“I’m not the father,” Mehir Verani exclaims, accusing his virtuous wife Tulsi of having their son with another man.
Shocked, the woman throws her husband a tearful glance.
The music peaks ... and an episode of the most popular soap opera in Afghanistan ends, millions of viewers left hanging on for the next installment in a tale many have followed since it first aired four years ago.
PHOTO: EPA
“I think this is another conspiracy against Tulsi,” 50-year-old car-part salesman Noor Agha said of the Indian drama. “I’m desperate to see how she will cope with it this time.”
But just as Tulsi’s honor was thrown into doubt, albeit only briefly, so has been the fate of the serial of the same name.
Islamic mullahs, backed by elements in the government, want it and others banned.
They say the serials and the hot topics they deal with are corrupting Afghans as they emerge from the strict conservatism of the Taliban regime.
Afghan culture has slunk toward a democracy comprising free media, pop music and fashion, they claim.
But the information and culture ministry has ordered at least five Indian serials off the air. Most stations have complied but Tolo television has firmly refused to drop Tulsi, which has been a ratings winner.
A showdown looms with the ministry referring the matter to the attorney general while the Mohseni family that runs the station says the ban is illegal.
The influential clerics are unhappy in particular with women in the show: Heavily made-up, they never cover their hair as Afghan women do and wear Indian saris that expose arms and waists, pixellated out for Afghanistan.
The clerics also complain about depictions of Hindu idols.
“In one scene a person bows to an idol. Don’t you think this would have a negative impact on a child?” Egypt-educated cleric Hayaz Niazi asked from his Kabul mosque.
They also “step on” the custom of wearing a veil and show too much violence, he said, calling for media “based on our own culture and beliefs.”
In a land scarred by decades of conflict, Tulsi offers Afghans an escape from their own hard lives.
The soaps portray romance and dating — a taboo in Afghanistan where almost all marriages are arranged — as well as heroism and the triumph of good over evil.
But some ordinary Afghans share the mullahs’ concerns.
“When my kids see a kid worshipping a Hindu idol, demanding something from it and getting it right away, my kids will believe that can happen,” educated Kabul resident Bahram Sarway said. “I don’t want them to forget the real God and go after stone-made gods.”
Tolo director Zaid Mohseni scoffs at such arguments.
“To suggest that somehow people will suddenly stop being Muslims because of the airing of foreign content is not only short-sighted, but it is actually offensive to Muslims as it suggests that their faith is so fickle,” he said.
He believes the ban — which is being pushed by Information and Culture Minister Abdul Karim Khoram — is partly politically motivated.
Pulling Tulsi from the schedules would mean a huge loss in advertising revenue, which is financing other programs, Mohseni said.
This includes hard-hitting and satirical news shows that are the only ones in the country that criticize officials, including Khoram.
The government should be concentrating on more weighty matters, Mohseni said.
“We wish that issues such as corruption, poppy eradication, rule of law, how to attract investment and other important matters could be pursued with the same vigor by the government as this matter was,” he said.
Some suggest Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has expressed support for the ban, is trying to put pressure on the media to please conservatives ahead of next year’s election.
“His popularity has suffered huge damage because of his failures in recent years, exposed by the free media,” said Fahim Dashti, editor of the Kabul Weekly.
“I think he wants to stop media telling the people about his failures during the sensitive election campaign,” he said. “It also seems the president uses this to reflect himself as a good Muslim in an attempt to attract support from conservative circles and communities ahead of the elections.”
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
RSS