lowest common denominator
so i went to watch an act yesterday at a stupid club. they’re called the funjabi’s - a play on the word ‘punjabi’ which refers to people that hail from the north of india (or pakiland). like most things in life, the act pissed me off. some bits were funny, sure…it was the white guy that just made me so mad that i wanted to lunge across and bitch slap him into oblivion. actually wait, it wasn’t him, it was the audience.
he wasn’t the LEAST bit funny. his stand up routine consisted of coming on stage, saying something stupid, then singing a hindi song (to the absolute amazement and delight of the desis) and when that didn’t work, he’d shout ‘bhenchod’ and the audience just about wet themselves - ‘OH MY GOD, it’s a gora speaking OUR language’ hai, hai, what a moment!! then he went on to sing a truly stupid song to the tune of a classic hindi song about how his shoes are from japan, his watch is gucci, his shirt is from armani, his cap is russian but HE is an ‘english hindustani’ at heart.
all the desis felt validated - a gora who wants to be a desi??? it is a bloody miracle, i tell you!!
they went wild and cheered and clapped.
i was MAD - really, really mad.
i wanted to get up and tell them, “you fucking fools, you paid 75 dirhams to see some gora make chutias out of you by ruining our songs and saying ‘bhenchod’? would you be so entertained if i got up on stage and said bhenchod? NO! because you are idiots - you are easily entertained by anyone of a different color using your language because you are still suffering from the colonial hangover - you aren’t over the british raj - you are out to prove a point. does a gora get entertained when you speak in english? NO, they EXPECT you to speak in english.”
my ex-boss looked like a gora, although he is an arab - years of american schooling and university also gave him an american accent. he was fascinated by india, bollywood, the culture, and he wanted to become a desi. he still does. but he also laughed at how easy it was for him to become the centre of attention at a desi party…all he really had to do was bust out some of the hindi (especially all the bad words that i taught him) and drop the names of a few actresses and all the desis would be in fits - once again, ‘hai, hai, what a moment - dekha?? now THEY want to be like US!”.
indian papers report all the time that hollywood is now copying their films. their stars have managed to get bit parts in a jackie chan film (as the exotic indian princess) - they are no longer being portrayed as doctors and pharmacists. they LOVE going on about how the west is now aping the east…
don’t they realize that by giving so much importance to anything/everything western, they are obviously still worshipping the gori chamri (white skin)? i hate how everything boils down to language, region, caste, race, color…i hate how every desi writer out there capitalizes on his desiness by constantly talking about stereotypes, most of which don’t even exist anymore. i hate how the theme of the show last night revolved around the token gora and arranged marriages - the fact that there wasn’t a SINGLE couple in the club that had had an arranged marriage said SO much (they kept on trying to find someone, but everyone who was married had had a love marriage).
the club was full of the city’s poshest, most educated crowd (half of them were the usual u.k. desis, since this act hails from the u.k.). i guess that’s why i am even more shocked that they couldn’t see past the lame, cheap attempt at humor. the script was silly, one wouldn’t walk out of there retaining even a single line or moment (and off the top of my head, i can recall quite a few classic bill hicks, eddie izzard or jack handey lines) and the skits were pathetic.
honestly, the “comedians” were let off easy - they sat up one night, decided that they’d put their gora friend on stage, make him sing an indian song and cuss a bit, and the desis would laugh a lot because they immediately felt better about themselves.
the funjabi’s really had the last laugh.
i’m glad to know that i’m not the only one who misses the humor in someone from one race or culture mocking the mannerisms/stereotypes from that of another.
there are tons of people out there who would simply tell you to “lighten up” and “stop taking everything so seriously.” i mean… they’re “just jokes.”
yeah. it’s a great way to spend your time. laughing at how lame everyone is. ha. ha. ha.
Comment by lizzi — June 16, 2005 @ 2:52 pm
if it’s that easy for a white guy to make a living over there, i’m packing up and leaving tomorrow.
Comment by tim — June 16, 2005 @ 3:38 pm
Didn’t you see George Ka Pakistan on GEO TV ? The whole premise of this super-duper hit reality show was that they’d leave this British guy in Pakistan for a few months & he’ll try to become desi.
The Pakistanis were so pleased with his performance that after the show ended by popular poll he was given Pakistani nationality just like that by some really high rnking official.
———
Oh, and: “would you be so entertained if i got up on stage and said bhenchod?”.
I’m pretty sure they’ll be hugely entertained (perhaps even more) - women swearing is still an oddity there (and to think the first few “fucks” I heard in US were from women
).
Comment by Jon — June 16, 2005 @ 6:46 pm
We just had a small earthquake in LA.
Comment by ali — June 16, 2005 @ 8:58 pm
I was about to comment and the shaker hit so I thought should put that in. I started laughing. For some strange fucked up reason. I found it very funny. And now it is on every TV channel thus working the joke even more.
Comment by ali — June 16, 2005 @ 9:01 pm
There can be a lot of catharsis in laughing about how lame everyone is provided it is inclusive and laughing in a ‘we’ sense rather than a superior ‘they’ sense. It all depends on the way it is presented, language is so flexible that we have to be about our faculties to interpret it correctly.
Take as an example: no-one is bothered when rocky refers to Pakis or Pakiland and yet if one of us gora were to do that here we would be regarded as imprudent at best and racist at worst. However Paki is also a word used here by the genuine racists to refer to anyone at all from the sub-continent or who looks as if they might be from there, whether or not they are from Bradford rather than Lahore.
Should we shy away from using certain loaded language or by using it devalue its impact for negativity?
I only know one Middle-Eastern comedian, he’s of Iranian descent and his name is Omid Djalilli, he’s bloody funny.
Comment by Red Baron — June 16, 2005 @ 10:45 pm
Should we shy away from using certain loaded language or by using it devalue its impact for negativity?
Ooooh, good question, Baron, as usual.
I go back and forth on this. The only time I use the word “bitch” is in absolute jest, or absolute venom only towards the richly deserving. In younger days, I thought referring to myself that way would in some way empower me. It didn’t. It always felt hollow and uncomfortable. Pejorative terms for race, gender, nationality, and sexuality, always make me feel uncomfortable, though, some more than others, obviously. From my experiences, I don’t know that I buy the argument that familiarity breeds boredom, and that using such language will devalue it. Wrong or right, I always feel it devalues the user instead.
Comment by Kristie — June 17, 2005 @ 12:10 am
Paki is not a slur outside the UK. I use it because it flows in a reading. At the same time I am aware of the racist usage and in a weird way am using it in solidarity with brit pakis. It is complex.
Frankly, I dont understand why Pakis are so up in arms over the label. It is derived from Pakistanis. Citizens of all other -stan are named the same way. Uzbeks, Kazakhs, and Afghans among others. Indians taking offense, I can understand. But even that would be silly. We are the same people. Additionally, this label does not carry a historical stigma, like the labels used for blacks in america, so owning it will devalue it to the racist bunch.
I do think using some slurs in absolute jest, devalues them or, atleast builds up our own immunity to future uses and takes some of the sting out. But not because repeated use is somehow creating familiarity. But because laughing it off as silly when used in jest shows us how the usage is stupider when used in spite.
Comment by ali — June 17, 2005 @ 1:39 am
I don’t know which one worst: the gora taking up the desi persona or the retarded desis laughing over it. Your money got wasted on such a lame performance. We get this sort of entertainment everyday in our drawing room; where our desi folks try so hard to be ah so posh, so hip and so Amreekan!
Comment by medussa — June 17, 2005 @ 12:13 pm
C’mon, Gora cussing in urdu or punjabi is funny stuff. It is like farting. The lowest level of humor. An otherwise offensive thing that because of it’s unexpectedness, or the venue and the predisposition of the audience gets the laughs. But it gets old very fast.
It is funnier when two desis are talking and one will not come out of his amreekan mode. So one guy is speaking in their mother tongue and the other is practicing his english. The only way to get him out of that mode then is to pretend you can’t understand a word.
Comment by ali — June 17, 2005 @ 6:39 pm
ali, i agree that a gora cussing in urdu is funny but it’s not funny enough to be the main thing in a stand up act. i taught the scottish guy i dated some weird urdu lines like “kaha kaha say aajatay hain?!” and him using that in context, with desis, is hilarious but a guy who earns his living this way (as a comedian), getting away with screaming ‘bhenchod’ every time his other gora jokes fall flat, is pathetic. and desis lapping it up like starved puppies, feeling validated because gori chamri is speaking their language is even worse.
by the way, hope you’re okay…you wanna write about the earthquake?
medussa, good to see you here girl!
baron & kristie, to be honest, i do think that using loaded language often devalues it…we become desensitized to words (like to everything else) the more we’re exposed to them. and paki definitely doesn’t carry any negative connotations for me (like ali said, it’s a loaded word only in UK), regardless of who uses it. if a gora called me that and meant it as an insult, i’d really laugh my head off cause ‘no shit, sherlock, i AM one’.
Comment by rocky — June 17, 2005 @ 9:05 pm
I agree with most of what you’ve said. Desis are a big part of what we now call ‘UK Culture’. Chicken Tikka Masala the national dish, ‘kiss my chaddiez’ in the dictionary alongwith some other desi cuss words, its actually become normal for the goras and even the black kids these days to call each other bhenchod, as previously it was with punani. We’ve found our identity and we stick to it as we’re proud of it. Rather than trying to become gorafied and thats why if someone calls you a paki, it can only be offensive if its meant to be as there is a lot of history behind that.
Comment by Dan — June 19, 2005 @ 6:37 am
What renders the use of the word Paki as a slur here somewhat ludicrous is that those who use it are generally using it against Indians, the concept of there being any difference between peoples of the sub-continent is a complete anathema to them, principally because they are stupid.
We can all face insults based on things we cannot change, I have long accepted that I will always be a Plastic Paddy because I was born of Irish family but not in Ireland, having accepted it it is now useless for anyone to try to insult me with it because like Rocky says it’s a “no shit Sherlock” moment.
Comment by Red Baron — June 20, 2005 @ 10:35 am
again, wish i had more time to write but alas it is not so.
Re: the stand up act, it doesnt sound as good as they seemed to find it nor as bad you though it, rocky. “bhenchod” just has a funny ring to it many times, an coming from a ‘gora’ it would have to be odd- possibly odd enough to rpompt a laugh. (but did he say nothing with the bhenchod???
Comment by vAgue — June 20, 2005 @ 4:51 pm
vague, he said NOTHING remotely funny with it. it was blah, blah, bhenchod (and everyone was rolling). i use that word all the time (its my all time favorite) and i teach it to goras (who, like i said, get quite a few laughs at parties when they use it, in context), but i expect more from stand up comedians. and yeah, you’re right, it wasn’t THAT bad, i just tend to get pissed off by random things.
Comment by rocky — June 21, 2005 @ 11:55 am
Agreed. I think humour is one art form we haven’t quite managed to get right in this part of the world. There are few (if any) comic writers that I am aware of in Urdu. What passes for humour in our “theatre”, films and television is either purely physical (it aint over till the fat lady tilts and falls over)or slapstick. For all its failings, something like Goodness Gracious Me at least attempted to bring South Asian themes into a very western comedy show genre.
Comment by uberhomme — June 22, 2005 @ 8:11 am
Goodness Gracious Me is a very interesting example because it is kind of an updated British Not The Nine O’Clock News, I say British because part of it’s success was that it was very establishment in a way, it proved the complete mixing of British-Indian culture and made fun of it from the Indian side. The 2 cultures now are inexhorably linked, at least for our generations, British life and language is flooded with sub-continent influence. After all the top 3 cities in the world for number of Curry Houses are London, Bradford and Delhi in that order! For me the pioneering sketch in this genre is Rowan Atkinson’s Indian waiter (on the album Not Just A Pretty Face). I remember hearing this once described as racist by a politically correct imbecile, which it is in a way…. but only against the English lager lout crowd.
Another thing that interested me about GGM is that the writers/performers are English with Indian roots, their battle has been to convince people they are English which contrasts with mine trying to prove that I am not! There was a very moving radio program on Kulvinder Ghia who went to India and did his stand up routine which was not especially well received, it was this situation that led to him to realise that he was far more English than he had previously thought.
Comment by Red Baron — June 22, 2005 @ 9:08 am
‘goodness gracious me’ has actually had quite a few funny moments (like ‘how big is his danda?’ - sorry, i tend to remember only filth) - i like the way that they make fun of themselves. even the one gori who was obsessed with being desi and used to dance around trees, in ridiculously outdated desi clothes, was so exaggerated that it would make anyone laugh.
uber, i haven’t kept up with paki theater, simply because i’m not there, but i did catch a ‘black fish’ performance last year in karachi and i have to say that it was much better than i had expected - in fact, they could kick ‘funjabis’ ass anyday.
Comment by rocky — June 22, 2005 @ 10:42 am
i think that desi’s should be flattered by a white person trying to be like them. well i say that because i am a half white half brown kid living in canada and i realize that i love being brown and despise my whiteness…
Comment by mark — April 3, 2006 @ 6:31 am
bhenchod
Comment by B — October 9, 2006 @ 6:09 pm