HRK and Media hype

By Rai M. Azlan:

If days can be remembered with the events that take place on that particular day than 27th July of 2011 can be the HRK day. Yes here with HRK I mean Hina Rabbani Khar, the Federal Foreign Minister of Pakistan. Why I feel that way about this day is the result of the observation.

I woke up this morning and what first thing I saw in my twitter timeline was a tweet saying, “I just hope Hina Rabbani Khar return with something more diplomatically tangible than offers for bollywood flicks or Big Boss shows.” As I was not completely awake at that time, it took me some time to recall all the things that could have helped me in understanding the reason behind such tweet.

The reason is that Pakistan’s first ever female, the youngest (and if accepting the reality is no crime than let me say) the most good looking foreign minister ever was in Delhi for Peace Talk, at least that is what I can figure out after reading the news headline at Khaleej Times.
No idea to what extent these peace talks are progressing but our very own FM Hina Rabbani Khar has been the hot cake of social networking websites and of course the traditional media as well, from her hand bag to her jewellery, from herdressing style to her branded sun glasses everything been discussed. Just like aunties at some wedding ceremony discuss the ornaments of bride. As far has the Birkin is concerned fellow blogger Atika has covered it very well inher post.

Anyhow, thanks to this whole discussion that I got chance to know what Birkin actually is? Honestly, I have nothing to do with the tax returns of HRK and the price of Birkin. If she can afford it, she is having it. Moreover, if the point of argument is that with pathetic tax returns how come one can afford such personal items?

The answer to this question was on twitter too when someone tweeted, “who tax returns does not suck”, “she is representing a poor country it doesn’t mean that she has to be there in the cloths of beggars”. Fair enough and I will not comment on the mind set of ours that revolve around the appearance and stereotyping people on the basis of what they are wearing.

This whole discussion (here, here, and here) was interesting enough for me to checkout if only my timeline is filled with HRK tweets or there are many others facing the same thing. Therefore, I started searching available online stuff and thanks to Google for making life so easy, well this “googling” gave me the information that Hina Rabbani Khar andPakistani foreign Minister are the top trending topics on Google in India.

So, Mr. Andrew Buncombe was right to claim on Independent “India Falls in Love with Pakistan’s first female Foreign Minister”. Anyways, the “Pakistan puts its Best face” statement of times of India says all I guess and sufficient to support the argument of Andrew. Economic Times Declared HRK as “An Instant Hit with Indian Media and Masses alike”. Mumbai mirror declared HRK as “Pak Bomb lands in India” . Where many newspapers were coming up with such lighter notes Indian Express said something sensible, “Pak’s youngest foreign minister will not be hostage to history”.

After all this print media reporting time for some modern day TV reporting today TV reports are not complete unless a musical factor is there or a song been tagged to a news. Therefore, it is out of question that Indian media might have avoided to use that tactic of reporting. In the words of Saad Hamid, the famous tech blogger, “If you think GEO alone has a thing for Indian songs, you are wrong”. here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGCRYfb0qfY

I was taking this all not so seriously or might have joined the brigade that is making fun of HRK and this ”peace talk trip”, but this is not the case anymore as someone said something that was sensible enough that my views on this whole scenario changed. Those were the words of Rumaisa Mohani (the Grand Daughter of Moulana Hasrat Mohani), she said, “Lets Support Hina Rabbani Khar… A Daughter of #Pakistan … no nonsense about her to be tolerated.”

I agree it sounds quite emotional but isn’t it true, she is from Pakistan and representing Pakistan at a place that has never been considered friendly, even after so many attempts rift is still there. so at such time what should be our attitude making fun of our own representative or giving some support to our first ever female foreign minister, the choice is totally yours because she is not just representing me or people like me, she is representing Pakistan there and you are Pakistan too.