Saira Khan's Pakistan Adventure

This isn’t so much as a review but more my feelings and opinions of the programme. The first thing I have to say is I jumped with joy when she went to Lahore fort and memories came pouring fourth of our trip there little over a year ago, where we walked through the very same walls. However as Saira walked towards Badshahi mosque my eyes narrowed into slits, daring her to set foot in the mosque, as it reminded me of another memory from our holiday. I recall we were looking down on the mosque from Lahore fort and we were pleading to go, but to our dismay my cousin who was acting as our tour guide said women weren’t allowed in there. This angered me to no end and I remember I began a diatribe, aimed at no one in particular about the stupidity of women not being allowed in mosques, ok so we’re encouraged to pray at home but that doesn’t mean we’re forbidden from the mosque!? However I realised later on from the program that he probably didn’t want to take us there as there was a brothel called cocoa (spelt cooco?!) just down the road from the mosque, brothel + mosque on practically the same road = a totally oxymoronic idea if I ever saw one.

It was also interesting seeing a glimpse into other parts of Pakistan, for example, I was absolutely amazed with the mountainsides, I remember seeing it all from the plane when we were coming back to England but seeing it close up like that was truly awe inspiring. I also loved Kashmir, I never knew it was so lush and green!! Me and my mum had decided we wanted to go there one day, but by my dad’s “it’s a dangerous place” mumblings, our hopes were diminished to a very tiny glimmer. However I think two programmes weren’t adequate enough to capture the vast variety of Pakistan and I think it would have been better if they made a few more episodes.

One thing that amused me was the fact that Saira was continuously seen as the “only woman”. I actually admire her for joining protests and performances where she was the only member of the fairer sex, purely because of the fact that I would never, ever for the life of me do that ever, ok so she probably had all her TV crew with her but surely she must have been a little creeped out and uncomfortable?

A lot of people seemed to be quite affronted with idea that the programme showed prostitutes, drug addicts, transsexuals and other general “ills of society”. I was also a bit annoyed with it for a while as it kinda ruined the Pakistan of my memories, but after much thought about it I changed my mind about the whole thing. I was totally split whilst watching the segments on the above mentioned groups of society, my heart filled with sympathy at their situations, yet at the same time I knew what they were doing was totally wrong. I think to some extent it was used as a shock factor however I don’t think that was the sole purpose. When you normally think of Pakistan you don’t think of its “dark side”, and that’s most probably due to the fact that it’s never discussed, or shown anywhere. I think that is largely due to the typical Pakistani mentality that exists, you know the one, where you brush anything remotely tabooish under the rug and forget about it. The one mentality that’s so wrong in so many ways. I think that’s where the programme came into play, it opened people’s eyes to the many problems that lie behind closed doors in Pakistan. As long as humans exist there’s going to be prostitutes, orphans, addicts of some substance or another, women who are abused by others and that’s a fact that people need to accept. No matter how furiously they sweep it under the rug it’s still going to be there. I know however some people are going to take it negatively and start making sweeping generalisations about all Pakistanis, but even if one person out there has decided to do something, maybe give some money to a charity, or even set up a charity themselves, in order to help the troubled souls that live in Pakistan, or indeed any where else, then there was some good to come out of the programme after all.