books Sanam Maher
books Sanam Maher
The Sensational Life and Death of Qandeel Baloch | Aleph | 235 pages | Rs 599
Girl Who Made Eyes & Kick
Qandeel Baloch ’ s feisty life and deplorable death are dealt with in detail , but not in its unknown dept
by Arifa Noor
QANDEEL Baloch would have approved of the cover of the book by Sanam Maher — its eye-catching colours are reminiscent of her vibrant personality , and even Qandeel could not have painted on the eyeliner better . And the pages inside live up to the cover ’ s promise . Maher , a Karachibased journalist and first-time author has put together a fascinating read , which is so much more than a traditional biography of Qandeel , Pakistan ’ s social media star , who shone brightly but alas , briefly .
Tracing Qandeel ’ s journey from the South of Punjab to Islamabad , Karachi and then back to her village ( on that fateful night when her brother killed for ‘ honour ’), Maher does not just capture a young woman ’ s rise to fame . She provides her readers with an intimate and insightful picture of the world Qandeel lived in , where modernity jostles ( at times gently ; at times violently ) with tradition .
Maher takes us on a whirlwind tour of the modelling world , where we meet aspiring models as well as cynical ones . A discussion on cyber-bullying allows her to introduce a woman who left beh ind a bad marriage ( and bad bosses ) and now helps women being blackmailed or bullied online . The reporter , who was the first to find out about Qandeel ’ s death , takes the opportunity to paint a picture of the country ’ s flourishing news industry , where young men and women , hungry for scoops , pursue stories with dogged determination . The result is a picture of Pakistan which is far from the stereotypical one of a conservative society which grapples with extremism and where women are usually the victims . The women who live during the times of Qandeel know how to take charge of their destiny and not surrender to fate , bullies or repressive families .
But all of this is woven into a rich tapestry , which tells the story of Qandeel , who left behind a life of quiet desperation in a small village to strike out on her own . It ’ s hard to say what she wanted to do when she left and Maher is intelligent enough to not assume that she was driven by obvious dreams such as being a model or an actor . She moves from a women ’ s shelter to a job with a bus service in Islamabad ; by the time she reaches Karachi , Qandeel discovers that in these contemporary times , she doesn ’ t need a hit film or drama or a mentor or even styling team ( with borrowed branded clothes ) to become an instant star . All she needed was a phone and some gumption .
Pakistan here doesn ’ t conform to the stereotype of a conservative society where women are victims . Qandeel ’ s fellow women take charge of their destiny and fight repression .
Qandeel had plenty of it . Anyone who has seen her videos can testify to this . From cricket to her fever , from her catchphrase (“ How I ’ m looking ”) to filming herself in a hot tub , she managed to keep an entire nation hooked . The jaws of an entire nation dropped when a bikini clad Qandeel promised a striptease if the Pakistan team won a cricket match .
The Qandeel that appears in this biography is an intelligent woman who uses her videos as a catapult to fame in an age where one picture or a video can mean instant stardom . Maher stresses on Qandeel ’ s success by narrating the story of the handsome chaiwallah who lands fame , fortune and modelling jobs after just one picture . But the subtle parallel drawn by Maher shows that luck is just not enough . The chaiwallah gets instant fame and handlers , yet his own lack of understanding and discomfort with the new world means interest in him wanes soon . No such misses for Qandeel , who singlehandedly manages to sustain the interest and is called in for prime-time talk shows where she locks horns with hosts and mullahs alike .
But Maher makes little effort to delve into Qandeel ’ s life beyond what is in the public eye . Perhaps , the lack of information is due to the difficulty of tracing the lives of young , unknown women who come to big cities with burning ambition and little else . Or the writer deliberately doesn ’ t want to assign motives to Qandeel ’ s choices or decisions or to delve into what she did and how she made a living . This allows Maher to avoid falling into the trap of pigeonholing Qandeel , as the elite in Pakistan did when she was alive by mocking her pronunciation . Maher could also have been reticent in order to avoid discussing Qandeel in more stereotypical ways , where morality or other cliches may have forced their way in . Maher lets the young social media star remain a mystery — forcing the reader to continue thinking about Qandeel , long after she has turned the last page .
What Maher does provide are character sketches of many other contemporaries of Qandeel , who also flourished in some way . The flirty Mufti Qavi is one such exa mple . After having appeared on a show or two with Qandeel , he meets her on a trip to Karachi ; their selfies in his hotel room led to a storm of protest . But in Maher ’ s hands , he comes across as more human and flawed than we are soc ialised to expect of clerics . Indeed , her consummate skill as a writer lies not in her descriptive passages of places , but when she writes about people . She avoids any judgment , but brings them to life , per fectly relatable in all their imperfections .
The women , of course , are the real her
66 OUTLOOK 18 June 2018