Pakistan’s urbanites, meanwhile, seem not to be able to get enough of the once-a-week show, which is rerun twice each week. They have showered praise on Saleem’s portrayal of a middle-aged widow who, in glamorous saris and glittery diamonds, invites to her drawing room politicians, movie stars and rights advocates from Pakistan and India.

With fluttering eyelids and glossy lips, the Begum flirts with male guests using suggestive banter and sexual innuendo. With female guests, she is something of a tease, challenging them about who looks better. Questions are pointed and piercing. Politics, democracy and saucy gossip are enmeshed in her conversation.

Colourful and witty, Saleem is open about his own sexuality and sprinkles his conversation with gender-bending phrases. “My life fluctuates between two extremes,” he says. “I am a man and I am a woman.”

Saleem has also been willing to take on tough political subjects. He is openly critical of the army’s role in ruling Pakistan, for instance. President Musharraf’s policies and the role of the powerful ISI have come under fire on his talk shows.

Owais Aslam Ali, secretary general of Pakistan Press Foundation, an independent media research centre in Karachi, said that “on things of consequence, restrictions remain”.

Ali said there also were unstated restrictions on reporting about Baluchistan, for example. “This is a big black hole as far as media is concerned,” he said. “Parameters have been set. You cross those parameters at your own peril.”

Saleem, who in the guise of the glamorous Begum often gets away with questions that print journalists might be wary of, said his show would not have been a possibility earlier. “I owe Begum Nawazish Ali’s existence, in a certain way, to General Musharraf,” he said.

... contd.