–Photo illustration by Faraz Aamer Khan/Dawn.com

Pakola Ice-cream Soda

Every Pakistani knows about Pakola Ice-Cream Soda. The bright green coloured soft-drink that is also hailed (unofficially, though) to be ‘Pakistan’s national soft-drink.’   Launched by Mehran Bottlers in 1950, just three years after the country’s sudden formation, Pakola arrived by claiming to be ‘the cola of Pakistan’ (hence the name Pakola) - even though both in taste and colour  it was quite unlike the usual dark coloured colas.   For the first few years Pakola struggled to find a market for itself that was packed with popular soft-drinks such as Coca-Cola, 7Up and Bubble-Up.   Then in the mid-1950s it even had to print the words ‘Non-Alcoholic’ on its bottles because thanks to its striking colour, some stores (in Karachi) actually began storing it alongside their stock of alcoholic beverages!   Nevertheless, in the early 1960s Pakola was saved from fading into obscurity when keepers of some shrines in Lahore and Karachi began mixing Pakola with chilled milk (in jugs) during the communal iftars that they held in the Muslim holy month of Ramzan.   This trend soon made it into various households as well and Pakola mixed with milk became a fixture of most Pakistanis during Ramzan.   Ever since the 1960s, the green coloured Pakola has remained to be a soft-drink icon in Pakistan, despite Mehran Bottlers also introducing it in other flavours from late 1970s onwards.   Interestingly, according to the makers of Pakola, the drink also became popular with western tourists who used to throng the markets of Peshawar, Lahore and the beaches of Karachi in the early and mid-1970s.   Most of these tourists were young Europeans and Americans who’d travel (on buses, bikes and cars) on the famous ‘hippie trail’ that began in Turkey, and then after curving and zigzagging through Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, ended either in India or Nepal.   Today, though by no means is Pakola Pakistan’s largest selling soft-drink, however it certainly is the most recognised, and as mentioned earlier, a permanent fixture on tables and dastarkhuans during Ramzan - so much so that only a few years ago Pakola introduced its own version of Pakola flavoured milk in Tetra Packs.   Pakola is also exported in limited quantities to the Middle-East and to Pakistani-Indian stores in the United States, Canada and Britain.      Rooh-Afza

Till even about thirty years ago, if you’d ask a young Pakistani child what the ‘rivers of sharab in Paradise’ would look and taste like, he or she would most probably have said ‘like Rooh-Afza.’   Formulated by Hakeem Abdul Majeed and manufactured by his sons in 1906 in India through their company, Hamdard Laboratories, Rooh-Afza is no ordinary ‘sharbat’ (concentrated fruit drink).   Deep red in colour and thick in texture, it is to be mixed with cold water and preferably enjoyed with a squeeze or two of fresh lemon. The taste is refreshing but not remarkable, perhaps a bit too sweet.   However, it wasn’t exactly its taste that turned Rooh-Afza into becoming such a popular icon among Pakistanis. It is the whole aura and image that it’s marketing created about the brand right from the beginning.   It was introduced as being the ‘Mashroob-e-Mashriq’ (the drink of the east), a slogan it has continued to use for over a century now.   The image that still adorns its front label is that of a delicious looking heap of colourful fruit, an allusion to the imagery found in the tales of ‘Arabian Nights’ as well as to the royal prosperity of Mughal rule in India.   Incidentally, when a part of Hamdrad Laboratories moved to the newly formed Muslim majority country of Pakistan in 1948, Rooh-Afza’s imagery morphed into something with ‘Islamic’ overtones, especially when it became extremely popular with fasting Muslims who broke their fasts during Ramzan with Rooh-Afza or milk mixed with the red beverage.   In the mid-1970s, Rooh-Afza was also introduced in plastic bottles but the experiment failed when the bottles began to leak in the hot summers of the country.   It was also in the 1970s that Pakistanis began freezing cubes made from the Rooh-Afza and milk in ice trays and turning them into ready to eat ice-cream to be enjoyed during special occasions.   In the early 1980s Rooh-Afza began facing its first real competition when two more red concentrated fruit drinks hit the market, Nauras and Jam-e-Shireen.   Though Rooh-Afza struggled for a while to ward off the challenge, it did manage to hold its ground. But by the 1990s it was faced with a generation of young Pakistanis who were clearly moving away from ‘traditional beverages.’   To counter this, Rooh-Afza for the first time changed its marketing strategy by replacing its ‘eastern/traditional/Islamic’ similes with (albeit kitsch-like) pop imagery.   Failing on that count, in 2007 Rooh-Afza ran a campaign hitting out at colas and asking Pakistanis to return to the ‘mashroob-e-mashriq,’ albeit in a more contemporary manner.      Murree Beer

A popular beer brand in Pakistan made by Murree Breweries (founded in 1860) one of the three functioning breweries in the country,   Pakistanis who drink have all had a taste of Murree Beer, a brand that competed with imported beer brands (especially German and Dutch) from 1947 till 1977 when sale of alcohol was legal in the country.   Murree was mostly found in the smaller bars and nightclubs, social clubs and coffee houses. Murree Beer was also advertised through billboards (but only in Karachi).   Ever since April 1977 when sale of alcohol was prohibited (to Muslims) in the country, Murree Beer is only available in ‘licensed wine shops’ in Karachi and the rest of Sindh, and in some restaurants in Karachi.   These shops can only be found in Karachi and Sindh, whereas alcohol (even locally made) is usually purchased from bootleggers elsewhere in Pakistan.   Murree Breweries is one of the biggest tax payers to the government, and in the last decade it has introduced various variations of their beer brand.   Though it is not allowed to import its products, Murree has issued licences to a few Belgian breweries to make and market its beer in Europe.   According to the Brewery, Murree Beer is one of its largest selling products in Pakistan.        K2 Cigarettes

K2 cigarettes began life as an inexpensive brand catering to the smoking needs of urban working classes and rural peasants of Pakistan.   Till about the early 1980s, K2 could only be found in packs of ten and was without a filter. In fact, it could be smoked from both ends!   By the 1960s, K2 became iconic with working-class Pakistanis, so much so that in the 1970s middle-class college and university students who smoked and were supporters of socialist ideas used to make a conscious decision to only smoke K2 (as a political statement).    However, by the late 1970s, K2 began facing stiff competition from other inexpensive brands (especially King Stroke, Scissors and Belga).   As a response, K2 decided to also enter the ‘higher-income’ cigarette market and for the first time introduced soft packs of 20 filter cigarettes. The entry was backed by lavish TV advertising.   Nevertheless, though over the years demand for filter-less cigarettes has significantly dropped, even among ‘low-income’ smokers, K2’s image, however, remains to be associated with rugged working-class Pakistanis and peasants.   Babu Bidi

Made in Hyderabad, Sindh, from bidi leaves and tobacco imported from India, Babu Bidi became a status symbol among working-class bidi smokers in Sindh.   Tasting smoother than the usual bidi, Babu was launched in 1977 and was especially popular with Sindh’s and Karachi’s rickshaw and taxi-drivers.   In fact, the sales among these consumers were so good that Babu Bidi even ventured into TV advertising (in 1979).   In the TV commercial (that became a cult favourite of 1980s young generation), Babu Bidi used an actual rickshaw driver as a model who, (in the TV commercial), is seen becoming a ‘babu’ (gentleman) after smoking Babu Bidi.   From the late 1980s, Babu Bidi’s sales began to suffer, especially due to the widespread availability of superior bidis imported from India and an overall fall in the demand for bidis.   Ishtiraq   Very few young Pakistanis are aware of the fact that the country once had its very own ‘pornographic’ magazine (in Urdu) that was openly sold in the newsstands.   Launched in Karachi by a group of young Urdu journalists in 1975, ‘Ishtiraq’ (Partner), carried articles on sexual issues, sexual advise, black and white photographs (lifted from western magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse), and soft-porn short stories.   Priced at Rs. 3 per copy (that was raised to Rs.6 by the time the magazine was banned in 1977), it became a huge hit, especially among college students and married men.   The magazine’s offices were located in the famous Bombay Hotel (popularly known as ‘Bambai Hotel’) building on the I.I Chundrigarh Road in Karachi, its monthly circulation is said to have reached a peak of 25,000 in mid-1976.   The magazine was only available in Karachi. The publishers were not allowed to use nude photos on the cover. The covers usually carried ‘sensual sketches.’   The publishers were also instructed to put the tag of ‘For Adults Only’ (Sirf Balghoon Kay Leeay) on the cover of the magazine that was sold to adults over the age of 21.   In January 1977, the magazine was all set to start publication from Lahore. But in August 1977 its license was revoked when the government of Z A. Bhutto was overthrown by General Ziaul Haq in a military coup.   Nevertheless, Ishtiraq managed to make a temporary comeback in late 1979 but this time as an entertainment magazine. Its new version only lasted a few months and the magazine was wrapped for good after poor sales.          ‘Dhoolan Aik Raat Ki’ and the ‘Adult Film’   In the mid-1970s, British and American ‘Adult films’ had become a hugely successful outing for young middle-class Pakistanis and couples, and by 1974-75, cinemas (especially in Karachi) that had signs saying ‘For Adults Only,’ were doing a roaring business.

Karachi’s Rio Cinema and Palace Cinema became known for running such films. They were mainly low-budget European and American romantic farces in which nudity scenes and sexual content were allowed to be shown by the censors, thus the tag: ‘For Adults Only’.

Inspired by the period’s ‘Adult Film’ phenomenon, director Mumtaz Ali Khan helmed Pakistan’s first Urdu film that was ‘For Adults Only.’ It was appropriately called ‘Dhoolun Aik Raat Ki’ (Bride for One Night).

Staring the ‘Charles Bronson of Pakistani cinema,’ Badar Munir, the film was a raunchy meat fest of quivering female bodies and muscular (hairy-chested) men. The film was amoral and unapologetic in its gaudy, blood-splattered setting and campy sexuality telling a story of kidnapping, honour and revenge, consequently giving birth to the prototype of the Pakistani cinema’s angry-young-man.

Badar Munir’s angry role was quite unlike that of Indian cinema’s angry-young-man of the time (Amitabh Bachchan). Whereas Amitabh’s role in this context was street-smart, brooding and ideologically charged, Munir’s role was that of a man steeped in the rugged and earthy myths of honour and revenge in rural Pakistan (mainly in the Punjab and the Khyber-Pakhtunkhua).

This character was eventually perfected by Punjabi film actor, Sultan Rahi, in many Punjabi films of the 1980s, a majority of them based squarely on the action-packed and sexual formula discovered by ‘Dhoolan Aik Raat Ki.’ Whereas the ‘Adults Only’ film phenomenon involving English language films came to an abrupt end in Pakistan with the arrival of the Ziaul Haq dictatorship in July 1977, it is ironic that the steamy formula introduced by ‘Dhoolan Aik Raat Ki’ was constantly repeated in the Punjabi and Pushtu films of the 1980s - at the peak of the Zia dictatorship!

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