Anatomy of a Shaadi crash
So there we were – sitting on an unmade bed, with two laptops, seven spreadsheets, six quarterly and two annual reports, 25 unchecked assignments and very little time between us – and all she could think about was the smell of barbecue wafting through the windows.
My wife suffers from axial myopia, a consequence of her XL-sized eyeballs which can, in situations of duress, be manipulated to form the aesthetic form necessary to evoke sympathy. Try and imagine a puppy acting in a canine production of Oliver Twist, and you'll know what I am talking about. The fact that she rarely, if ever, deploys this look meant that the call of the shaadi-food was strong within her.
At this point I tweeted.
So, I tried to encourage the reverie a little further.
Moreover, it increasingly became clear that wedding-crashing is a common pastime amongst Pakistanis. In fact, not just a pastime, but rather an elaborate personal quest of ever-increasing audacity to sample illicit shaadi-khaanas that just about everyone was into.
With a skip and a jump, I ran off to the cupboard and put on my valimay ka suit, and decided that the scene was on. My wife, the brainchild of this daring operation, had apparently been planning for a chance to raid a wedding her entire life, and was full of tips and tricks. The heist was on.
One of the tweets I received that night was this one.
Now when something, anything, breaks on twitter that is even mildly interesting, there is a sudden maelstrom of opinions all over the internets. When the situation is of a political/social/serious nature, this sudden onrush of reaction and outrage is confused by the mainstream media and other outsiders as a virtual storming of the Bastille.
When people start claiming that all of us are Malala or Bou-Azizi or Salman Butt, journalists too lazy to canvas vox-pops in person latch onto these tweets as proof of the vibrant and powerful body of opinion on the matter.
Nonsense.
Twitter is unique in how it can create a virtual community, or mob, within seconds – with each participant genuinely aware of being part of a greater whole. But what the investors, reporters and intellectuals loath to admit, or realise, is that this semi-transcendental surge is not limited to revolutions or “where were you when...” moments, but also moments of complete irreverence.
The excitement and enthusiasm is not – I repeat, not – a consequence of the gravity of the situation, because otherwise a situation like the one above wouldn’t have happened. Rather, the enjoyment comes from the existence of an event on which we can all draw our own opinions, our own retorts, our own pop culture references, our own memes. And the very fact that such events are ephemeral and likely to be forgotten tomorrow enhances that appeal.
The moment is the celebration of the now, of the present, and of the knowledge that we’ll all shortly move onto something else. But before we do, let’s have some tikka laced with kheer.
The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.