Sania Mirza — did she really need to?
The week’s stunner came when tennis ace Sania Mirza announced her upcoming marriage with Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik. Though it will be considered highly inflammable to officially conclude that Sania may have gone nuts in taking such a step, a bulk of the drawing-room chatterati definitely thinks so.
There are two, actually three, ways of looking at this premise-less development. Like Sania’s father Imran Mirza, you could eulogise it as an aman ki asha move that would go a long way in bringing peace between the two bickering nations; like the usual cynic who may just not be bothered about anything at all on Earth, you could dismiss it as non-newsy, private decision among two families with no national or international connotations whatsoever; or you could criticise it as something that an Indian icon need not have done.
The third view, howsoever politically incorrect, comes up with the best arguments, which do not just hinge on the usual anti-Pakistan tirade equated to jingoism.
Consider the situation in Pakistan. It is being torn apart by in-born and brewed terror; it has become universally unreasonable; it still pegs its growth on India-bashing; it is Taliban’s youngest prisoner and its cities live in dread, blood and gore. Coming to its sports, it is doing its best to kill even a whiff of hero-dom in this arena.
Pakistani cricket, which had long been known for its killer instinct, now defines the banana republic that Pakistan is. It’s hockey stars have walked into the sunset in ignominy and the nation does not have many other sporting heros to dote on.
In such an intensely brittle atmosphere — politically, socially and for its sporting community — is there any scope of a micro hemline girl in a stylish sport like tennis getting any support in her would-be husband’s country? The couple says it will stay in Dubai for career purposes but for how long and why? Shoaib has gone on to clarify that he will let Sania pursue her Olympic dream and she has said her mother-in-law understands why the hemline of her future daughter-in-law needs to be so high up on the legs!
On a more personal note, let’s talk about Shoaib himself. His career has not been going too well lately, though the argument here would be that cricket can as uncertainly throw you up as it can throw you out, so nothing is permanent, especially when it comes to Pakistan. As of now, he is under a one-year ban by PCB for non-performance and misbehaviour. With all this at age 28, his cricketing career is all but over.
But more importantly, he is in the midst of a huge row about his alleged marriage to another Hyderabadi girl Ayesha Siddiqui whose nikahnama with Shoaib is currently being aired on almost all Pakistani news channels with the Hyderabadi family seeking to bring out the truth about Shoaib’s falsities. Till date, Shoaib has not been able to convincingly rebuff the allegations. So, on both counts, there’s a question mark around the man from across the border whom India’s icon is all set to tie the knot with.
Go into the past and you will find that across the border marriages of icons have barely survived. Bollywood actress Reena Roy left a booming career in India behind to get married to former Pakistani cricketer Mohsin Khan, who is now chief selector with the Pakistan Cricket Board. That was in 1983 and the marriage went through hell. First, Mohsin quit cricket to act in Bollywood, flopped and then the couple went back to Pakistan. The marriage ended with an ugly custody battle over their daughter Sanam which Reena lost and returned to India a broken woman. It was only after Mohsin’s second wife refused to take care of Sanam that the daughter was sent back to Reena in India.
Not that the same will happen to Sania but on all counts, the raison d’etre of this star wedding comes under a shadow. And that is apart from the inevitable question: Why a Pakistani Muslim when there are so many more in India who may be better husband material, especially when she is already being talked about as Shoaib’s second wife?
Of course, Sania is much beyond the tennis age and serious sporting competitions may already be beyond her. But the fear of India’s only Muslim girl icon playing under the Pakistani flag gives as much heebie-jeebies to an average Indian as the our Prime Minister’s “let’s talk to Pakistan” announcement had done from Sharm in Egypt.
Published April 4, 2010, Sunday Pioneer. http://www.dailypioneer.com/246713/Sania-Mirza-%E2%80%94-did-she-really-need-to.html
There are two, actually three, ways of looking at this premise-less development. Like Sania’s father Imran Mirza, you could eulogise it as an aman ki asha move that would go a long way in bringing peace between the two bickering nations; like the usual cynic who may just not be bothered about anything at all on Earth, you could dismiss it as non-newsy, private decision among two families with no national or international connotations whatsoever; or you could criticise it as something that an Indian icon need not have done.
The third view, howsoever politically incorrect, comes up with the best arguments, which do not just hinge on the usual anti-Pakistan tirade equated to jingoism.
Consider the situation in Pakistan. It is being torn apart by in-born and brewed terror; it has become universally unreasonable; it still pegs its growth on India-bashing; it is Taliban’s youngest prisoner and its cities live in dread, blood and gore. Coming to its sports, it is doing its best to kill even a whiff of hero-dom in this arena.
Pakistani cricket, which had long been known for its killer instinct, now defines the banana republic that Pakistan is. It’s hockey stars have walked into the sunset in ignominy and the nation does not have many other sporting heros to dote on.
In such an intensely brittle atmosphere — politically, socially and for its sporting community — is there any scope of a micro hemline girl in a stylish sport like tennis getting any support in her would-be husband’s country? The couple says it will stay in Dubai for career purposes but for how long and why? Shoaib has gone on to clarify that he will let Sania pursue her Olympic dream and she has said her mother-in-law understands why the hemline of her future daughter-in-law needs to be so high up on the legs!
On a more personal note, let’s talk about Shoaib himself. His career has not been going too well lately, though the argument here would be that cricket can as uncertainly throw you up as it can throw you out, so nothing is permanent, especially when it comes to Pakistan. As of now, he is under a one-year ban by PCB for non-performance and misbehaviour. With all this at age 28, his cricketing career is all but over.
But more importantly, he is in the midst of a huge row about his alleged marriage to another Hyderabadi girl Ayesha Siddiqui whose nikahnama with Shoaib is currently being aired on almost all Pakistani news channels with the Hyderabadi family seeking to bring out the truth about Shoaib’s falsities. Till date, Shoaib has not been able to convincingly rebuff the allegations. So, on both counts, there’s a question mark around the man from across the border whom India’s icon is all set to tie the knot with.
Go into the past and you will find that across the border marriages of icons have barely survived. Bollywood actress Reena Roy left a booming career in India behind to get married to former Pakistani cricketer Mohsin Khan, who is now chief selector with the Pakistan Cricket Board. That was in 1983 and the marriage went through hell. First, Mohsin quit cricket to act in Bollywood, flopped and then the couple went back to Pakistan. The marriage ended with an ugly custody battle over their daughter Sanam which Reena lost and returned to India a broken woman. It was only after Mohsin’s second wife refused to take care of Sanam that the daughter was sent back to Reena in India.
Not that the same will happen to Sania but on all counts, the raison d’etre of this star wedding comes under a shadow. And that is apart from the inevitable question: Why a Pakistani Muslim when there are so many more in India who may be better husband material, especially when she is already being talked about as Shoaib’s second wife?
Of course, Sania is much beyond the tennis age and serious sporting competitions may already be beyond her. But the fear of India’s only Muslim girl icon playing under the Pakistani flag gives as much heebie-jeebies to an average Indian as the our Prime Minister’s “let’s talk to Pakistan” announcement had done from Sharm in Egypt.
Published April 4, 2010, Sunday Pioneer. http://www.dailypioneer.com/246713/Sania-Mirza-%E2%80%94-did-she-really-need-to.html
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