Pakistan Singer Bets on Reality TV

Komal Rizvi is betting an MTV reality series will reignite her long-dormant career in pop music. But this is Pakistan, and Ms. Rizvi—a voluptuous singer who wants to become the country's equivalent of Rihanna—has to carefully calibrate what she can show on screen.
Komal Rizvi was known in India in the 1990s as the sole Pakistani VJ on Channel V, the music-television channel, at a time of near-war between the two nations. She caused a stir back home by playing down her Pakistani origins on Indian television in a bid not to alienate the local audience.
Now, after a failed marriage, she’s back with a Pakistan MTV reality show charting her attempts to re-launch a pop music and movie career at home and in Bollywood.
Times have changed. A number of Pakistani stars have made it singing “playback” on Bollywood soundtracks and have become stars in their own right. The most famous is Atif Aslam, who is a household name in India. Pakistani rock groups also tour to packed stadiums in India.
“Komal,” which has just started airing on Pakistan MTV, is the first Western-style reality show in Pakistan
While still socially conservative, Pakistan has opened up to different cultural influences in the past few years as cable channels bloomed. Bollywood music videos have been by far the most popular cultural import. And that means that to make it big in Pakistan, local acts have to look to Bollywood.
On a recent afternoon, Ms. Rizvi was planning a wardrobe for her first pop video in a decade, an R&B song in Urdu that contains elements of Pakistan Bhangra, a fusion of Western pop and Punjabi folk music. The song is titled "Chahiye," which means "I want." Standing in front of a ceiling-to-floor mirror in close-fitting black culottes and a stretch top, Ms. Rizvi, 32 years old, parried the advice of a stylist to opt for a Lady Gaga-esque jacket and show generous cleavage.

"I'm personally not going to be showing too much skin," Ms. Rizvi says, the reality-TV cameras rolling. "I actually think it's sexier to leave something to the imagination."

Pakistan remains a deeply conservative country, where female decorum and arranged marriages are prized. Alcohol is officially banned, and there are no public bars or nightclubs. It is considered inappropriate for women to smoke. Yet an explosion of cable television stations in recent years, following deregulation of the industry, has led to an eclectic range of cultural imports, including racy Indian Bollywood music videos and a local MTV franchise. Some of the new stations are pushing the boundaries of what's culturally acceptable. Ms. Rizvi, star of the first Western-style reality program in Pakistan, embodies the new balancing act.

The show also offers glimpses of a Pakistan most Pakistanis never see: that of Karachi's American- and European-educated elite, which for years has pursued Western-like lifestyles behind closed doors. Karachi has even become known abroad for its raves on deserted beaches and drug-filled parties in luxurious, sea-facing villas in the city's posh Clifton district. Earlier this year, Karachi attracted global attention for its fashion week.

Whether Pakistan becomes more culturally liberal or continues to be shaped by rigid interpretations of the Quran is viewed by U.S. policy makers as a key issue. President Barack Obama's administration, as part of the $7.5 billion civilian aid package for Pakistan over the next five years, is funneling millions of dollars into local campaigns aimed at supporting projects working on subjects like the rights of minorities and women.

Putting the lifestyle of Pakistan's elite on television is bringing it to a wider slice of the population, most of which makes a living from agriculture and is conservative in outlook. Already, Pakistanis have embraced scantily clad Bollywood stars from India on cable TV. Now the question is whether they will accept more liberal cultural standards for homegrown talent.

MTV Pakistan is a franchise of Viacom Inc.'s MTV run by Indus Television Network, a local channel that has pioneered music television in Pakistan.

Talk shows have emerged in recent years. "Matches," aired by Eye Television Network Ltd.-owned Hum Television, was based on the Jerry Springer Show from the U.S. but has featured topics that aren't controversial for Muslims, like whether a man was neglecting his first wife after taking a second.

Things are changing. Wajahat Rauf, a senior executive at a music and entertainment channel run by Geo Television, one of the country's largest English-language networks by viewership, says it used to receive threatening phone calls from Islamic groups for airing Bollywood music videos, but no more. Nor are acts getting banned for politically charged lyrics, as happened to rock band Junnon in 1997—when the prime minister was Nawaz Sharif—after it released a track called "Accountability" about corruption in government.

"What changed everything is the media boom," Mr. Rauf said. After years of seeing female anchors wearing veils on state-owned Pakistan Television, local audiences now had access to Bollywood videos. "Suddenly it was OK for a Pakistani teenager to come on TV wearing a T-shirt and jeans."

Still, Shahbaz Sumar, the creator and director of "Komal," has faced difficulties filming his reality show in Pakistan. For one, he's had trouble getting the upper classes of Karachi to open their houses for settings.

"I can't go to too many places; people won't let me in," he says. "It's showing a slice of life that no one has really seen here. Viewers are shocked to see it."

Ms. Rizvi is the daughter of a banker and is the product of U.S.-style schools in Africa and the Persian Gulf. She sees the reality show as a vehicle to restart her career at home. In the 1990s she became a star on state-run PTV and went on to try to break out in Bollywood—as many top Pakistani acts do—where she started as a TV host and pop artist.

She stepped out of the spotlight about a decade ago when she got married. The family of her then-husband, a Pakistani industrialist, didn't want her to work in front of the camera anymore.

The MTV reality show, which went on air a few weeks ago, has a niche audience of urban viewers. During shooting, Mr. Sumar, the director, constantly urges Ms. Rizvi to use Urdu to make her more accessible to the masses, but she keeps slipping back in to English.

Ms. Rizvi makes no bones about the fact she'd like to make it again in India and is planning a trip there soon to meet her Mumbai manager and to discuss the possibility of a Bollywood film role.

Whether she'll succeed in Pakistan is another question. Tariq Amin, a fashion stylist and music label owner, says Mr. Rizvi could carve out a mass market through her show. But she faces an uphill battle. "For a woman to be out there, it's not easy," Mr. Amin said. "Here, this isn't done."