Abstract
The 2008 Pakistani film Khuda ke Liye (KKL) has the contemporary topical Pakistani transnational story. Mansoor, a wealthy young man, leaves Lahore for America where he studies music. He meets an American woman, marries her, and after 9/11 is arrested, tortured, and finally deported by the intelligence agencies that have come to realize he is not guilty of any terrorism-related charges (the plot of the film anticipated of a real-life situation as described by Siddiqui 2009). His brother Sarmad, who used to play in the same band in Lahore, stops doing music when he meets a mullah from the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. He also agrees to marry a distant cousin from UK to help her “revert to tradition,” and leaves with her for the tribal areas. The British cousin tries to escape, and once safe from her husband, she contacts a “modernist” imam who helps fight her case in court. She then decides not to return to the UK, but to go back to the tribal areas to help with the education of the local girls. The plot of the second highest grossing film in the history of Pakistani cinema is both a geographical triangle (Pakistan, United States, and UK), and an “identity triangle”: Islam, family traditions, gender relations (see Malik 2008: 169)
Janie: So where are you from?
Mansoor: Pakistan.
Janie: Is that a country?
Mansoor: We think it is, and the UN agrees.
Janie: Never heard of it.
Mansoor: You see, I am not surprised because the Americans are the worst at general knowledge. Americans think the world starts and ends in America.
Janie: Where is your country on the globe?
Mansoor: Pakistan is my country’s name.
Janie: Well, where is Pakistan on the globe?
Mansoor: Let’s see … I will just draw it for you … this is Iran … that is Afghanistan … that is China … that is India … and Pakistan is in the center.
Janie: Oh, so you are India’s neighbor! I know India, they have the great Taj Mahal, I love that story!
Mansoor: Thank you. We made it.
Janie: You made what?
Mansoor: The Taj Mahal. Shah Jahan built it in loving memory of his wife, and he was a Muslim like me.
Janie: Why did you put it in India?
Mansoor: Because Pakistan and India were the same country at that time. Well, we ruled India for 1000 years, we ruled Spain for like 800 years …
Janie: My God, I wish the American embassy knew about that, they wouldn’t have let you in.
Mansoor: Why?
Janie: Because 800 years is the minimum you stay!
(From Khuda ke Liye, dir. Shoaib Mansoor)
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© 2011 Marta Bolognani and Stephen M. Lyon
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Bolognani, M., Lyon, S.M. (2011). Conclusion: Being Pakistani beyond Europe and South Asia. In: Bolognani, M., Lyon, S.M. (eds) Pakistan and Its Diaspora. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230119079_10
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