Stand up comics Ahmed Ahmed and Maz Jobrani

DATE June 20, 2002 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Ahmed Ahmed and Maz Jobrani discuss how their comedy
routines have changed since September 11th
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

In a time when Arab-Americans and Muslim Americans fear they are being
stereotyped, my two guests have to get on stage, win over an audience and make
them laugh. Ahmed Ahmed is an Egyptian-American comic; Maz Jobrani is
Iranian-American. They're regulars at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles, and
are two of the four comics who have appeared in the Comedy Store series
Arabian Nights. Jobrani and Ahmed also act. Jobrani has been featured in
"Malcolm in the Middle," "Chicago Hope" and "NYPD Blue," and is in the
forthcoming Ice Cube movie "Friday After Next." Ahmed has been in the movies
"Swingers" and "Executive Decision."

I asked them if there was any material they had to throw out of their acts
after September 11th. Let's start with Ahmed Ahmed's response.

Mr. AHMED AHMED (Comedian): Before September 11th, a lot of my material was
talking about being Arab, but it was like, `Hey, I'm Arab. Check me out.'
And after September 11th, it was sort of like, `Hey, I'm Arab. Don't shoot.'

GROSS: Right.

Mr. AHMED: So we did try to find ways to, not necessarily talk about
September 11th, but talk about the repercussions that, you know, ourselves and
other Arabs, Persians and Muslims, you know, sort of suffered.

Mr. MAZ JOBRANI (Comedian): And I think also--this is Maz--before September
11th, Bush was an easy target, and then once September 11th hit--I hadn't
voted for him, I voted for Gore, and I actually found myself being pro-Bush.
And I think that, you know, it would have been comedy death to get up on stage
the week after and say anything anti-Bush. And another thing I used to do is
I used to make fun of, you know, the Middle Easterners who pretended to be
Italian, because I've had friends growing up who, you know, instead of being
named Hussein or, you know, Farid or something will change their names to
Tony. And so I used to make fun of those guys, and then all of a sudden once
September 11th hit, the first show that I did was, I was telling people,
`That's how I dealt with the new changes. Now when people come up to me and
they ask me where am I from, I look them right in the eye and tell them, "Hey,
I'm Italian."'

Mr. AHMED: I know for me personally after September 11th, you know, because
the hysteria over Arabs got way out of hand, you know, now when I get pulled
over by the LAPD, I just tell them I'm black because I'm going to catch a
beating one way or the other. And so I don't want to get killed, too.

GROSS: Ahmed, when it came time for you to sit down after September 11th and
rewrite your act, like where did you start? How did you go about doing it?

Mr. AHMED: I went to the airport. I went right to the airport. I tried to
get on a plane. And one of the jokes I do is I say, `You know, I got to the
baggage claim and, you know, the guy said, "Are these your bags, sir?" I
said, "Yes." He says, "Did you pack them yourself?" I said, "Yes." Then
they arrested me.'

Mr. JOBRANI: I'll tell you, Terry, what happened was at first I was thinking,
you know, what are we going to do? You know, we have to address it somehow.
We have to. I mean, for me to get up on stage and do 20 minutes and say, `I'm
from Iran,' and just say, you know, `But what about traffic?' you know?

GROSS: Yeah. Yeah, right.

Mr. JOBRANI: You know, that's just me not addressing the issue I have to
address. So at one point, we realized that, hey, wait a minute, we can kind
of help defuse the situation by showing people that, hey, we're funny, we've
got a point of view, we have a sense of humor on the topic.

Mr. AHMED: We're human, just like everybody else, you know?

Mr. JOBRANI: Yeah, exactly.

Mr. AHMED: We try to humanize it.

Mr. JOBRANI: And we're scared in a lot of ways. I mean, like Ahmed was
saying about his thing, going to the airport. I actually--I mean, the first
time I flew was several months after and I was scared that they were going to,
you know, stop me and say something. And really I found myself enunciating
English like never before because I didn't want to have an accent.

Mr. AHMED: Hello.

Mr. JOBRANI: And I don't have an accent anyway, you know, but I was like,
`Hello, my fellow American. I'm just trying to board the aeroplane.' You
know?

Mr. AHMED: You know, Terry...

GROSS: Yeah?

Mr. AHMED: ...I've flown to New York three times since September 11th and
I've been profiled every time. And, granted, I'm wearing a full beard right
now, I have a very--I'm sort of going for that Taliban look. Time magazine
said it's the look of the year, so I'm going to go for it. But when they took
my ID and it said, `Ahmed Ahmed' on it, they said, `Oh, your name matched one
of the names of terrorists. We have to do a profile on you. Sorry to
inconvenience you.' And I said, `No, that's OK. That's why I got here a
month and a half early.' It's been heightened security. There is a story I
said that there was this older white couple staring at me, you know, pointing
the finger and whispering. And finally the husband walks over to me and taps
me on the shoulder and he says, `Excuse me. Just curious if you know how the
weather is in Florida because that's where my wife and I are flying. Where
are you flying?' And I looked at him and I said, `I have a one-way ticket to
paradise, my friend.' And it was really just self-deprecating. You know, we
were all trying to make light of it.

You know, I went into a nightclub a week after September 11th, showed the
woman my ID, and she read my name, looked at the picture, then looked at me
and her eyes popped out of her head out of fear. And I looked at her and I
said, you know, `Hey, I'm on your team. And I just want to come in and
celebrate and have a drink with my friends because they just graduated from
flight school.'

GROSS: Have you faced a new kind of heckling since September 11th?

Mr. JOBRANI: I think that what we do that avoids too much heckling from
happening is right off the bat we get up on the stage and we make fun of the
situation. Like one...

Mr. AHMED: Yeah, it's light. It's real light.

Mr. JOBRANI: Again, like one of my jokes now that I lead off with is, I say,
`It's not a good time to be from the Middle East because whenever I watch the
news, this is how I see it: "Good evening, this is CNN. Iranians suck. Back
to you, Bob."' So right off the bat, you know, from there, and then I go, you
know, I turn to my dad, I say, `Hey, Dad, take off the turban, man, put on a
yarmulke or something. Better yet, Dad, here's a Raiders hat. You're a
Raiders fan. Just go with it.' And my dad's going, `Go, Raiders!' So right
off the bat, I think what we do is by doing that joke, is you establish the
fact that, hey, man, I'm a little freaked out to be what I am these days. And
then we can go on and make fun of other situations. And then if somebody in
the crowd goes, you know, `Hey, towel head,' you know, you just look at them
and you go, `You know, that's the best you can come up with? I just made fun
of that.'

Mr. AHMED: I say, `Hey...'

Mr. JOBRANI: If we were up there saying something like, you know, `America,
you know, you got what you had coming,' you know, then, OK, now you're setting
yourself up for a beating or something, you know?

Mr. AHMED: Yeah, then we get a bottle thrown from the back of the room.

Mr. JOBRANI: Yeah. You know, that--and we're not doing that. You know,
that's one of the things that we try and do, too, is to make people realize
that we're not Middle Eastern comics. We're comics that happen to have a
Middle Eastern background.

Mr. AHMED: Exactly.

Mr. JOBRANI: And so, you know, we're American.

Mr. AHMED: We're as white as they come, man.

Mr. JOBRANI: You know?

Mr. AHMED: I do, you know, a bit where I talk about how, you know, the type
of women that I've been attracting these days. And the type of women that
I've been attracting these days are women that want to rebel against their
parents. It's always the girl, you know, who really wants to get back at her
mom and dad. You know, she'll meet me and go home and call her friend.
`Stacey, it's me. Listen, I met this guy. He's tall, he's handsome, he's
hairy. And here's the clincher: He's Arab. My parents would hate him. He's
perfect. I think he's gay, though, because he calls some guy named Allah five
times a day.'

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guests are Ahmed Ahmed and Maz Jobrani.
They're two comics; both are Arab-American. Ahmed Ahmed is of Egyptian
descent; Maz Jobrani of Iranian descent. We're talking about how September
11th has affected their lives as comics.

Let me ask you, like when September 11th just happened and when you found out
that it was, you know, Islamic fundamentalist terrorists, what went through
your mind about what impact this was going to have on your world?

Mr. AHMED: I was born and raised Muslim, and my parents were pretty, you
know, strong practicing Muslims. They're not fundamentalists, obviously, but
they definitely take the religion seriously. And I went on the pilgrimage to
Mecca. I understand Islam pretty well to the way you're supposed to interpret
it. So when this happened, I just thought, `Wow, like it's going to be so
much harder to sit there and explain my religion and my belief to people.' So
hopefully through comedy, you know, I can do that. I mean, it was such an
impact on, like, what Muslims were about, and so it was like every Muslim's
job to, like, explain themselves over and over. `Hey, we're not terrorists.
Hey, we're not trying to plot against America. Hey, you know, we're believers
of God, just like you.' And for somebody like myself who was raised Muslim,
you know, it always has been and still will be a challenge to water down any
sort of stereotype that the media, you know, has put on it.

Mr. JOBRANI: And for me, Terry, first of all, just, you know, Iranians aren't
actually Arab-Americans. We're Middle Eastern-Americans.

GROSS: Right. Right.

Mr. AHMED: But we both go (makes throaty sound).

Mr. JOBRANI: But, you know--yeah, we both have the (makes throaty sound)
sound. Right, exactly. So we're both (makes throaty sound) Americans. But
we do have a lot in common, that's true. I'm not as religious as Ahmed. My
family hasn't been religious. I think part of it for me has been the whole
thing of the Iranian Revolution and how religion was used to kind of
manipulate, you know, the revolution and the war and just the deaths that were
caused after all that. You know, I think I just became kind of non-religious
because of just seeing how religion can be used for politics.

Mr. AHMED: Yeah, it's hard to really practice a religion these days. In
fact, I was talking about my mom, you know, is really, really like an advocate
of me being married as soon as possible. I'm 31 years old, going on 32, and
she's like, `Ahmed, you really have to get married. You have to find a good
Muslim woman. Find a good Muslim woman.' I'm like, `Mom, I want to see what
she looks like first.' You know?

Mr. JOBRANI: Right.

Mr. AHMED: Because you never know the...

Mr. JOBRANI: There's www.muslimwomen.com. Just get on there and order a
bride.

Mr. AHMED: Yeah. Yeah. In fact, I met a girl the other night who looked at
me and she said, `Where are you from?' I said, `I'm from Egypt.' She goes,
`Ooh, you're Egyptian. How mysterious. Make me your Egyptian princess.' So
I threw a sheet over her head and I told her to be quiet.

Mr. JOBRANI: Ahmed has strange encounters.

GROSS: My guests are comics and actors Maz Jobrani and Ahmed Ahmed. We'll
talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guests are two comics whose jokes and lives have changed since
September 11th. Maz Jobrani is Iranian-American; Ahmed Ahmed is
Egyptian-American.

Now the impression I get is that for each of you, your parents emigrated to
the United States, so they probably have accents.

Mr. JOBRANI: Huge accents.

GROSS: And also they're not comics, so it's probably more difficult for them
to diffuse any kind of hostility or stereotypes that they encounter.

Mr. JOBRANI: Well, you know--I'm sorry, go ahead.

GROSS: Yeah, I'm just wondering if they've had a more difficult time than
you've both had.

Mr. JOBRANI: My mother actually, it's funny because she told me--she's the
nicest lady, and she was at Costco.

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. JOBRANI: She was shopping and she left her shopping cart for a minute
and she went, and she came back and there was this old lady who was kind of
just angry. And I think she had moved my mother's cart or something, or my
mother had moved her cart when she'd been looking the other way because my mom
was trying to get by. And the lady said, you know, `Who moved my cart?' and
my mother said, you know, `I did. You know, I had to move it.' And the lady
just, you know, goes, `You know, you shouldn't have done that.' She says,
`Well, I was trying to get through.' And she goes, `Well, why don't you just
go back home?' And my mother said, `Lady, you go back home.' And the lady
said something else to my mother--oh, she swore to my mother. She called her,
you know, the B-word. And my mother, `She who says it, is it.' And then
that's how she--because I grew up, I couldn't swear, you know. `She who says
it, is it.' And then as the lady's walking away, my mother goes, `You old
fart.' And, I mean, my mom never says anything, and here she was, you know,
kind of being accosted by this lady. So, yeah, the accent does add to that.

And it also adds to the whole--I mean, from the beginning, you know, like you
were saying, they come from another country. We come out here and we say we
want to be comedians. You know, `What's that?'

Mr. AHMED: Oh, yeah.

Mr. JOBRANI: A clown?

Mr. AHMED: Yeah.

Mr. JOBRANI: You know, my mom wanted me to be a lawyer or a doctor. But once
I became a comedian, her standards started going down. And now just to have
security in my life, based upon the last guy who came to our house to fix
something, she'll recommend that as a career I should get into. You know,
she'll say, `Hi, Maz. How's comedy? OK. Have you thought about becoming a
washing machine fixer guy? Seventy-five dollars, one half-hour. That's not
bad. It's a skill.' You know? So that's where they're coming from.

GROSS: Do your parents think your acts are funny?

Mr. AHMED: My mom and dad before--when I first started doing comedy, my mom
would say, `Ahmed, what are you talking about on stage?' I'd say, `Well, you
know, I'm talking about you and dad and the family.' `Don't talk about your
family on stage.' Then finally they came out and saw me one night, and the
room was quiet and I was doing a joke about my father, and the audience
laughed. And my dad stood up in the back of the room and he says, `Remember
where you came from.' So now they're excited. Now they're OK with it. But
in the beginning, they were like, `Don't talk about the family and don't make
fun of the family.'

Mr. JOBRANI: And my mom is a fan. I watch my own tapes a lot of times just
to kind of pick up pointers and fix jokes and the sort. And she'll be in the
background, you know, just watching kind of quietly. And then I hear her
laughing, and I think, you know, that whole thing of like, you know, how
mothers never think their son is ugly no matter what, you know?

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. JOBRANI: You know, she's laughing at jokes that I don't find that funny.

Mr. AHMED: `He's the most beautiful man in the whole world.'

Mr. JOBRANI: Yeah. And she just laughs, and I go, hey, man, cool. I've got
a fan. You know? So she's been very supportive.

GROSS: Now you've both been in movies and on TV. Have you each played roles
as terrorists?

Mr. AHMED: Oh, yeah, imagine that. I was in a movie called "Executive
Decision," with Kurt Russell and Halle Berry and Steve Seagal. And I played
Terrorist #4. And I didn't want to go on with a part because I was doing
comedy at the time and my agent said, `Just go in. It's a big movie, a lot of
money, big stars. Just go meet the director.' So I went in and I read, and,
you know, I wasn't taking the part that seriously. I was just trying to be
comedic about it mostly. So I read the lines just way over the top, and the
director went ballistic. You know, my lines were something like, `Sit down!
You will obey or I'll kill you in the name of Allah!' And the director sat
there, he was quiet for a second. He looked at me and he goes, `That was
brilliant. Can you do it again, but this time give me a little bit more of
that Middle Eastern anger your people possess.' So I used it, used the anger
that I had.

And I got a call the next day from my agent and, `They said they want to put
you in this movie.' And I said, `Are you kidding? I was just joking around.
I was making fun of the role.' He said, `Well, whatever you did, it worked
and they want to put you in this movie.' I said, `Listen, thanks but no
thanks. I'm sick and tired of stereotyping these roles and, you know, my
people and my culture. And I can't spit on my culture like this anymore.
It's like feeding the beast. It's like putting fuel on the flame. No way.'

GROSS: So you did it.

Mr. AHMED: Well, she says, `They want to pay you $50,000 for three weeks'
work.

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. AHMED: So I said, `Flame on.'

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. AHMED: `Let it burn.'

GROSS: Maz, I know that you've played a terrorist. What movie was it?

Mr. JOBRANI: Yeah, I played a terrorist in a Chuck Norris movie that aired
this year. And it came at a time when I'd had kind of a slow pilot season and
I was, you know, anxious to work. And so got the job and went down there.
And I honestly thought that, you know what, I'm going to put a human face to
this character. I mean, the part was an Afghani terrorist who was trying to
put a bomb together to blow up a building. It was kind of based on like an
al-Qaeda type thing, and it was done before September 11th. And I said, `You
know what? I'm going to try and humanize this guy, like why is this guy so
angry? Why is this guy so anti-American?'

Mr. AHMED: Because he wants 72 virgins.

Mr. JOBRANI: No, no. I mean, I honestly was trying to say what was the
background, you know. And so I gave him a background and all this stuff. And
I went down there, and the character was supposed to have lived in America for
six years and been going to the University of Chicago and, you know, just kind
of blending in. And when I got there, they said, `OK, you know, here's your
turban.' And I said, `What?' And they said, `Yeah, you've got a turban.' I
said, `You know what? I went to school at Berkeley. I know a lot of Muslim
students, and they don't wear turbans, you know, they do blend in.' And that
became kind of a little point that we went back and forth on a few times. So,
you know, cut to, you know, me with my turban. And, you know, you've got to
do what they say.

But as comedians, this is the beauty of what we do. As comedians, you know,
after the Chuck Norris thing, I had this thing going inside of me going, man,
I did it, you know, I put on the turban and, God, you know, I kind of sold
out. And so then as a comedian, you go up on stage and you can make fun of
it, you know.

Mr. AHMED: That's your voice, yeah.

GROSS: Oh, right. Exactly. Exactly.

Mr. JOBRANI: Yeah. And so now I've got a joke based on it where I say,
`Yeah, I was in a Chuck Norris movie recently, you know, and as a Middle
Eastern actor, it's bittersweet getting a part in a Chuck Norris movie because
you know you're going to die. And my agent called me up and he goes, "You've
got a movie." I go, "Yes!" And he goes, "With Chuck Norris." I'm like,
"Damn," because you know I'm not going to be his counterpart and it's not
going to be Chuck and Hassan ever saving the world together, you know?'

GROSS: Well, let me ask you, you know, sometimes when people meet an actor
who they don't know by name, they've seen him in like small character parts
and they think they know them.

Mr. JOBRANI: Right.

GROSS: Or they think if the character's played a villain, that they really
are a villain. Maybe that's why they know them. Maybe they were on a most
wanted list or something.

Mr. JOBRANI: Right.

GROSS: So when people see you on the street or in a restaurant after seeing
you in a role as a terrorist, does that kind of reinforce in their mind like,
`Oh, I think that's a terrorist'?

Mr. AHMED: I think, you know, for me, whenever--I rarely get recognized
because my facial hair changes from, you know, day to day.

GROSS: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mr. AHMED: I'm either wearing a full beard or I'm clean shaven or I'm wearing
a goatee. But I'll see somebody and I'll be waiting in line to get some food
or at the grocery store and I'll have people staring at me. And when somebody
approaches me and says, `Were you in a movie where you broke a woman's neck?'
I'm like, `Yeah, that was me.' `Oh, man, that was so believable. I mean, you
broke her neck really well, man. I really believed it.'

Mr. JOBRANI: Yeah. And for me, too, I mean, I don't get recognized as much,
either. I think what happens is, you know, if I'm going on stage, somebody
says, you know, `He's been on "Malcolm in the Middle"' and this and this and
that and then there's a "Malcolm in the Middle" fan that will come over and
go, `Hey, which episode were you in?' I go, `I was the guy that robbed'--`Oh,
my God, I remember. That was such a funny episode,' da-da-da-da-da. That
kind of a thing. And fortunately, you know, again, I think it kind of--that
whole turban issue with the Chuck Norris movie actually worked in my advantage
because I had the turban on, my character had glasses. So I think that kind
of helped me look different. And I'm not sure how many viewers that movie
had, so...

GROSS: Right.

Mr. JOBRANI: ...that's not a bad thing, either.

Mr. AHMED: You know, they did an article on us in The Wall Street Journal; it
came out in December of last year. And they ended up putting my picture on
the front page, which got a lot of attention. And I was excited. You know,
the little suspect drawing they put, one of those pictures? So I ran home and
I showed my roommate. I said, `Hey, man, check this out.' And he looked at
the picture, he goes, `Oh, good, they got him.' I said, `Hey, that's me,
man.' He says, `Oh, you mean I've been harboring you this whole time?'

GROSS: Well, I want to thank you both so much for talking with us. Thank
you.

Mr. AHMED: We'd love for you to come out to the Comedy Store one night.

GROSS: Yeah, fly me out there.

Mr. AHMED: Where are you exactly?

GROSS: Philadelphia.

Mr. AHMED: Oh, are you in Philly?

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. JOBRANI: We will fly you out, Terry. No problem. We will get a private
plane for you.

Mr. AHMED: No problem. I just got my flight license.

GROSS: Ahmed Ahmed and Maz Jobrani are actors and comics who are regulars at
the Comedy Store in Los Angeles.

I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music; funding credits)

GROSS: Coming up, rock critic Ken Tucker reviews "Handcream For A
Generation," the new CD from Cornershop, a British band led by an Indian
singer/songwriter. Also, we talk with Sheema Kermani(ph), a classical dancer
in Pakistan, where public performances by women are more or less banned by the
government.

(Soundbite of music)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Sheema Kermani discusses being a classical dancer in
Pakistan
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

My guest, Sheema Kermani, is a dancer who lives in Pakistan where public
performances by women are virtually banned. She performs classical Indian
dance, which derives from Hindu traditions. She's one of the few classical
dancers left in the country. Describing a rare public performance she gave in
Karachi, New York Times reporter Seth Mydans wrote, `vigorous, electrifying,
sensual--a celebration of the body and its passions. Her dance was everything
conservative Muslim Pakistan now stands against.' Earlier this week, she went
to a studio in Karachi to talk with us about her dance and what it means to
her artistically and politically. I asked her to explain the laws regulating
dance in Pakistan.

Ms. SHEEMA KERMANI (Dancer): Well, it was in 1983 that dancing on stage and
television and all the state-owned media was banned by General Zia-ul-Haq,
classical dancing by women. And there was a law which said that anybody who
wants to make a public performance of any kind needs to get an NOC. Now this
applied, not just for dance, but for any kind of a public performance, whether
it's theater or a music concert or anything, so one actually needs an NOC,
which is a no objection certificate. And this certificate is given by the
state authorities. If it's a play, the script has to be censored, and then it
goes to the commissioner's office. So that law still exists. Anytime I want
a public performance of my dance or theater or any kind of a public
performance, I still need to get that NOC. So the law has not changed
actually.

GROSS: So do you apply for these no objection certificates when you dance?

Ms. KERMANI: Yes. Sometimes one has to apply because in certain cases the
auditoriums, the halls, they need it as well. I mean, they will not give you
space unless you have that no objection certificate. But if it's a private
performance, which means that you don't advertise it and you don't sell a
ticket, then you don't need to apply for it.

GROSS: Is that what you mostly do, private performances?

Ms. KERMANI: And so, yes, generally, largely dance performances in Karachi or
in Pakistan or even today would be private performances. And if they are not
private--like I often do a lot of public performances, but then they are held
at places like Alliance Francaise or, you know, the Goethe Institute, and
these places have diplomatic immunity, so they don't need an NOC.

GROSS: Where does classical dancing by women fit in in terms of how
objectionable the government finds it?

Ms. KERMANI: Well, I think the Pakistani state has a little bit of a problem
with classical dancing because they associate it with the Indian traditions,
with the subcontinental traditions. And the problem is to sort of, you know,
cut us off from these so-called Indian traditions and evolve something which
the state would like to call totally Pakistani. Which doesn't happen
generally or--you know, I mean, you don't evolve a culture just like that. It
evolves over a period of time and it evolves, comes through with traditions
and customs, etc. So that has been a problem.

GROSS: Is the classical dance seen as being more Hindu than Muslim?

Ms. KERMANI: I think so. Yes, that is one of the issues as well.

GROSS: What about the dance itself? Is the dance meant to be sensual?

Ms. KERMANI: The dance is sensual. It is erotic at times as well. And at
the same time it can be very--it is very meaningful. It is very bold. You
can see a lot. You see dancers in the subcontinent were actually
storytelling. They were relating the histories of the people, the myths,
because there was no written tradition of history. It was an oral tradition.
So people used whatever at their means. And dance and, you know, movement and
eye movement and the hand gestures, which are very developed in our dance
form--these were things that were used to pass down histories, to pass on
legends. And so there's a lot--you know, I mean, it's quite an intellectual
thing.

GROSS: Are you ever harassed or threatened in Pakistan because of your
dancing?

Ms. KERMANI: Well, I have been often, but then a lot of women activists in
this country are harassed who take a stand on issues like women's rights and
things like that. So, yes, I have been harassed. I have been threatened.
But...

GROSS: By individuals or by the government?

Ms. KERMANI: No, the government would not give me that much lift. I mean,
they just would like to ignore me. Individuals are more--I would more say
fundamentalist parties.

GROSS: Mm-hmm. And how do you react? Like, what has the nature of the
harassment been?

Ms. KERMANI: Well, threats, phone calls, letters, you know, threats to
spaces where one is performing, halls, auditoriums, you know, those kind of
things. But I do feel that a lot of it is just threats which--well, up to now
they haven't really followed it up and one hopes that they won't, because it
goes against them in a sense, because the general public, general people are
not going to sort of support something like this where if somebody's
performing and some fundamentalist group comes in, blows it up or something.
So it will go against them. But you never know. I mean, you know, there are
fanatics all over the place.

GROSS: Do you see your dance as a political statement? Like, when you dance,
do you think of yourself as making a political statement as well as
performing?

Ms. KERMANI: Yes. In a sense, I do. I mean, I myself am a political person
and I feel that whatever I do is a political statement, whether I'm dancing or
I'm acting, because my whole ideology is brought into whatever I'm creating.
I'm in the context here where, you know, it is almost looked on as a
subversive act. Whether I want it or not, it becomes political.

GROSS: Now your husband works in theater, too. Are the restrictions on men
any different than the restrictions on women in performance?

Ms. KERMANI: Well, you see there are restrictions on theater, restrictions
on performance. I mean, in the whole city of Karachi there's hardly a
performance hall where one can perform. So it affects men as well as women,
but the ban was actually for women dancing on stage, not for men dancing on
stage. That is interesting.

GROSS: Did you grow up in a religious Muslim family?

Ms. KERMANI: Yes.

GROSS: And did your parents object to you dancing when you started to dance?
Did they see anything wrong with it?

Ms. KERMANI: No, actually my family was--it is a very religious Muslim
family, but they are a very liberal religious Muslim family. They, in fact,
brought me to music and dance. They taught--I mean, as a child I was learning
dance and music and being involved in theater and things like that. So it's
not that every Muslim family is conservative in the cultural sense. In fact,
I think that generation of people were--they felt that art and culture is very
important for education of their children. So I mean, I've learned Western
classical music for eight to 10 years and, you know, I started dancing when I
was something like nine years old; my mother sent me to learn dancing. And so
it's not that my family has ever been against it at all.

GROSS: Now you've studied with some of the masters of classical Indian dance.
Where did you go to study with them? Were they in Pakistan and India and
other parts of the world?

Ms. KERMANI: Yes. I started learning dance in Karachi. For many years as a
student, I was going to a place called the Rhythmic Art Center, which was a
kind of a center teaching dance and yoga and theater and a lot of classical
music, and a lot of people used to come at that place. And I'm talking about
from '65 to the end '60s actually. And then I actually--I personally went
away to England to study art. I studied fine arts. I went to art college and
I came back. Then I decided I wanted to take up dance much more seriously,
and I went to India because that, you see--I mean, I--even my teachers here
felt that if one wants to take up classical dancing seriously, one needs to go
and learn it in India, so I went to India to learn classical dancing.

GROSS: How did you discover the issue of women's rights?

Ms. KERMANI: Oh. Well, I think started off from a very personal basis
when--my brother is a year older than me, and I always felt that I have to do
that much better than him to get what I want. And so I was always competing
with him as a child. Like, I mean, I felt that if my parents are going to
send him to university, I have to do five times better than him before they
would think of sending me to university. So it started--I mean, I started
feeling these things at a very young age, between growing up as a sister in a
house where the brother was just a year older than me.

GROSS: It seems ironic to me that Pakistan has restricted many women's
rights, but at the same time it had a woman prime minister, Benazir Bhutto.

Ms. KERMANI: Yes. But, see, Benazir Bhutto was--one thing that she didn't
do was take away these anti-women laws, because she just also wanted to stay
in power. I mean, so actually at one point she just became what all the other
leaders become--power hungry, basically--and so forgot what she should have
done. Because she had promised the women's groups here that she would take
away all these anti-women laws, but she didn't. So, yes, it is ironic, but
she came into power more because of, I would say, you know, her father, the
name that she carried, not because she was a woman.

GROSS: Do you think it might ever get to the point in Pakistan where
restrictions become so severe on what women can do or what dancers can do that
you would feel forced to leave?

Ms. KERMANI: Well, I think in the last 25 years there have been times that
one has thought that one can't continue and one must leave, but I've always
felt that why should I leave. This is where I belong. This is where I am
born and this is where I will die fighting it, because I feel what I am doing
is right and I will continue doing it till--I really feel that nobody can
actually stop me.

GROSS: My guest is Sheema Kermani, a traditional dancer who lives in
Pakistan. We'll talk more after our break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Joining us from Karachi, Pakistan, is Sheema Kermani. She's a
classical dancer, but in Pakistan, public performances by women are virtually
banned.

Have you been worried about the possibility of a nuclear war between India and
Pakistan?

Ms. KERMANI: Yes. Yes, I have been involved in peace movements here, and I
really feel that neither of these two countries should have ever got into a
nuclear armament and made the bomb or anything of the kind, and I think that
no country at this point in the world and this time of history should be doing
this, especially these countries where there's still so much to be done for
the people, where there's, you know, still so much illiteracy, where--health
problems, unemployment, issues like that. And I mean, be totally against this
kind of a nuclear buildup. And, yes, we have been worried about it because
there is no way that they can control things once they let something start
rolling. So, yes, I think we are very worried about this nuclear issue.

GROSS: A lot of the foreign consulates, a lot of their people have left
Pakistan because of the threat of nuclear war. Has that affected you
directly?

Ms. KERMANI: It's affected me directly in the sense that I have a lot of
foreign students learning dance from me, so they've all left the country.
That is how it's affected me. And also one's performances and travel abroad.
I mean, all the consulates have closed. I had a performance in UK, and I
can't go because I can't get a visa. In that sense, yes.

GROSS: Right. I want to ask you about music. We were talking about dance,
but I imagine that music is very important to you as a dancer.

Ms. KERMANI: Yeah.

GROSS: Do you have any problems listening to the music that you want to
listen to? Problems in either playing it or even in finding it? Can you buy
the recordings that you want in stores?

Ms. KERMANI: Well, actually I would like to dance to live music, so I am
always looking for musicians who can play the kind of music I want, and
what--to buy recorded music is not a problem or I can always get it from India
or across the border. But what is a problem is finding musicians who would,
you know, sing or play music with you for a live performance, and that is what
is more exciting in dancing, to have a live performance. And the musicians
are dying, and as for dance, even music, this, it's not institutionalized,
it's not looked after, so there's no--you know, the older stars did not teach
their children, so it's a dying art form. I mean, these things unfortunately
in Pakistan are all dying, I feel--dance and music and theater. And it's a
big tragedy.

GROSS: Do you think music in general is a dying art form, or classical music?

Ms. KERMANI: Well, classical music, yes. Not music in general. There is a
lot of pop music going on, but classical music is dying.

GROSS: You're right across the border from India, which has a huge movie
industry that's been nicknamed Bollywood. I wonder if those movies make it to
Karachi, if you get to see a lot of those Indian musicals.

Ms. KERMANI: Oh, yes. There's a huge video market of Indian films, so one
can just go and rent a video and see it at home. They're not in the cinema
halls, of course, but you can see the latest Indian movie.

GROSS: They're not in the movie theaters because...

Ms. KERMANI: Oh, because Indian films are banned in Pakistan.

GROSS: Oh.

Ms. KERMANI: Actually there's no trade between India and Pakistan, and right
now there's nothing between India and Pakistan, not even travel or movement of
any kind, as you know.

GROSS: But you said you can get recordings that you want from India.

Ms. KERMANI: Well, till recently. I mean, like I used to travel--I have
been going to India almost every year to go and refresh myself, go back to my
guru, go back to my teachers. But it's actually right now where
things--there's so much tension between India and Pakistan, there's no
movement, there's no traveling; there's nothing between India and Pakistan at
the moment. In fact, as you know there's sort of fear of war breaking out any
minute. So right now this is this case, but we just hope that it's not going
to last very long.

But as far as dance is concerned, I'll go back to something that I think is an
important thing that I'd like to add, and that is this whole issue of why I
feel dance is important in our society, and not only as, you know, education
for children, and not only as something that'll give them confidence and
dignity and pride in their bodies, but specifically for women I feel it's very
important. It's important because, you see, here you have this whole culture
of young girls when they're growing up, they're told that they must hide their
bodies, that, you know, when they're sort of, you know, like developing
breasts you must not show your breasts and things like that. And so you grow
up with a feeling of inferiority about your body, and I think dance combats
that. It sort of gives you a feeling of dignity about your body, a feeling of
confidence and pride in your body. You know, the minute you stand up straight
with your spine straight and its strength at the back of your spine, you feel
strong. And I think that's why it's important for women and for women's
movement to understand that dancing is so important.

GROSS: You know how you're saying that dance, if you're standing up straight
on stage and using your body in a strong way, it's very empowering.

Ms. KERMANI: Yes.

GROSS: I guess I'm wondering if you think that women who are forced to cover
up and feel a little shameful about your bodies, if you notice that women's
body postures are less straight and more kind of...

Ms. KERMANI: Yeah, hunched up.

GROSS: ...embarrassed looking, hunched up. Exactly. Yeah.

Ms. KERMANI: Yeah, exactly. Oh, yes, that is true. That's what I was
saying, that young girls are constantly feeling that, oh, they must hunch
their shoulders in and have their chests going in rather than out so that
their breasts don't show, and so there is a whole feeling of inferiority and a
complex about the body, that you must not show it, you must hide it. And I
think that is what the whole issue is about, that, you know, a dancer stands
up on stage and says, `Well, I am proud of my body and I think it's a
beautiful body and I can show it to you. I don't have to hide it,' you know.
And that's what the fundamentalists are scared of, because it takes away their
power.

GROSS: Can I ask you where you're dancing next, or is that something that
you're better off not sharing?

Ms. KERMANI: No, no, no, no. I have no problems about sharing it. It's just
too hot in Karachi at the moment, and so I'll wait for the summer to be over.

GROSS: I see. Not a lot of air conditioning inside?

Ms. KERMANI: No. In spite of that, there's a lot of--it's very hot and
there's a lot of power breakdowns, so--and, you know, the city is really
sizzling at the moment.

GROSS: Right.

Ms. KERMANI: And summer is a bad time to be dancing. So, I mean, for at
least one or two months actually there's hardly any dancing going on. In
fact, I've even closed my classes because there's so much power failure and
one can't exercise in the heat.

GROSS: Just one other question. The bombing of the American Consulate in
Pakistan made big news here in the United States. What impact did that have,
like, in your community?

Ms. KERMANI: This incident has been very unfortunate, and I think everybody
is very upset about it, and everybody is very upset. Well, you know, there
were five young women who died in this bombing, and it's--unfortunately,
nobody's ever caught. People get away with this. And it's going to make it
more and more difficult for us to do anything, I think, and especially for
artists. You see, a lot of our work depends on how things are politically in
the country. You can't have performances if there's this kind of thing going
on. You can't even think of performing when this kind of thing is going on.
People are dying around you. You can't--you know, don't want to be dancing
around. So it's really sad.

GROSS: Well, I thank you very much for talking with us.

Ms. KERMANI: All right. OK, Terry. Goodbye.

GROSS: Sheema Kermani is a classical dancer in Pakistan. She spoke to us
from Karachi.

Coming up, the international pop of Cornershop, a British band led by Indian
singer Tjinder Singh. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

Unidentified Man: (Singing) Adjectives on the typewriter. He moves his words
like a prize fighter. The frenzied pace of a mind inside the cell. A man on
the street might just as well be--the man on the street might just as well
be--the man on the street might just as well be outside, outside the world,
out there you don't hear the echoes and calls. But the steel eye, tight jaw
say it all. They say it all. But the white...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: New CD by Cornershop
TERRY GROSS, host:

Cornershop is a British band led by the Indian singer-songwriter Tjinder
Singh. They've just released their first new album in four years. It's
called "Handcream For A Generation." Rock critic Ken Tucker says Cornershop
is still mining its synthesis of international pop styles, but with a new
intensity and a new playfulness.

(Soundbite of "Staging The Plaguing Of The Raised Platform")

CORNERSHOP: (Foreign language sung) Jaws, jaws, super jaws are going about,
going to hell to get some people out, and it will be powered by the force,
staging the plaguing of the raised platform against a 17 Windsor and the two
twin 12's(ph). Old good news about the Westerville home, counteraction
(unintelligible) the core, and to the rock floor here goes the heavy metal
roar, and then they're staging the plaguing of the raised...

KEN TUCKER reporting:

The man behind the sound of Cornershop, Tjinder Singh, is interested in grand,
swirling masses of sound. Into this he incorporates, as he does on the song I
just played, firm guitar lines, a catchy beat, and seemingly random touches,
such as a chorus of children's voices. He tops off this ice cream sundae of a
song with the cherry of an elusive title, in this case "Staging The Plaguing
Of The Raised Platform." The result is transfixing stuff, and Cornershop
leaps genres constantly, relying on this mix-and-match method.

(Soundbite of "Wogs Will Walk")

CORNERSHOP: We're gonna get on down now. We're gonna get on down. We're
gonna get on down now. We're gonna get on down. ...(Unintelligible). I see
the lazy bean. Check it out. And let me wipe the wretched out clean.
Che--che--check it out. I see the lazy bean. Check it out. And let me let
me wipe the devilment clean. Che--che--check it out. Broad streets
(unintelligible) got not time for the piper's road, second round the corner I
let the Jackie Graham go. The windows up high into SoHo Road(ph). People by
the ...(unintelligible) punctuated by the brown-eyed hole.

TUCKER: On that song, "Wogs Will Walk," Tjinder Singh condemns discrimination
of the Indian population of England while also taking advantage of the triple
W's in the title to riff a little on the World Wide Web as a uniting force in
culture and politics. All the while he maintains a groove that just won't
quit.

(Soundbite of "Wogs Will Walk")

CORNERSHOP: ...(Unintelligible) movement to where we have come.
(Unintelligible) movement so many miles we've done. Well, we're going to take
this movement onto the street one day to get down. People power in the disco
hour, people power in the disco hour, people power in the disco hour, there's
going to be a people power in the disco hour.

TUCKER: The English pop music press frequently refers to Cornershop's music
as `Anglo-Punjabi rock,' as good an abbreviation as any for these sinuous
assemblages. The album's most ambitious chunk of music, called "Spectral
Mornings," lasts nearly a quarter of an hour and features what we used to call
a rave-up between Cornershop's sitar and the guitar playing of Noel Gallagher
from the faded British pop group, Oasis. Here's the start of it.

(Soundbite of "Spectral Mornings," singing in foreign language)

TUCKER: It's hard to do justice to the artful sprawl of this song, but I can
suggest how it builds and unfolds by playing another section of "Spectral
Mornings." It's when the sitar begins to sound a little like one of Jimi
Hendrix's psychedelic electric guitar improvisations, sliding into a good
Grateful Dead jam.

(Soundbite of "Spectral Mornings" instrumental segment)

TUCKER: There is at once enormous ambition and cavalier wit suffusing all of
"Handcream For A Generation," beginning with its sampled advertising jingle of
a title. At its best, the album suggests that Cornershop wants to provide
artistic provocation for a generation.

GROSS: Ken Tucker is critic at large for Entertainment Weekly.

(Soundbite of music)

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.