Life, as I know it, is very hard. Falling out of bed every morning, stumbling into the shower and then trying to keep your chai stable and your cigarette dry as you drive over pot-holed roads to a dead-end job. Working 10, 12 and sometimes 16 hours at a stretch is bound to tire even the most athletic of us, so imagine what a piece of lard such as myself must go through, day in and day out. Since I work for a TV station, its not like I have much recreational time anyway. Even when I do, the last thing I would do is go home and watch more TV. Except one show, which cuts through the bizarreness of daytime television and night time chat shows. Being a hot-blooded (read frustrated) Pakistani man, I jealously guard my one hour of mindless TV carnality and random mayhem. That this show is hosted by the nubile succubus, otherwise known as Mathira, is only the cherry on top of my upside-down Pineapple layer cake.
So imagine my surprise and horror when my right honourable colleagues in the print and broadcast media begin taking potshots at the voluptuous vixen in their syndicated columns and primetime talk shows. Chief among the degradations my muse was subjected to by these barbarians was an overt attack on her form, and moving pictures of her (with her bosom blurred) were used to imply that this siren was in fact trying to lure the youth of today away from more constructive pursuits, such as evening protests on The Mall or the daily ritual of torching tyres in front of the Press Club.
Therefore, to defend my maidens honour and timeslot, I present to you my thesis Six Reasons Why I Love Mathira, which like most of the fair damsels outfits, is brief yet compelling.
Reason No 1: Even if you dont know anything about her, you know that shes not as bad as Veena Malik. Veena, as we all know, has tarnished the image of Pakistan by getting herself eliminated from the only household she ever really fit into. She has also been particularly hard on lanky speedster Mohammad Dopey-in-Dubai Asif. In a country that puts lust for cricket above lust for the likes of Katrina Kaif, this is pretty blasphemous. On the other hand, Mathira also hosts a sports show on one of the countrys most watched sports channels. You cant get more legit than that!
Reason No 2: With Mathira, there will never been any questions about ill-gotten assets or forged ones. She is as real as cheap TV can get and makes no pretence about it. She may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but then shes not hosting a show on the Virtual University channel now, is she?
Reason No 3: Shes nothing if not original. To understand this reason, one must either catch her show or look it up on YouTube. She cracks the lamest jokes and has to entertain some of the weirdest callers ever to pick up a phone and dial in to a live TV show. No woman deserves to be subjected to such objectification, even if she is being marketed by the network executives as an object of misguided young mens wildest dreams. At the end of the day, shes just a professional showbiz personality, working hard for the money.
Reason No 4: Shes great with children. I mean, she has to be. Even I feel something when she goes kuchee kuchee. Goo Goo Ga Ga is just the next logical progression. So we know that shes the family type too. How much more does the average rishta-seeking family need in order to marry the fruit of their loins off to someone?
Reason No 5: She knows how to handle an uncomfortable situation. Anyone who knows of Mathira knows of the Incident. If you dont, YouTube it. Youll be impressed.
Reason No 6: Shes pretty intelligent when it comes to matters of the heart. Probably because shes broken many-a heart in her day. But then, being a heartbreaker is sort of a rite of passage for any young woman in her prime.
The writer is a broadcast journalist.
