Roze TV isn’t exactly a powerhouse and Nasir Rana, a CNN veteran who is a relatively new entrant to the talk show circuit, might not yet be in a position yet to pull in huge TRPs, but his one-on-one interview with Hamid Mir was probably the most interesting thing to watch on TV last week.
On the other side of the desk for a change, that too not in a live beeper after a major incident, Mir was more forthcoming about his own views than he usually is on his own show.
In a sprawling interview, the range of subjects was very wide. There was the attack on him (which reminded viewers how little he has talked about it in the year since), then the conversation segued to the safety of journalists in the country to being with. There were some minor jabs at other journalists. Then, there was the discussion on the infamous dharna, leading to a general discussion on the civil-military relationship in the country.
There was, yes, some light stuff like asking the media to lay off Imran Khan’s personal life and think whether they give Shehbaz Sharif’s. But his hints at the deep state’s possible involvement in the dharna was what made this worth watching.
In this vein, when the host asked him about whether the government is taking it easy on the case against Musharraf, Mir responded that someone should ask Akram Sheikh (the government’s prosecutor in the case) whether or not his wife (recently deceased) was sent messages to the effect that your husband was going to be cut down into so many pieces, it would be difficult to recover his whole body.
Yes. Chilling stuff.
*****
Hamid Mir is the best talk show anchor of the country. Yes, I know that is a very subjective statement to make and I have my personal biases guiding my choice.
For instance, I like anchors and writers who like the political class. I don’t care which political party they support, as long as it is politicians that they support. Supporting politicians is not easy in the country. To an audience baying for blood, if you argue that there is a matrix of circumstances that make things the way they are, and that politicians are not omnipotent gods who will fix things by merely willing them to be fixed, the audience will change the channel.
You don’t have this particular bias of mine? Fair enough.
Let me point out something that you wouldn’t have any issues with: people miss out the fact that he actually does very little talking in his programmes. Others, like his Geo colleague Talat Hussain (granted, different format) talk a lot. Others talk even more, like ARY’s Kashif Abbasi, who, despite talking so much, doesn’t stop guests from carrying out a shouting match.
Mir, on the other hand, doesn’t let any of his guests shout the other out. And he doesn’t shout himself.
Secondly, compared to others, despite being a proud Punjabi, he gels very well with ethnicities other than the Punjabi-Muhajir combo that seems to run our airwaves. He gives them a respect unlike the warm-up-before-we-discuss-Punjab-and-Karachi air with which other anchors interview Pashtuns, Sindhis and Balochs.
*****
Hamid Mir still has two of the six bullets of the attack inside him. Though he is trying to at least try to hold back his impulse to take on the powers that be, as the video posted below (online viewers watch till the very end of the 55-seconds video) shows, his life is presumably still at risk.
Here’s to hoping for a long and safe career for him.
