healthy trend". Apparently, such things cause misconceptions
about Pakistan.
After having thought about this
issue a little bit, I have to admit, that I completely agree with Ms. Das.
After all wouldn't it be a nasty "misrepresentation" of our tall fair almost
Arabic friends from across the border, if we short, dark Indians resorted
to showing such gory "mistruths" like Pakistanis proudly announcing their
intentions to "improve" the genetic makeup of Bangladeshis, right before
going out and raping 3 lakh hapless Bangladeshi women?
Would it not be totally unfair to
show women's groups all over India protesting the heinous massacres of
Gujarat, while Pakistani women on hearing about the ongoing rapes of lakhs
of Bangladeshi women gleefully declaring "Let them (the Pakistani army)
rape those Bengali women? Maybe it will make their next generation prettier"?
Would it not be grossly "dishonest"
to show ordinary Pakistani businessmen falling all over themselves to bequeath
money (as reported by a Lahore daily) to such worthy causes as beating
in the brains of 9-year olds or shooting down 2-year olds or setting fire
to women, before putting it out and watch them die in pain?
Wouldn't LOC have caused "misconceptions"
if it had actually shown the Pakistanis ripping out eyes, piercing ear-drums
and chopping off limbs of Lt. Saurabh Kalia and 5 men, slowly over a period
of a viciously painful 22 days? Wouldn't the Indian movie goers have become
"biased" if Indian movies regularly depicted the gory scenes of Pakistanis
killing 10,000 Bangladeshis every day, not for 10, 20 or 30 days, but for
267 days at a stretch?
Wouldn't such "lurid exaggerations"
about Pakistani culture, make the machete wielding Hutu tribesmen or the
cannibalistic Congo rebels, feel threatened about their place in history.
Naah! we could never do that - would lead to all kinds of misconceptions!!
So, in hindsight, I support this
avowed humanitarian on this issue, completely!!
You've probably guessed by now,
things can only get better from here. The bizarre tale of Ms. Matondkar
comes to mind. Believe me, weird can barely describe this one. Ms. Matondkar,
for those who're behind the times, is a filmi-belle and the spawn of a
local proponent of some oddball Pakistan-India peace forum? The very same
forum, whose declarations may well be considered seditious within India
and government/LeT approved talking points within Pakistan. But, here's
how it all went down, as I've briefly said before:
"Most of the week of September 1,
our army and BSF were fighting and getting killed by terrorists, well supplied
by the Pakistani army, in Kathua. On early Saturday morning, terrorists
trained and funded by the Pakistani army, used a car-bomb to kill 8 Indians.
Almost every day that week, Pakistani-army minions carried out horrific
acts on Indians. On Friday, two women of Surankote hills were abducted,
tortured brutally, had their limbs and private parts chopped off, before
finally, being killed. On Thursday, Ghulam Ahmed of Sanglani, had his arms
and legs chopped off, before being beheaded."
"Yet, on Saturday, pretty-faced
Urmilaji, basking in the glow of cameras declared "I feel so close to the
people in Pakistan". Teary-eyed Urmila handed over a bouquet of flowers
to Pakistani army rangers and threw scalding water on anti-Pakistani feelings".
Strange happenings don't ya think?
In most places, people support their own troops. But, what do ya know about
them tinsel town folks? Here a woman with dodgy parental links gets all
kinds of kudos. Kudos, mind you, for hugging and kissing the soldiers of
a country, that's busy slaughtering people of her own nation, at that very
same moment, not more than a few hundred miles away from her. Bravo!!
Nonetheless, you have to admit that
this was a great publicity coup - it made for a perfect photo-op. and massive
free visibility resulted; very well thought out, indeed. Who cares, if
bullet-ridden jawan, Balbir Singh's mother was receiving a very different
kind of bouquet that day, thanks to the very same "bouquet-receiving" organization
from Pakistan. The TV News snippet on Ms. Matondkar's tear-jerker for peace
sure looked good!! In the end, that's all that counts.
All right, enough with the cynicism
already!!? Please look at the internet options menu of your browser; the
sarcasm tag has probably outlived its useful existence by now.
Thankfully, the real world in India
is nothing like the make-believe one in Bollywood. In the real world, Lt.
Triveni Singh's mother, Pushpalata with tears of mixed pride and loss,
told us "Let every mother give birth to children like Triveni who refuse
to abandon their guns and run away from the battlefield even if their decision
costs them their life".
In the make believe one of Bollywood,
in the month of August last year, the same month when Pakistan perpetrated
300 bloody attacks in Kashmir alone, not counting the bomb blasts in Bombay
and Assam, Akshay Kumar unnecessarily announced that he would never say
anything negative about Pakistanis in his movies.
The man from India, Lt. Triveni
Singh jumped in front of bullets and grenades to save the lives of his
fellow citizens, thus dying in the effort. The man from Bollywood, Akshay
Kumar, drew a fictitious wall between terrorists and their financiers,
promoters and supporters, the Pakistanis. Triveni had a mission to accomplish
and an undying loyalty to his country. Akshay had a paying audience in
Pakistan to satisfy and so, randomly indulges in obscene propaganda, all
in the name of not doing so of course. Thank God, many more mothers in
India raise their sons to be like Triveni Singh. Jai Hind!!
Author's disclaimer on anti-Muslim
vs. anti-Pakistan:
Q: Do Bollywood movies often show
the entire Muslim community in bad light?
A: Yes and when they do they should
be tarred and feathered for it. Rightfully so.
Q: Are movies that depict the truth
about Pakistan, anti-Muslim or anti-Indian Muslims?
A: Hell No. Indian Muslims are
just that. Indians. Let us not insult them in bulk. Pakistan in any case,
is probably the most anti-Muslim country in the world. See their genocide
tally in Bangladesh, Afghanistan and against their own Shias. Once again,
let us not insult the entire Muslim community by equating them with Pakistan.
