Odd Couple Television And Just As Funny

Sigh. I was alerted to this wonderful (I use the term in a tongue-in-cheek way of course) bit of television on DawnNews' Bolna Zaroori Hai a couple of days ago from kalakawa's blog (which in case you have never seen it, please do, it is usually bitingly witty.) It takes a special kind of talent to put together Marxist political economist and former LUMS academic Aasim Sajjad Akhtar with pop star turned conspiracy theorist and Zaid Hamid acolyte Ali Azmat. And I mean that quite sincerely: it does make for riveting television, even if it does not add much to one's bank of knowledge or insight. In fact, Azmat's performance here, is riveting in pretty much the same sense as watching a hurtling train you know is about to jump off the rails. Kalakawa has ranted enough about Azmat that I don't need to. But more than that...

I. Just. Don't. Have. The. Energy. To. Comment. On. This.

So, watch and weep (or laugh) all on your own.


Part 1: Where, probably for the only time, the study at the heart of the discussion is actually discussed in any detail, by host Wusatullah Khan...





Part 2: Where things get going, immediately on a tangent, thanks to Ali Azmat, who expounds his theory that the Pakistani media is demonizing Islam...





Part 3: Where Ali defends Zaid Hamid and disses democracy among other things...





Part 4: Where Ali really cuts loose... And by that I do mean LOOSE. He questions whether people would rather vote for the Indian military or the Pakistani military, talks about poor people who can barely run two airconditioners and voices support for a caliphate...





Part 5: Where Ali explains how the world is moving towards an Islamic caliphate system of governance and denounces the ending of the subsidiary on electrical power...





Part 6: Where Ali gives his view that what is labeled confusion among Pakistanis is simply them expressing a point of view different from the capitalist system and sings a song...





Oh, and yeah, in case you forgot, the programme was about whether Pakistanis are becoming more conservative.