Earlier this month in Pakistan, Jiah Ali – a photographer – managed to capture a photo of a young, 17-year-old chai-waala (tea-seller) named Arshad Khan. The internet was immediately besotted by Khan’s boyish good looks and light eyes and he was catapulted into fame within hours.
Arshad was thrown into the deep end hard. Coming from a humble background with 16 siblings to take care of, as well as his parents, he quickly had to give up his simple life and his privacy to the throngs of women – young and old – who spoke of him as if he were nothing but a piece of meat.
Let’s put this into perspective. Arshad is SEVENTEEN years old. He is still classed as a minor. What if Arshad was an equally beautiful, seventeen-year-old girl? What if hordes of men were lusting after this girl with the same fervor as these grown women are? Would we all stand by quietly as we are doing so right now?
The fact is that, we as a society find no shame in objectifying human beings for the sake of our entertainment and our pleasure. Be it man or woman, this attitude is disgusting and has really shown how low we can get. I find it hideously hypocritical that we as women – especially Asian women, who KNOW how stifling the Asian culture is when it comes to the attitude of men towards women – feel it is okay to reduce a young man to nothing but cheap entertainment. He has a family. He supports his family through his “honest, clean” work. He has never been to school, yet he has been pulled out of his comfort zone and is being forced to dance like a circus monkey for the sake of lustful women.
Another worrying thought is that, would the fetishization of Khan run on with the same intensity if he had darker skin? What is with Pakistani/Indian cultures almost worshipping Euro-centric features; light skin, light eyes. I personally struggle to recall any men in recent years with distinctly South – Asian features being marveled at in this way.
In the popular Pakistani talk show “Good Morning Pakistan”, Khan was subjected to a make-over in which they swapped his traditional Pashtun clothing for a sharp, black suit, waxed eyebrows and even lighter hair. This just goes to show that light = good, dark = bad, and that in order to reach the apparent pinnacle of handsomeness and beauty, he had to become an even more Western version of himself, drop all and any association of being “the other” and trot about like a show pony to the shrieks of delight coming from the audience.
I cannot even begin to explain my fury when it comes to this hypocritical nature of society. On one hand we so valiantly stand up for women’s rights – but this should not be at the expense of men’s rights. YES, I said it. Men do have rights, and we cannot try and knock them down in order to get to the top.
Image Source(s):
http://media2.intoday.in/indiatoday/images/stories/arshad-khan-video_647…
http://www.samaa.tv/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Chai-Wala-Islamabad-640×384.jpg