Bandying words like shuttlecock, our film and TV stars mostly miss the main point! Some statements do make sense, but, unfortunately, they are quoted in the papers out of the context.

All that fades in front of Miss Hawa Hawai! Yes, who else, but Meera. More on that later. But, when an authentic classical fankar, Hamid Ali Khan, dismisses a whole generation of young singers as just besuray, it comes really as a shock. If he had uttered these ‘golden words’ twenty years back, they could have made sense, because at that time, there was no Coke Studios; there were hardly any film songs sung by our pop stars then; Sajjad Ali was the only saving grace as a pop singer, who had basic music training, and then, the Meekal Band had just begun their stuff. But, most importantly, a scion of his family, Shafqat Amanat Ali wasn’t at the head of an iconic band, Fuzon!

Now, when Coke Studio has conquered the international circuits, Hamid’s generalisation of our youthful music is out of sync. With relatively new singers like Sanam Marvi, Ali Sethi, Nabeel Shaukat, Aima Baig, Momina Mustehsin, Amanat Ali, Shuja Haider and others added to our earlier, established lot like Hadiqa Kiyani, Sajjad Ali, Naeem Abbas Rafi, Quratul Ain Baloch, Hina Nasrullah, Atif Aslam, Ali Hamza, Ali Zafar, Meesha Shafi et al, everybody would say we have an embarrassment of riches.

And now to the one who uttered those words. Well, Hamid Ali Khan, who once had the pleasure of watching General Musharraf sing almost half his song alongside him, can’t be condoned for such an idle remark! For one, he doesn’t have as much to show for his almost thirty years in music. There aren’t too many of his ghazals on the internet. Just recently, he sang Faraz’s famous Ranjish Hee Sahi for the title of a drama serial, in the same tune as sung by Mehdi Hasan! Moreover, the serial repeats two couplets of the ghazal, which are shamefully added to Faraz’s world-renowned ghazal. These two couplets are terrible poetry. How can an established singer like Hamid agree to this?

As for our cute little Ms HH, i.e. Meera, she, very airily called out to Hollywood to drop Priyanka Chopra like a hot potato, and try her instead! The collective guffaw echoed all over the country.

The thing that, probably, stops Hollywood to consider Meera for a leading lady is her weak English! I mean, apart from ‘Holly bol oey!’ That’s one dialogue that Hollywood would understand!

But, as the item could be late reporting, I’d say that Meera could very well act in Transformers or Pacific Rim, because nobody would be waiting for her dialogues between deafening explosions! Of course, I could be proven wrong in a big surprise very soon, as even Meera could easily memorise such dialogues as “I am good!” or “My bad!” or perhaps “Bling bling LOL!”

These days, everything goes!

And lastly, Fahad Mustafa struck us dumb by saying that he was the Salman Khan of Pakistan! Salman, for most of his career, was known as the Shirtless Wonder of Bollywood. Nobody took him seriously as an actor. Lately, he’s had some good flicks. On the other hand, Fahad is a nice actor. No need to compare himself with an actor across the border. But, now, he has excused himself by saying that I utter lines jokingly, which media pick up as my superior attitude! Yeah, meaning “my bad!”