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Pakistan bids goodbye to iconic “Begum”

Nirupama Subramanian

ISLAMABAD:

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan television will bid goodbye to an iconic transvestite talk show host whose outrageously subversive and hugely popular programme is to go off air this week after a two-year-run.

Begum Nawazish Ali, whose weekly show on Aaj TV had a massive following for the host’s flirtatious irreverence with a series of famous guests, from ministers and opposition politicians to Pakistani and Indian glitterati, has indicated in interviews that the show was being pulled off under pressure from the government.

Ali Saleem, the glamourous, saree-wearing Begum’s name in real life, said in a farewell radio interview on Sunday that the political situation in the country, and the consequent pressure from “in-house” censors at the private TV station had made him decide that he “needed a break” so that he could go on a vacation and get married.

“There were things I was saying before March 9 [the political unrest in the country began] and 12th May [when more than 40 people were killed in Karachi during political violence] that I found I could not say anymore,” the 28-year-old Saleem said on Cloud 89, an FM radio programme. “But darlings, I will be back, I promise,” he said, in a tone that can pass for a husky female voice.

President Pervez Musharraf recently withdrew a draconian ordinance to regulate television programmes, getting in return an assurance from private channels that they would formulate a code for self-regulation. It is not clear if the unusual show was the first casualty of this.

On ‘Late Night Show With Begum Nawazish Ali’, Mr. Saleem, who is open about his bisexuality, broke many conventions and taboos. He flirted with guests, batting heavily shadowed and masacaraed eyes at them, all the while taking digs at them, especially if they were politicians of the ruling party.

But such was the popularity of the show that many politicians were keen to break convention themselves and be interviewed by a man in drag portraying a seductive middle-aged widow. In a recent episode, the Begum interviewed law minister Wasi Zafar, who earned notoriety for using obscene language against a journalist during another television talk show on the judicial crisis. With the Begum though, he tried to project a hip and “with it” nonchalance.

One of the Begum’s favourite targets was President Pervez Musharraf, who Mr. Saleem described in the radio interview as “such a handsome man” who “I would like better if he took of his uniform”. Reminded on the interview that the Begum would never have been on television had it not been for General Musharraf’s decision to free the air waves, Mr. Saleem said: “all that is on one side, but on principle, I do not think a military man should be ruling the country.”

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