To misquote the title of Oscar Wilde’s delightful play, The Importance of Being Earnest, it seems to me that there is also a lot of importance of being Imran Khan these days. A remarkable number of people on the planet have this name; many of them being celebrities! So it isn’t difficult to understand how one Imran Khan can be mistaken for the other!
He is the original Imran, famous first for bowling unplayable seamers to hapless batsmen and romancing various celebrities (sometimes loving sometimes leaving) and now for finally becoming the Prime Minister of Pakistan. This, after years of making ineffectual bids at gaining footholds in Pakistani politics and making TV appearances and offering Gyan on cricket and politics related talk shows, commentating, critiquing, analysing, opining.
This Imran is the pretty boy of Bollywood with the pedigree – as Aamir Khan’s and producer-director Mansoor Khan’s nephew; who had a dream debut in Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na. This Imran Khan (born 1983) sent a million female hearts aflutter, to say nothing of an equal number of gay hearts (at one point he was India’s gay icon and didn’t seem to mind). He is to be seen now and then in films good and bad.
Currently Imran – the to be Pak PM is in the news – and in people's thoughts. But he isn’t the only Imran receiving congratulatory messages. The Indian actor Imran has also been receiving congratulatory messages – for winning the Pakistani elections!
So Imran (the actor) received this message which was meant for Imran (the to-be-PM); from someone looking for a job apparently. So Imran (the actor) posted this on his Instagram page “I guess I can no longer ignore the call to action. Gonna start drafting some policy outlines this week, I'll keep you guys updated.” Very droll!
Looking at both Instagram accounts side by side, the mistake is understandable. Both bear the name Imran Khan, and when you Google “Imran Khan Instagram” these are the two top results. And there you have Imran (the actor) looking all muscly and hunky; which could easily have been a picture of Imran (the cricketer turned PM) from a few decades back. Ok so a few people didn’t do their due diligence, but then who does, these days!
But these two are only the tip of the iceberg named after all the Imran Khans of the world (there are many tens of thousands on Facebook alone) – another Imran Khan is the Pakistani-Dutch singer who is responsible for maddeningly catchy beats and lyrics as profound as “ni woofer tu meri,meri / mein tera amplifier, fier” from his song entitled Amplifier that has well over a hundred million hits on YouTube (and very few other claims to fame). Looking like Apache Indian Part II, his is the genre of music that you may well deprecate on a purely cerebral level, but is the sort that will haunt the inside of your mind for entire days.
The name Imran, apparently means “construction, prosperity, and happiness” – wonder if that has anything to do with anything? There seem to be an inordinate amount of Imran Khans around!
Do you have something interesting you would like to share? Write to us at [email protected]
