A fortune teller. That is what Sheikh Rasheed would like to think of himself. The man to call when there is uncertainty about. The guy who doesn’t merely think what will happen, but knows. And to be fair to him, it is not that he has fashioned this image himself (even though he appears to enjoy it immensely) but the media itself has granted him this jughat–baz oracle status. And his predictions are sought not just on the talk show circuit but in hard news bulletins as well.
The problem: he almost always gets it wrong. Throughout the duration of the previous government, he was predicting the fall of the government “next month”. During last year’s dharna, he kept on saying that there is going to be a qurbani before the qurbani. He was referring to Eidul Azha, of course, which came and went and here we still are.
As Michel Houellebecq says, “Anything can happen in life… especially nothing.”
In fact, when it comes to him, there is a rather interesting phenomenon at play. You see, one of the many formats of our talk shows is the professor-and-a-blonde model. This model was popularised by Zaid Hamid, who had a series of pretty young things asking scripted questions and then nodding their heads while he delivered his spiel. Other pundits, especially the ones who love the sound of their own voice without any interruptions, adopted this, as Dr Shahid Masood and Haroon-ur-Rasheed do till this day. Others have tweaked this model and have adopted a master-and-the-pupil model, like Najam Sethi has in his programme on Geo, where the poor kid on the other side isn’t really a lightweight.
Now Sheikh Rasheed seems to be the only actual politician who is put in a master-and-the-pupil show, as we saw on Samaa’s programme Awaz on the 12th of November. Far from the grilling that politicians get, he is actually asked questions as if he were the in-house expert.
The anchor actually starts with a kya hoga, Sheikh Saab?
The social media has also played along, with the likes of aggregators like ZemTV (which merits an entire issue of Media Watch) chipping in. The gem of Sheikh Rasheed’s wisdom that the guy at ZemTV picked from the programme above and presented as a headline on Facebook was: “Aglay do maheenon mein kuch bhi ho sakta hai: Sheikh Rasheed.” Such asinine observations aren’t even the standard of the chai-stall legions.
Again, “Anything can happen in life…. especially nothing.”
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But we do know why he is given this treatment, don’t we? Not because of his long political career because plenty have been around since longer. Not because of the six different federal cabinet portfolios he has held throughout his career (since I know you’re wondering: labour, information/broadcasting, sports/culture, tourism, railways and industries) because one doesn’t think he’s given them much thought. And certainly not – as we have established earlier – because of some profound political insight.
His special treatment is only because he is a master of the soundbite. A made-for-TV politician who will thrive in the age of private broadcast media because the channel-surfing fingers pause when he’s on screen, if only to just hear a quip to reproduce at one’s workplace tomorrow.
The problem, again, is that even at that, Geo’s Khabarnaak would provide better fare.
Consider Rasheed’s jab at PkMAP Achakzai’s statement about how, if there is a fight between the two Sharifs, he will support the civilian Sharif.
Rasheed said Achakzai would support Babra Sharif instead. Ba-Dum-Tiss. Well, yes, a chuckle, maybe. But this is a joke that wouldn’t have made it past even the cutting-room floor of Khabarnaak. But, yes, coming from a politician, viewers lower their standards.
Speaking of low standards, Rasheed is also a bit foul-mouthed, something which, till recently, was acceptable for corner political meetings but not on live TV. But with the likes of new entrants like Fayyaz-ul-Hassan Chohan, that is at least one edge that Rasheed will lose.