ATP Mushaira: Khalid Masood, Anney Wa

Adil Najam

I was talking to a friend yesterday about Pakistan’s traumatic politics and remembered these really funny verses from Khalid Masood:

Luch lafang elect huwa hai annay-wa
Beeba phir reject huwa hai annay-wa
Sooe pay dhaga daalnay waali nokri pay
Anna aik select huwa hai annay-wa

We had featured these in a post very early in ATP’s life and a reader had translated it as such:

Gangsters and thugs have been elected blindly
And good people have been rejected blindly
For the job of threading the needle
A blind person has selected blindly

Of course, there is very little in the current situation that is really funny. But sometimes when your heart aches and your mind is ready to blow up, it is good to laugh out loud. If only as a means of stress relief.

So I dug into my archive and found these wonderful gems from Khalid Masood.

Khalid Masood writes in this odd, but terribly funny, mixture of Urdu, Punjabi and English – ‘Trilingual‘ more than Pinglish. He has a very direct way of saying things and much of his humor comes from his directness. Consider, for example, the very first line of the first line in the video:

Uss ka rishta na honay ka bayass uss ka abba tha

How can one not burst out laughing at this in anticipation of what will come next. Or, later in the video, when he paints the picture of a bald ‘phuppa‘ borrowing a comb and not returning it. That thought alone gives one such welcome comic relief. And comic relief is what I wanted right now. Just to take a little pause. Because I suspect that the ‘ground realities’ of Pakistan will become much worse before they can become any better.