Owais Mughal
This notice board is from Food Street, Lahore. It reads:
“Entering the ‘Food Street’ wearing shorts is strictly prohibited: Food Street Administration”
Among other things on this notice board, I enjoyed reading the word sakht (strictly). As if the word forbidden didn’t sound serious enough, the administration had to add a prefix strictly forbidden to make sure people undrestand that administration means business here.
Credits: I found the above photo in rooq‘s collection at Flickr.com.
Its funny. I visited a posh club (in Defence HS) in Karachi with my cousin, who is a member. I was dressed in Kurta pajama and wore a nice pair of sandals bought at the English Boot House. They refused to serve us tea; apparently I had violated the dress code in the very city where I had grown up.
Not just Islamized, we are also still colonized; and there are fundos all across our socio-political spectrum!
Superb post Owais bhai, I guess tt could only happen in Pakistan!!!!!
Wasim
P.S Please respond to email!
well I think this picture is very old, I saw it on several places. n e ways it is Funny
Ok, accepted BUT only on one condition: NO BURKAS & NO BEARDS either.
& we talk of promoting tourism.
“strictly forbidden” is a common English phrase, although admittedly a bit redundant. Maybe its a case of reverse borrowing?
For the record I wish every tourist site in the world would ban these ugly shorts. Nobody over the age of 18 looks decent in short pants. I have never worn them even at that age. I just think they are grossly unattractive, much more so than the chelwar-kameez (which I very much like, even on men). And tight fitting clothing is always more uncomfortable in hot weather, even if it covers less body area. So I don’t really buy into that part of the argument.
I went for holidays to the Mayan areas of Mexico, and the crowds of elderly, much overweight people waddling around in these shorts was just..uggghhhh. And believe me, when the shorts get wadded up into their butts its even more disgust-inducing than a man on the street scratching himself in Pakistan (although that’s also pretty bad).
Sometimes the modesty issue is not about sex but how you appear to others. Outfits like tennis players wear look all right on the tennis court but not anywhere else. I think the sign is fine, even if its not an “elegant” area. Best case scenario is if people would just show good taste and common sense. Then no need for signs.
Also crowds of people in Italy and the Vatican tramp through the churches in their khaki shorts although they are expressly requested not to do so, even verbally. In this case the reason is also religion, and I don’t see anything wrong with asking them to respect that. But they just don’t and can get pretty nasty about it. I am not going to name any nationalities but I think we know who they are…… :(