by Sanam Maher
She tells him about her sister Shehnaz in Islamabad, her school days in Multan and her brother who is in the army. It is the first time she has spoken about her family so candidly, and a journalist in Multan watching the episode, whose ears prick up at the mention of a brother in the army, later remarks to his friend, “She’s going to get into trouble for that.” She is leaving tantalizing clues about herself for anyone who wants to dig into her past.
Qandeel comes across as honest—maybe a little too honest, as parts of her interview are cut out because the producers don’t want to get into trouble for obscenity—and she does not seem to filter her thoughts or give measured answers to questions. At one point she even seems to forget she is being filmed and says, “What the fuck?” and then she giggles with embarrassment. They will need to beep it out.
Five days ago, after her meeting with Mufti Qavi was broadcast on practically every news channel in the country, an Urdu-language newspaper based in Multan managed to find out her real name. A reporter even discovered that she had worked as a bus hostess. He had picked apart the threads of the story she had woven—the story of Qandeel Baloch—for her social media followers. The paper had printed pictures of her passport and national identity card. Now everyone knows her real name: Fouzia Azeem. The news is online and has been picked up by mainstream English and Urdu media outlets.
During the interview with Sohail, her first major one since her real name was revealed, she downplays the story. When he briefly touches upon it and asks her to confirm what her real name is, she reminds him, “Well, now the whole world knows it.” She airily tells him that everyone in her family calls her Qandeel, and has done so ever since she was a little girl.
Did the people who put out that story think that they could hurt her by telling everyone her real name? By telling everyone where she comes from? She is certain she is being targeted because she has humiliated Mufti Qavi. She was trying to show people what a fake person, a fake scholar who uses religion for his own purposes, looks like. Now she is being called an impostor, a “fake person” simply because she changed her name when she entered show business. “Message to my country’s people,” she writes on her Facebook page. “Just be aware of such fake people who have two faces and who are cheating people in the name of religion.” She adds, “Qandeel Baloch is not two faced as like such people. What I am my fans know me [sic] #DoubleStandardPeople #Hypocrite_Fake #No_Support.”
I’m literally feeling alone in the fight. I tried to reveal the true faces but actually I’m banged for that. I should not take such steps.
She has heard that Mufti Qavi has been removed from his post on the Ruet-e-Hilal committee, a position he loved to brag about. She doesn’t take pleasure in his humiliation. She feels bad for him, but something tells her that he will bounce back from this stronger than ever.
Mufti Qavi deserves worse than this.
She does not want to talk about Mufti Qavi in public any more. Only people in show business seem to be pleased with the scandal. She received a phone call the other day from an event planner who wants Qandeel to be the show-stopper in an upcoming fashion show. Everyone has seen the photos and videos from the Qavi meeting and everyone is talking about her, the planner says. But Mansoor warns her to be careful when talking about religion—not everyone is pleased with how she has been talking about the cleric. There are no more gleeful tweets from Qandeel (“Now this is called halal selfie ”). Instead, she proclaims on her Facebook page: “I’m too upset with what has happened in the past couple of weeks and I here by [sic] announce that I do not have any issues with Mufti Qavi, whatever has happened between both of us is PAST now.” She makes an apology: “I respect my religion and this issue is portraying Islam in a wrong way which is surely not acceptable for me.” So when Sohail asks her about Mufti Qavi during his interview she will only say that whatever has happened is God’s will.
The day after the shoot she calls Sohail. She wants to tell people about the text messages she has been receiving and how angry she is that pictures of her passport and identity card were printed in a newspaper. She wants to hold a press conference. Can he tell her how to go about it?
He sees her the next day on TV in that same sleek brown bobbed wig as her press conference at the Lahore Press Club is carried live by many channels.1 She wears a modest shalwar kameez with a dupatta and purple-tinted sunglasses that make it impossible to see her eyes. Is she on the verge of tears?
She sits at a table with a bouquet of microphones fanned out in front of her. “I have called you here today because you must have seen how there has been so much said about me on social media and the media,” she tells the reporters. “I have one question: why is Qandeel Baloch being maligned? What have I done? I am, by the grace of Allah, a Muslim and a daughter of this nation.” She also wants to address what she has been saying about Mufti Qavi. “I don’t think that all muftis are bad, and not all ulema are bad,” she explains. “Being a Muslim girl, I respect all the clerics because they keep Islam alive…but it is people like Mufti Abdul Qavi who disgrace Islam with what they do behind closed doors. I have no quarrel with other clerics. I respect them. I didn’t set out to humiliate Mufti Abdul Qavi. Whatever has happened is God’s will.” Her voice quavers. “But after this whole incident with Mufti Abdul Qavi, I’ve got so many threats, so many threats that I cannot sleep at night,” she says. She is getting calls from numbers in Afghanistan, and threatening emails and messages. “My sources have told me to go underground,” she reveals. “I am a prisoner in my own home.”
She is afraid of the strangers who are getting in touch with her. She fears for her life and for her family. She wants the government to provide her with protection. “If something happens to me tomorrow or something happens to my family, then the [government] will be held responsible,” she declares.
The reporters press her. There are many women in showbiz, one says to her, and they aren’t getting these kinds of threats. Perhaps it is because they don’t get up to the antics you do. You say that you have showed us Mufti Qavi’s real face. Who are you planning to expose next? Sohail watches the press conference and admires her for having squeezed in both an interview and a dramatic press conference on her trip to Lahore—paid for by his producers. He doesn’t worry too much about the threats that Qandeel mentions. After all, she seemed like an attention-seeker, didn’t she?
I’m telling you that my life is in danger and you’re accusing me of a publicity stunt? I can’t say anything to that.
When she gets back to Karachi, she meets her old friend Mansoor, and he takes her over to a friend’s house. She often breaks her fast with this friend in the evenings. He scolds her for the videos and photographs with Mufti Qavi and says she does not understand the danger she is putting herself in. Stay with me for a few days, he offers. It’s safe in my home with so many guards and people around all the time. She refuses and says she is planning to go to her parents in Multan for Eid, as she does every year. She also says she wants to leave Pakistan for a little while, perhaps with her parents, after Eid. She jokes that he has not given her Eidi [gifts of money given on Eid] yet. As she is leaving, he hands her a hundred dollars. He does not understand why she is going back to Multan now. It isn’t safe for her. “They’ll get you killed,” he says unhappily, but perhaps she is too excited about the crisp green note to pay attention or ask him who exactly “they” are.
* * *
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Things are not going according to plan. On 8 July she released one of her boldest works yet—she starred in a video for a song called “Ban.” The producer and director have worked with some of the biggest names in the music industry. They told her she would become an international artist once people saw the video. She could even go on tour in Canada. Look at the other women who have made these videos. Look at how their careers have taken off—they’re hosting talk shows, commanding great sums of money for appearances in other videos, and s
ome of them have even put out their own songs. She wants to be more than just a social media star, right? They know she understands that a flash of skin will always get people talking. And doesn’t she want to change what people are saying about her? Give the people something that can drown out all the other stories and rumours.
She falls out with Mec over the video. He didn’t want her to do it. He told her he didn’t like what they wanted Qandeel to do in the video. The director was ready to pay 300,000 rupees for Qandeel, but then she went behind Mec’s back. She didn’t know about the offer on the table and ended up accepting half the amount. She is given a free hand to do whatever she likes—clothes, hair and make-up, dancing. She wears a bobbed black wig and colours her lips a glossy hot pink. She brings her tinted sunglasses and the black lace dress from her video for Imran Khan. Her blue and pink bra peeks through the lace as she bends over and pushes herself against the singer, a kid in his late teens who likes to style his mop of hair in spikes.
Fine, the wardrobe is cheap. I agree it’s cheap.
With every thrust of her hips, the kid sings about her dangerous “thumkas” (hip thrusts), how sexy her moves are. She likes the lyrics, especially the line, “Baby, please don’t do it again.” She changes into a black bodysuit with sheer stockings and stiletto heels for some of her solo shots. She wears a low-cut pink babydoll dress with a push-up bra and tries to twerk. She sucks her finger. She isn’t happy with the twerking. She isn’t sure how to do it. She turns away from the camera and squats and thrusts her hips in and out, in and out, and then gazes over her shoulder and lightly smacks her ass.
Fine, I don’t know how to dance.
In between shots she sits on one of the props, hunched over and hugging herself as she watches the cameramen and lighting guys set up.
But look at my confidence. How would I rate this video? 10/10. Why not? I broke a record in Pakistan. No one has done this before.
She isn’t happy with some parts. She asks the producers to delay it, to take out some shots, but they refuse. Why is she so worried? Nothing in the video will be a problem, they assure her.
The video is watched more than 5.5 million times on YouTube alone. It is too risqué to be shown on television. But between Qandeel’s social media following and the production company’s, who needs airtime? The video is released on Facebook and YouTube with a cheeky disclaimer: “This video can shock, offend and upset people. Are you sure you want to watch it?”
Mec is furious with her. He refuses to share the video on his Facebook page. She tries to make peace. She calls him and weeps and complains about the shots she did not like. He scolds her. She doesn’t know how these people work. How they can secretly film you or fool you. She is still so naive. Let it go, she pleads with Mec. Let’s have a clean start. I swear I’ll listen to you now. She says that many times in that last month, every time she does something that lands her in trouble—Let’s start afresh—and each time Mec believes she really does want to.
It doesn’t matter. No one is talking about the video any more, not since a man appeared on TV five days after “Ban” came out. He told everyone he was Qandeel’s ex-husband and was sitting next to a small, full-lipped, serious-looking boy. The boy is her son, Mishal.
Ever since that newspaper revealed her real name, she has had bad luck. There are now two court cases against her accusing her of not being Baloch and threatening her with a fine of five crore rupees if she does not stop using “Baloch” as a name. Just dogs barking, she reassures herself. She receives a phone call from a man who says he is close to her father. His name is Safdar Shah. He tells her his house is right next to hers. She doesn’t understand what he means. In Shah Sadar Din, he says. Your home in Shah Sadar Din. Who is this man? she wonders. He says he is a lawyer and so she asks him for advice on the legal cases. Are they serious? Could something come of them? And is there any law which could stop her using “Baloch” as her surname?
Safdar Shah likes to tell Qandeel with indignation that if the daughter of a rich man can go to India and act in films there, then why can’t the daughter of a poor man from some no-name village do the same? When he mentions this for the fourth time in their conversation, she retorts that perhaps he should forget about these other actresses and think about Qandeel Baloch, who is the number-one top model in Pakistan. He chuckles.
People in Shah Sadar Din are burning with jealousy, he tells her. They can’t stand how successful she has become. It doesn’t matter to her. She is setting her sights higher—a career in politics might be in her future. Perhaps in Imran Khan’s party. Shah is very enthusiastic about this idea. She is curious about who has been feeding information about her life in Shah Sadar Din to the media, but she is not scared—after all, the stories keep her in the headlines, and who doesn’t want that? She likes being in the limelight. Let the dogs keep barking.
But then she sees her little boy on television.
Her phone will not stop ringing.
“I am in Multan,” she messages Mec. “Handle all these calls, please. Need your support. I am very much alone. Everyone against. Even my family. What should I do? No one can understand me.”
He tells her to stay away from the media. Ignore the calls and requests for interviews. Don’t say a word.
“Can you please handle all these people?” she replies. “The cases. I need a lot of support.”
Later, “It’s very hot here.”
There is a picture of her being shared online and shown over and over again on the news. In it she stands with her husband and his mother in a field. She remembers that picture. She hadn’t wanted to stand close to them. Her gold bangles had clinked as she crossed her arms and held herself. People start posting that photo in the comments section of anything she shares or writes on her Facebook page.
An entertainment reporter from one of the English-language newspapers calls her. She tells him about how her husband would beat her and how she has not seen her son in years.
No one tells me, “Qandeel, you have gone to war against a society, against a kind of place where men think women are as lowly as their shoe. The kind of place where it’s so common for a man to hit a woman, that if some man doesn’t hit his wife, people call him beghairat [dishonourable].” Why don’t people see that?
She cannot stop crying. The reporter is irritated. Does this woman ever stop being such a drama queen? He had admired her for the stunt with Mufti Qavi, but really this is too much. But he needs to keep the conversation going. He needs something, a nugget of information that will make his story stand out from all the others. He tries to sympathize with her. It must be troublesome that you cannot meet your child any more, he offers.
“They will kill me,” she replies, sniffling. “I can’t go back.” How dramatic! She just wants to be in the news all the time, doesn’t she? He does not ask her who “they” are and she does not say. “I took a divorce because I wanted to study further and work, but I was forcibly married,” she explains.2
The reporter wants an exclusive face-to-face interview. She tells him she is in Multan, and when she comes back to Karachi she doesn’t plan on doing anything for a month or two. She doesn’t want to speak to anybody. She wants to file a custody case for her boy.
The reporter ends the call, walks back into the newsroom and tells everyone the drama queen is crying again and saying the same old things about threats to her life. Remember all those videos where she sniffled and complained about a fever or a headache, or the time she wailed and sobbed after Pakistan lost the T20 match against India? This story about the husband is just another excuse to make a video. The reporter files his story. It instantly goes online, and everyone in the newsroom is delighted because they have never seen such high traffic. They covered the Mufti Qavi meeting and her “Ban” video when it came out, because they know that anything to do with Qandeel Baloch brings a tide of readers to their website.
The nu
mbers on the story about the drama queen’s husband will only be surpassed by those for the piece about her death two days later.
* * *
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On her visits home she does no work. She sleeps for most of the day. A lady comes to the house to rub mustard oil in her hair and massage her body. Qandeel dyes her hair on the trip, peering into a small mirror above the sink in the only bathroom in the house. She gets a call from Mansoor. He tells her some of his friends want to meet the Qandeel Baloch. They are planning to hold a party on a boat this week. Come with me, Mansoor says. She tells him she is in Multan. When I come back, she promises, we’ll go on a cruise together.
She does an interview over the phone with a man who hosts an online talkshow.3 He takes a few calls from listeners. One man asks her why she does not use her fame and celebrity to do something good so the people who curse her and call her names can then have something to praise her for. “I definitely plan to do some positive work, but these days there are so many issues I am dealing with,” she replies. “There are the court cases…the controversies that won’t leave me, and then on top of everything, my brothers want to kill me.”
The caller interrupts her. “But you are planning to do some work which will bring glory to Pakistan?”
The host does not ask her about her brothers, and she does not mention them again.
She likes to sit with her mother and massage her feet. She feels happiest when she is doing this. Her father has come down with a cold. She plays Abida Parveen songs for him on her phone. Her younger brother is there as well. After they eat dinner together, he offers to go out to buy the milk that her mother gets every evening. He pours swirls of sweet ruby-red Rooh Afza syrup into the chilled glasses of milk. Her phone’s battery dies. She goes to her room to charge it. She gets a phone call.
