The Fall of Imran the Immortal

When I was 13 years old, I saved up some gift money and bought three posters for my closet. They were a big deal those days and I had to bribe a boy from my neighbourhood to get me the contraband. The insides of my closet were the only privacy I could ever hope to get in a house where three generations of very nosy people lived together. So there they were: Sylvester Stallone, in his Rambo avatar, Akram Khan and Imran Khan, the unholy trinity of my adolescent fantasy. 

Imran was to our generation what Fawad Khan is to the millennials. Life was simpler. You could squeal in delight at the sight of the dashing Khans from across the border without having to worry about a backlash. And boy, were they worthy of our worship with their effortless swag. Every time the Pakistani team visited India, our loyalties were tested. On the one hand you wanted your country to win. But you would have lost your head, heart and a good night’s sleep over the dashing men in green. Imran Khan was the forbidden God at whose altar we were willing to surrender more than our common sense. 

Some people age well. Some don’t. It is heartbreaking to see your adolescent crush devolve into a caricature of his dashing, debonair self. It is not so much about the thinning of the gorgeous hair or wrinkles on a handsome face.

But something that goes beyond the surface. It is that thing called sexiness. It is what separates the men from the boys and the class from the crass. It is defined not so much by what is visible. But all that is not, to the untrained eye.

It is about knowing the effect it has on your watchers, but playing it really cool. 

As stories swirl of Imran Khan’s bizarre reasons to marry someone dubbed as ‘Pinki Pirni’ dressed in a ‘shuttlecock burkha,’ you wonder how and when did it come to this. How did the heartbreaker, record smasher, globe trotter of the 80s, unspool into this pitiable meme?

Apparently, the former cricketing star whose ‘playing grounds’ stretched from London to Lahore and even in between, consulted his spiritual guides, who convinced him that marrying Pinki would fast track his bid for Prime Ministership. I have nothing against the burkha, or Pinki. I am just unhappy at the way I am being forced to age, by the very same idols who had convinced me of the immortality of my youth. It is great to be able to find someone who looks at a 65-year-old and sees a life of endless potential. But to marry for so-called political gains — I thought it began and ended in our history text books.   

In my head, I was still the giddy headed 13-year-old who bribed the neighbourhood boy into procuring Khan’s poster. That memory was my secret magic potion. And I am not responding very well to these images of a desperate  man sitting awkwardly next to a shuttle cock, hoping to appease the powers that may never be.

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