Award winning ‘Darling’ director Saim Sadiq penned an open letter to PTA after PEMRA banned ‘Churails’.
The news has upset many in the film industry, due to continued suppression of artistic expression; towards the end of last year, Sarmad Khoosat’s film ‘Zindagi Tamasha’ was banned from screening just days before its premiere. “Let’s take a moment to applaud Pakistan Telecommunication Authority for their generous free marketing of Churails and for furthering the cause of the show,” writes Saim Sadiq. “While I am sure the old uncles at PTA thought that they can actually take online content away from people, they were clearly unaware that the most ‘vulgar’ of all beasts is the internet itself. More Pakistani people are watching Churails right now despite the ban than they were a week ago when it wasn’t banned.”
“Every DVD store in Pakistan has pirated DVDs of Churails. Hundreds of thousands of people have VPNs to still watch it on Zee5 itself. Thousands of torrent websites, far too many of them have got Churails. In HD, btw. Its also available on several random streaming sites. You’ll take one site down, raise the curiosity and ten new sites will re-emerge with all 10 episodes on them. This show is available in hundreds of thousands of USBs and hard drives across the country being openly shared right this moment amongst friends because even those who never felt like watching it are now suddenly curious.” “Our uncles at PTA don’t realize that they are no longer dealing with their cable-wala whom they could secretly call at 2 am for a fun night on channel number 99.” “This is the internet. If you want to take this show down, you’ll have to ban all of it. All of the internet. But remember, if you do that, you’ll all be out of a job.” “Previously, I felt that not enough men were watching this show even though they are the ones who need to but now PTA has gone ahead and fixed that. When you ban something for ‘vulgarity’, the first ones to seek out that content on the internet are men. Hence, many of our Pakistani brothers who just heard, thanks to the ban, about ‘a vulgar women show’ are now uncomfortably sitting through Churails hoping the next scene will show a girl giving a hand job to a guy or indulging in some lesbian action. They are desperate to find something to masturbate to/be offended by.” “Our brothers are resilient and our brothers have time. They will not stop looking for the vulgarity till the end credits roll on the finale.” “Shabaash, PTA!”