A Porn Cinema in Pakistan
In Peshawar, Pakistan nightlife is limited, so when my friends
mentioned a visit to the local porn cinema, I decided to give the
sheep the night off and join them. I just prayed to Allah that there
would be chicks in these films. I wasn't really ready for Ali Baba
and The Forty Thieves - The Clusterfuck Years.
We stopped in a quiet street on the northern side of town. A sign
nearby said "Seek help from Almighty Allah". I reminded
myself to do that later. Since both men were wearing the loose,
lightweight suits known as shalwar qamiz they wrapped large shawls
around them to keep them from freezing. It was also probably a good
way to stop from being recognized.
The cinema was surprisingly large. Out the front was the typical
hand-painted marquee that adorns picture houses from here to Madras
- a brace of Pakistani love-goddesses with eyes that said "Show
us your gun, Akmed." A thirty foot reinforced concrete fence
surrounded the place. It looked like the Bob's Country Bunker of
Porn. The only was in was through a wide gateway, manned by a double-line
of armed guards. They were frisking everybody who went in. I was
thinking maybe I might feel like that after the show, but I wasn't
quite ready for it now.
"They have a lot of trouble with the fundamentalists,"
Aijaz explained as a bloke with a face like Yoda gave my balls a
good squeeze, "they've had suicide attacks with bombs strapped
to them. Or they'll bring in a few Kalashnikovs and maybe some grenades
and try and kill as many people as possible."
What an appalling way to go. You're sitting there with your trousers
round your ankles choking the chicken and some towel-head pops a
cap in your arse. I was going to find it very hard to concentrate
on the screen with that sort of danger hanging around. And I'd forgotten
to bring tissues.
The men shuffled nervously around the courtyard, avoiding eye contact.
Businessmen from Islamabad, Afghani traders and Punjabi truck drivers
all merged together in an uneasy cultural soup. A small group of
Balti men gathered round a display board ogling at the pictures
of fat Pashtun prostitutes. Small boys sold sweets and cigarettes
from large trays balanced tentatively on their heads. Bizarrely,
a huge mural of Princess Diana dominated the scene.
Mohammed told me some more about the place. "It nearly burnt
down a few years ago," he said. "It was a legitimate cinema
then, showing Indian films. It's been officially closed ever since.
They have three shows every day - three hours each, which is quite
a marathon. "I'll say. At 20 rupees (fifty cents) a ticket
that's pretty good value. Although as a foreigner I was charged
60 rupees.
But what does everyone do here after sitting through three hours
of jiggy jiggy. "We are lucky," answered Aijaz. "Because
we have wives at home. But for a lot of men their only outlet is
with a prostitute, if they can find one, or by erm, other means.
You'll notice, for example, that a lot of the truck drivers bring
their boys with them." Hmm, I wonder if they come with reversing
lights.
Shuffling inside, extremely loud, tinny music echoed through the
foyer as we were jostled up the stairs. We soon burst into the cloying
blackness and staggered around till our eyes adjusted. The place
reeked of cigarettes, hash and, stale, multi-layered sweat.
Downstairs was littered with debris and the ragged evidence of
the past fire that had forever changed the nature of this place.
There were also private booths up the back. Maybe that's where the
truck drivers practice shunting.
First we were treated to a highly amusing collection of advertisements.
The wonders of cough mixture, tinea creams and glucose drinks were
touted to the restless and disinterested audience.
Then came six films that were Pashtun homemade offerings. These
consisted of prostitutes/actresses wiggling their overly ample squidgy
bits. They wore wigs in a desperate and unsuccessful attempt to
conceal their identities and stared off-camera with a resigned shell-shocked
look. Occasionally a bloke with a fake moustache appeared and gave
them his best bad gringo look as he fondled his rifle.
We were tortured with endless close-ups of these poor women kneading
tits like a bad tape loop. The under the crotch shot seemed to be
particularly popular. The effect on the girl-starved audience was
electric. In each film the girl would dance and grind herself into
a hypnotic frenzy. It reminded me of Dorothy clicking her heels
together and saying, "there's no place like home. There's no
place like home."
When a tired-in-a-Shelly-Winters-kind-of-way mama was dancing around
in a wet T-shirt, Aijaz informed me that she was, "Nusrat Shaheem,
a famous Pashtun sex-symbol who is down on her luck and very broke".
Then came six or seven Indian flicks. And while these weren't pornographic
in the true sense of the word, they were incredibly erotic. These
high budget, slick productions are very popular in Pakistan and
I can see why. The girls were incredibly beautiful with enough of
their well-shaped bodies revealed to guarantee a bit of wood. Maybe
I was regressing to my childhood but they all looked like Barbara
Eden in I Dream of Genie.
A big crowd pleaser was Madhuri Dixit, a vampy pouting tease with
a particularly endearing arse. When she came on the screen I noticed
that half the audience adjusted their shawls over their laps.
Occasionally, the ticket collector would walk around and shine
his torch on everyone in the theatre. Aijaz said that he was just
checking the number of people. But he did it so often that I think
he was checking to see that no one had smuggled in a goat or that
one of the truck drivers hadn't dropped the clutch up the chocolate
highway.
Eventually the screen lit up with a Californian looking chick being
rodgered on a kitchen table. After the previous rather coy offerings
this piston-like close-up was a bit of a shock. All the hardcore
stuff is American but it comes in from Europe so it's dubbed in
German, which makes for quite a cross-cultural evening.
Eventually, at the end of a rather accomplished skin-flute solo,
the blonde swallowed a mouthful. This had a dramatic and profound
effect on everyone in the theatre as they clear their throats and
spat great gobs of phlegm and disgust on the sticky, wood floor.
After another four or five hardcore films it's time for intermission.
As we have a cigarette in the courtyard, I notice a profound change
in the crowd. The previously shy men, now flushed with lust, began
to check each other out and look for signs of reciprocal interest.
We decided it was a good time to get going.
As we stepped out into the dark street, I noticed that my friends
seemed strangely keen to get home, so I graciously declined a lift.
As they drove off in Mohammed's decrepit old car I hailed a taxi
with my rather twitchy right hand.
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