Homebody goes to watch Bol

As part of my new resolve to get-a-life, I decided to do take baby steps in order to expand my means of entertainment. For a homebody who considers a journey from bed to bathroom an arduous adventure, filled with turmoil and menace (my bathroom mat, for some reason, is OUTSIDE the door and hence I slip constantly and land face-down in my bathroom), a trip to the movies is like a trip to another universe. And so I went to the movies like a woman-of-the-world.

 With my mother.

I am ashamed to admit that the impetus for this excursion was my tenacious parent who had been telling me, for the past three months, what a bad daughter I was because I wasn’t taking her to the movies. It’s interesting how I was being henpecked like my had been father two years ago. To him, my mother used to say:

“Kitnay Kharab hain, Wasi! You don’t take me to watch the movies!”

And just a week ago she said to me:

“Kitni kharab ho, Shazaf! You don’t take me to watch movies!”

Abu’s strategy was to smile sheepishly and go play golf. Being a homebody, I don’t have that luxury. So I relented and said I’d take her (which means I’d accompany her) to the cinema. When I found out it was Bol, I regretted my decision and feigned all sorts of headaches, stomach cramps, dizziness, nausea so that my mother would give my ticket to a friend and leave me at home to watch Perfect Strangers. But I resigned myself to my fate while I was dragged down the steps with my hair and shoved into the car.

Onward ho!

Once I was in the cinema, I sat with an open mind. After all, it was a movie that everyone had loved and went to watch a second time. Khuda ke Liye, by the same director, hadn’t been that bad. And look! I was surrounded by people who hadn’t given birth to me! I was out and about. A veritable socialite! Good good! I even considered going home and finding other movies playing so that I could procrastinate about watching them at home. But this was progress. I was sure of it!

And then the movie started with a woman about to be hanged. The woman had a terrible father. The terrible father's wife had given birth to a transvestite – a sweet boy who wasn’t a boy. Boy got raped by truck drivers. Father killed son.

Now at this point you’d probably think that this plot line is enough for a very long movie. But at this point a SECOND story starts.

Father needs money to bribe policeman. He goes to heera mandi and impregnates a prostitute for money – becoming a prostitute himself. His second daughter wants to marry a Shia (notice yet another plot line out-of-the-blue). He wants her to marry a Sunni, even if the candidate is 40 years older. Prostitute gives birth to girl. Another daughter elopes with Shia boyfriend. Father gets angry and hits whatever woman he can get hands on. Prostitute gives girl to man to prevent daughter from a life of exploitation. But father tries to kill girl with pimp & co. try to take their ‘property’ back. Eldest daughter kills father. Goes to jail. Is hanged.

And then suddenly, lalalalalalaaa we have a happy ending. With father and daughter gone, mother who has been sniveling spineless sot staring helplessly in all directions suddenly becomes bold entrepreneur who starts a restaurant named after hanged daughter and President is kind enough to take note of hanged daughter’s plea after death. End with lots of women laughing, singing and celebrating in style, just two minutes after we’ve seen their sister hanged.

Throw into this equation an impromptu concert in which one daughter sings like a professional rock star before retreating into a burqa and daughters dancing to rap music in their free time; the entire thing becomes a bit absurd. The story line was depressing and the execution, although MUCH MUCH better than normal Pakistani films with buxom Pakistani women jumping in fields in front of angry looking fat men and throwing themselves chest-first into every fray, was actually rather bad. This was two movies condensed into one. Atif Aslam should NOT have been a part of this movie – and his music which didn’t fit with the theme or the mood of anything. The ending jarred and appeared a tad bit insensitive.

The experience was not made any more pleasant by the fact that I choked on French fries in the middle and my mother thwacked me and lectured me loudly on the importance of chewing my food while people in the front row turned around and told me to shush; not recognizing that the blue on my face was due to a lack of oxygen and NOT a radical new skin foundation.

So I came back home, suicidally depressed because my heart went out for Zainab, the one who died – yes, the movie was a tear-jerker in some places. My heart bled for Saifi, a transvestite who was hated and killed by his own father. I felt angry at the world and thought that being a home-body was not such a bad idea after all. In such a despicable world, it’s better to grow old in bed with a book in the hand or a headphone in the ear (once you’re blind).

So attempt at social life # one = GIANT FAIL! Perfect Strangers, here I come!