A Woman Like Her

by Sanam Maher

  “We’re going to do some fun questions,” Matloob tells her during a commercial break. “Some games-type questions, OK? So that we can put out a good image.”

  “OK,” Qandeel agrees. She glances up from her phone and smiles at him. “But if a bad image comes across, I don’t have any problem.”

  “Since when have you been so innovative?” Matloob asks her early on in the show. “Have you been like this since childhood, or have you recently become so enlightened?”

  “I don’t know about innovative,” Qandeel replies. “But since childhood I have been bold like this, blunt like this, and hot and sexy like this.”

  He asks her what she likes to eat.

  “Oh, I’ll eat just about anything,” she replies.

  “Really? How many have you eaten in your life?”

  Qandeel knows he is making a crude joke about how many men she has performed oral sex on. She pretends she hasn’t heard him.

  Matloob asks her about the videos she makes late at night. Why does she want to be a social media celebrity?

  “I chose social media over electronic media,” Qandeel explains. “I’m not desperate to come on TV and be on these shows. I have self-respect.” (The snickering chimp pops up on the screen.) “I’m a girl from a Baloch family, and Baloch have a very strong sense of self-respect,” she continues, with the chimp and a burst of canned laughter punctuating her words. The producers run some of her videos. They have been blurred. You can only see a pixelated writhing body in some.

  She is bored with talking about the promised striptease, but Matloob doesn’t want to let it go. Every time he says “striptease,” the producers bleep out the word. “So what if I had done it?” Qandeel asks. “Is dancing bad? And I would have stripped in my own way. They should have seen how I stripped. But our nation just got terrified. Oh my God, what’s going to happen? Oh my God, what will happen? Maybe I would have stripped, maybe I wouldn’t—I would have expressed my happiness about the team winning the match in my own way.”

  She tells Matloob she wanted to leave Pakistan for a little while after that video went viral. “I was getting a lot of threats,” she confesses. He doesn’t ask her about the threats, and she does not expand. “I’m still getting threats now,” she adds. The chimp pops up on screen, giggling behind a paw held to its mouth. She thinks of the mongrels baring their teeth at her. “The people of this nation are like the tail of a dog,” she says, using an Urdu proverb. “A dog’s tail will never become straight; it’ll always be crooked. I even asked the people for forgiveness, but I still get abuse. I won’t keep asking for it.”

  It is time for the second guest to come on. “We will ask him if the way Qandeel tried to express her happiness for the cricket team was right,” Matloob announces.

  The camera cuts to Mufti Qavi in Multan. He is sitting before a pale green wall. He is bearded, and his beard has been trimmed to a neat point. He wears a plaid waistcoat over a beige shalwar kameez and has a dark velveteen karakul hat on his head. Mufti Qavi is a member of the Ruet-e-Hilal committee, the group of scholars and clerics tasked with sighting the new moon at the start and end of Ramzaan in Pakistan. For thirty days every year, millions across the country wait for the committee to announce the first fast of Ramzaan. Then, at the end of the month, when the committee sights the slivered crescent of the moon, three days of feasting for Eid follow. “I’m going to be in Karachi for the moon sighting,” Mufti Qavi says to Qandeel within minutes of being introduced to her on the show. “So Inshallah we will be meeting each other.”

  “Many people have condemned and criticized Qandeel and her videos recently,” Matloob says in his first question to Mufti Qavi. “They say that vulgarity and nudity are being spread through her videos. What do you think?”

  “Qandeel has been blessed by Allah to be a Muslim,” Mufti Qavi replies. “And all her talents and abilities have been gifted by Allah. So if she shows off her abilities, then she knows that she needs to keep Islam’s teachings in mind when she does.”

  Matloob tries a more direct line of questioning. “Mufti sahib, people say that videos that are made in the bedroom need to stay in the bedroom. Do you think bedroom videos should be leaked?”

  The cleric gives a long-winded answer about Islam’s teachings about modesty.

  Matloob isn’t getting what he wants. The cleric isn’t taking the bait. “Mufti sahib, is wearing a bikini a sin?” he asks.

  Mufti Qavi holds forth about how women should dress modestly.

  Matloob turns to Qandeel, “The offer that you made Shahid Afridi, would you make the same offer to Mufti sahib? Is it valid for him too?”

  Qavi does not seem to know about Qandeel’s video. Everyone else is in on the joke, but the doddering cleric does not have a clue that he is talking to a woman who promised to dance naked in front of millions of viewers. “I am certain that the way her name is beautiful, her behaviour is also beautiful,” Mufti Qavi says.

  Even Qandeel smirks.

  Matloob gives up. He drops the light tone. Mufti Qavi isn’t responding to his questions the way he had expected. “Do you know how many homes you have destroyed?” he asks Qandeel.

  “Why don’t you people start teaching viewers how to pray during your shows?” she retorts. “Why do you call me on your show if I have sinned so greatly?”

  “We call you on the show to ask what is mentally wrong with you that you do these things,” Matloob replies. “Can you show your family what you do? Can you show your parents? What about your brothers? If someone goes to your father or your brother and says, ‘Look at this video of this girl,’ how would you feel?”

  Qandeel is taken aback. She is quiet for a few seconds then asks, “Why are you getting personal with me?”

  Matloob ignores her question. “You have put these things online that so many thousands have seen—”

  She interrupts him. “Not thousands,” she corrects him with a smile. “Millions.”

  They continue to argue. A few minutes later, Matloob asks Qandeel about her family once more. “Can we watch your videos with family? Can you? Can you show the videos to your brother? And if someone shows him the videos, how would he feel?” He tells her that no Muslim girl, no girl from a good home, would behave like she does.

  Mufti Qavi steps in. He is gentle with Qandeel. He chides her almost like an elderly uncle. “If there are videos or photos that she cannot look at with her children or her parents, then she should know that this is against decency and honour,” he counsels. “We don’t need to put a fatwa on her; she should ask herself that—can you look at those photos with your family? Are her actions according to Islam? She can decide what to do.”

  Neither Qandeel nor Matloob could have predicted that response. She is used to being scolded on live television by clerics. Matloob is hoping for some of that ratings gold. Even when she is no longer there to defend herself, these men will still be asked about her on talk shows.

  But that day Mufti Qavi does something no other guest on a talk show with Qandeel has done. He asks her to sing something for him so he can see how beautiful her voice is. He requests a song in Arabic.

  As the show wraps up, Matloob tells Qandeel, “You should meet Mufti sahib in Karachi. But promise me that when you do, you’ll show him the bedroom where you make those videos.” He insists, “Show Mufti Qavi the bedroom where you make the videos. Will you promise me that?” In the final few seconds of the show, Matloob says once more, “It’s your right to show him the place that you show hundreds of thousands of people.”

  Qandeel doesn’t seem to mind. She finds it funny. When the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority condemns the Qandeel and Mufti Qavi episode of Ajeeb Sa for vulgarity, Qandeel defends Matloob online. She liked being on his show. She had a good time. And everything he said? They were just words. Just jokes.

  She tweets a link to the episode and address
es Mufti Qavi: “Thank you, Mufti sahib! I am proud that people like you are there to represent Islam.”

  * * *

  —

  “People have started loosing [sic] interest in you,” reads a comment on her latest picture.

  Is it true? She tries the old tricks. She now uses hashtags to drum up interest in her photographs and videos: #unique, #kiss, #loudandproud, #boobs, #hotpicture, #shameless, #lesbian, #bigbooty, #assup. She scours Twitter to see what people are talking about. There is a video criticizing the Board of Control for Cricket in India for excluding Pakistani cricketers from the Indian Premier League. It’s perfect for a new video for her fans in India.

  She puts on a silky leopard-print shirt and stretches out on a soft leopard-print blanket on her bed. She has a selfie stick now, and uses it to prop up her phone to record the clip. “Are you afraid of Pakistani cricketers?” she mocks the BCCI.

  She makes another video about cricket, but this time it’s for Shah Rukh Khan. People are saying his cricket team, the Kolkata Knight Riders, might win the IPL (Indian Premier League). She wears a little black dress, the one she likes to wear to parties and events, the one that sheathes her arms and chest in lace. It shows off her cleavage and her breasts. She has stopped using kohl to line her eyes. She is trying a new, softer, more refined look. She no longer plucks her eyebrows to thin streaks. None of the girls do that any more. For the Shah Rukh video she puts a skinny wreath of fake flowers on her head. Some of the girls like to do that for their selfies. She promises Shah Rukh Khan that if his team wins, “I’ll celebrate it, and celebrate it such that people will be shocked…I’m going to do something that gets everyone worried.” She smacks her lips to her hand and blows the camera a kiss. “Love you all.”

  She falls in love with Indian cricketer Virat Kohli. She likes to draw out the “oh” until it sounds like a sigh. He has been making headlines for his relationship with actress Anushka Sharma. “Seriously, I feel that he should leave Anushka Sharma and should think about me,” she says, lying back on her bed. “Virat, I love you, baby,” she tells him. “Please, please, please, please, please leave Anushka. Please.” She whimpers. “Please.”

  She puts up a video of herself in a jacuzzi and dedicates it to him. She wallows in the steaming water wearing a dark purple halter-top bikini, holds up her selfie stick and tells him, “Virat, I love you, baby.” Someone opens the door behind her and walks in. They close the door but stay out of shot. The video cuts to the next shot, in which she emerges from the water and pushes back her soaked hair. “Virat, I miss you, baby.” She blows a wet kiss. She has really fallen for him, she says.

  To be “in,” it’s necessary to put up all sorts of strange pictures on social media.

  She retweets all the media outlets that run a story on these videos. By May 2016 there are rumours that she might be a contestant on the Indian reality-TV show Bigg Boss, a spin-off of the British Big Brother series. She is thrilled. She shares every story that hints that she might be in the show. The Virat Kohli video is being noticed. “The famous Pakistan model who proposed [sic] Virat to be a part of Bigg Boss?” tweets a Hindi news site. Qandeel retweets it. She reaches out to the reporter who had called her Pakistan’s Kim Kardashian. “Post some news about Bigg Boss in a positive note,” she texts him. When a local newspaper asks her to confirm the Bigg Boss news, she states, “I have certain terms and conditions. Once those are met, I’ll release a statement.” When she is asked if she has applied to be on the show, she is scornful. “Why should I fill out a form? Those are for common people, not celebrities!”

  There is gossip that she has been offered a role in a porn movie.

  “Qandeel Baloch set to break Sunny Leone records,” she tweets.

  She gets a call from a woman named Amber who says she works for the BBC. Amber wants to interview her. The year before, Amber, who is based in Pakistan, met a colleague from London. “Have you seen the videos of this woman?” the colleague asked her. “She talks about how she’s feeling and how she can’t sleep?” Amber didn’t know about the videos and looked them up.

  In the first one she saw, Qandeel was moaning about having a fever. She watched another. Qandeel was complaining that she couldn’t sleep. Amber had to see more. What else would this girl do? Amber showed the videos to her friends and they shared each new one on their Facebook pages and made little Dubsmash videos imitating Qandeel. Nobody in Pakistan does this kind of stuff, Amber thought to herself. She watched the videos and laughed at how the girl talked. Sometimes, Amber and her friends were bored by the videos, but then something in the latest one made them sit up and take notice.

  Now, after watching so many of her videos, Amber wants to meet Qandeel. She pitches a story to her editors in Islamabad and London. This woman represents a digital revolution in Pakistan, she tells them. A social media revolution. She is challenging Pakistani notions of what women can do. Her editors aren’t impressed. What’s the big deal? They are just videos.

  But no one is making these kinds of videos in Pakistan, Amber insists.

  The story is turned down.

  The striptease trailer really helps Amber. After she sees it, she makes her case again. The editors finally agree to let her work on a story about Qandeel, but for now it will only run on the BBC’s Urdu platform.

  Qandeel doesn’t know about any of this. She keeps Amber hanging for a little while. She doesn’t reply to her messages. She doesn’t commit to a meeting. She has never done a television interview with a foreign news outlet. Amber wants to film the interview at Qandeel’s house. She wants to know more about her. Qandeel hesitates. She is in Lahore, she tells Amber. She doesn’t want to do the interview there. The BBC can wait until she returns to Karachi.

  Amber keeps messaging her. She is surprised: why does Qandeel need to be convinced to appear on a segment devoted to her on one of the best-known media platforms in the world? But the interview will only be done on Qandeel’s terms. She wants it to be filmed at a hotel. Amber doesn’t insist on visiting Qandeel’s home. She figures she can interview her again, perhaps a few months down the road.

  Qandeel asks her old friend Mansoor to come with her. He tells her to take a taxi if she needs a ride to the hotel. It’s not that, she explains. I want them to meet my friends. My decent friends. Please come with me for support. He tells her he can’t make it.

  During the interview she wants to be seen in the hotel gym and she wants to swim. She is the only woman in the pool. All the men cannot help staring at her. She swims up to the camera and, once she is close, emerges from the water to give a loud smacking kiss. Her bright orange wetsuit clings to her as she steps out of the pool and stretches out on a lounge chair. She wants to do the interview by the pool. She agrees to sing.

  Some time after this interview airs, Qandeel hears from Mufti Qavi. “I promised I would meet you,” he reminds her. He is going to be in Karachi before the month of Ramzaan starts in June. He sends her details of his itinerary. She is travelling and says she cannot meet him. He persists. He is going to be in Karachi to appear on a TV show some time later in the month. She agrees to meet him, but then, on the day they are supposed to meet, she tells him she is not feeling well. The third time he gets in touch, he says he will be in Karachi for a few days in the last week of June. He is appearing on another TV show. She apologizes for not being able to meet sooner. He wants to have iftari, the meal to break the Ramzaan fast, with her. She wants to meet in the afternoon instead. She calls him and they meet at his hotel on 20 June.

  They are in his room. She makes a video using her selfie stick. She draws the curtains closed and tells Mufti Qavi she likes to smoke Marlboro Lights. He is on the phone, seated on a sofa behind her. He tells her to be careful. She must not take any photographs that make either of them look…Well, she should know what he means. She assures him she will keep that in mind.

  She takes a few pictures. After all,
she is the selfie queen. Her followers on social media will be anxious to see pictures of her with Mufti Qavi. Would he mind…? She leans in next to him and snaps a photograph. He has taken off his glasses. He is not smiling. She puts on his karakul cap. She arches an eyebrow and stares into the camera, her mouth open in a perfect O, feigning shock. Mufti Qavi stands next to her. His mobile phone is pressed to his ear and he is mid-sentence. He is no longer wearing his waistcoat, and his hair is slightly tousled. “Yayyyy,” Qandeel captions the photos on Twitter. “Having memorable time with #mufti Abdul Qavi.”

  When she sits next to him, after she has recorded the video she needed and snapped some more selfies while wearing his karakul hat, he tries to kiss her. He wants to hug her. She laughs and tells him not to do that.

  “I know,” he says. “You can’t trap a girl in the first meeting. As our relationship develops, we will become more open with each other.” He tells her he isn’t fasting—for her sake—and isn’t bound by any of the restrictions placed on a man who is keeping the fast. They share a Coke and some tea he has ordered for her, and he takes a few drags from her cigarette. When we share things, it increases the love between us, he tells her.

  He promises to help her meet Imran Khan. She still loves him, doesn’t she? Mufti Qavi is the head of Khan’s party’s religious wing, he says. She wants to shoot a small video of him promising that he will take her to meet Imran Khan.

  Mufti Qavi wants to marry her. They can keep it a secret, and he is willing to give her anything in exchange, he promises. Imran Khan is too old for you, he insists. Forget him.

  He keeps trying to kiss her but stops when she chides him, but then he tries again. Several times people knock on the door, but he gets rid of them. He tells Qandeel he knows just how to seduce a woman; what a man could do to give her pleasure.