No bananas and moolis, please! -
By Ejaz Haider Daily Times | August 07, 2005 http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page==story_7-8-2005_pg3_5 In one reported case in Wazirabad, a candidate Chand Butt shot dead a friend who was joking with him for getting a mooli from the EC A friend, who has an eye for the absurd, drew my attention to a news item which said that several candidates contesting for the offices of nazim and naib nazim had objected to some symbols allotted to them by the Election Commission. The most offending in this category was the banana. One irate candidate told this newspaper: "How will I tell my supporters that I have got a banana [as a symbol, he meant]?" Indeed. But the list doesn't end with the banana. Mooli (horse radish) is another symbol that hasn't gone down well with the candidates both for reasons of its association with flatulence as well as...yes, its shape. In at least one reported case in Wazirabad, a candidate Chand Butt shot dead a friend who was joking with him for getting a mooli from the EC. It is embarrassing enough to go through life with a name like Chand Butt. To also append a mooli to anything spelled and pronounced that way not only raises multiple possibilities of mischief, it can also be the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. The news sent me looking for Josh Malihabadi's autobiography, Yadon ke braat. Now Josh is not exactly famous for being mealy-mouthed. His description of the ethos of his time is not only interesting, it also shows that some veggies have traditionally been considered dual-purpose. Let me offer below a very rough reproduction of the relevant portions from Josh, beginning with how respectable women were to conduct themselves. They were kept under parda and homes were divided into two portions, mardana and zenana. Respectable women ventured out of their homes only in a palanquin. They would never speak loudly. Sometimes a heavy stone or some other weighty object was put in the palanquin so that the kahar (carriers) would not know the exact weight of the lady they were carrying. This was done, presumably, to prevent them from assessing the shape of the lady. I can hear Mr Spock say "fascinating!" Even the female servants of respectable households observed parda. Male children from outside the family could go into the zenana until they were ten or eleven, after which they were embargoed from entering that portion of the house. Ladies would hide even from women of suspect character (this is presumably a reference to women whose weight and shape needn't be hidden from anyone. Just as well, I'd say). Respectable women would not present themselves even before their fathers, grandfathers and uncles without covering their heads. Josh doesn't inform the reader of how they appeared before their husbands but other sources, literary and non-literary, tell us that the situation even on that front was less than satisfactory from the present writer's perspective. Wives seem to have observed a certain protocol before their husbands and I have a sneaking suspicion that conjugal relations between spouses were about as exciting and passionate as summit meetings between two heads of state. So while it is a safe bet that respectable couples did things that begot them kids, it is somewhat difficult to assume that they also had sex. In any case, if what they did could be called sex, Hugh Hefner would still have been filling out job applications in Chicago. But Josh's best shot at this point is the revelation that some veggies, which he alternately calls laanbi-laanbi tarkarian (elongated vegetables) and fohush sabzian (obscene vegetables), were not allowed into the zenana. This ban had been slapped with the express purpose of retaining the sanctity of the zenana. He actually gives the names of some of the offensively shaped veggies but I'd rather leave that to the imagination of the reader. Let him - did I say, him - use his imagination. These veggies, writes Josh, would enter the zenana only after they had been sliced into small pieces. Having thus deprived them of their presumed dual purpose on the basis of the apprehension that they could be put to use other than cooking, they were allowed in. If that's the kind of F-16s we are going to get, I say down with the Americans. Josh's description quite obviously throws up a number of interesting observations. The foremost would be evident to all except the dumb or the pious (let these two categories not be mixed up because that is not my intention). Anyway, it should be clear that the men did not think the women, in reality, were as chaste as they were presented to be or as they came across while following the mores of a patriarchal society. Why else would "elongated veggies" be disallowed from the zenana until they were appropriately cut up and thus deprived of their potential for mischief? >From this account it does not seem that the men had ever cared to look at the >absurdity of reducing women to a state where they were more likely to put >their faith in the exciting possibilities proffered by elongated veggies >rather than in the men around them. The joke then is on the men rather than >the women whose passion for the forbidden fruit survived - until Josh's time - >the ravages of banishment from the Garden of Eden and, later, Noah's deluge. But the worst aspect of this sorry description, had the men cared to think, was the ban on the veggies going in their natural state into the zenana, which shows they feared competition even from vegetables. The less said on this count the better. Meanwhile, I am told the EC has withdrawn the offending symbols. What a shame! Ejaz Haider is News Editor of The Friday Times and Contributing Editor oof Daily Times ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> <font face=arial size=-1><a href="http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12h6mb93k/M=362335.6886444.7839734.2575449/D=groups/S=1705796846:TM/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1124908457/A=2894362/R=0/SIG=138c78jl6/*http://www.networkforgood.org/topics/arts_culture/?source=YAHOO&cmpgn=GRP&RTP=http://groups.yahoo.com/";>What would our lives be like without music, dance, and theater?Donate or volunteer in the arts today at Network for Good</a>.</font> --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -- This is ZESTGlobal. 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