Ali Saleem

Template:Infobox television personality 'Ali Saleem Khusra' (Urdu: علی سلیم), best known by his alter-ego Begum Nawazish Ali, is a Pakistani television host, actor, scriptwriter and impressionist. He broke into the mainstream audiences through his impersonations of late prime minister Benazir Bhutto, and later and playing the cross-dressing Begum Nawazish Ali on various television channels, including the Aaj TV network, Dawn News and Geo TV network. Although currently, his alter ego of Begum Nawazish Ali has now become his primary persona as he rarely appears as the male Ali Saleem. At 27-years old he is a bisexual man born to a retired colonel father in Pakistan Army and his wife, a former government official.

Biologically born a male, but asked about his sexuality, Ali would sometimes call himself gay, bisexual or at other times even a transsexual.

Early life and being Benzair

Born in Islamabad to a colonel in the Pakistan Army, Ali had everything he desired. From a young age, he desired and fantasized about being a woman. It was in his teens that he got to do a play for Yasmeen Ismail at the Arts Council clad in a burqa offering the audience with his monologue that people saw his inner lady come out. They would flock him and ask him in disbelief of how a child can impersonate a woman older than his age. Ali now says that because his audience was older than his age then, he felt he matured earlier.

His breakthrough in the entertainment industry came when he started imitating his childhood heroine, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto, from the way she talked to the way she dressed. So loved were his performances that on the occasion of Zohaib Hassan's dholki, Bhutto herself asked Ali to impersonate her. Zohaib's sister Nazia had warned Ali not to stating the prime minister had a bad sense of humour. But, eventually, when asked he even made the prime minister burst out in laughter.

The birth of Begum Nawazish Ali

His father and mother would soon seek a divorce, during which Ali had to come to the city of Karachi. Here he came to terms with Imran Aslam, a political satire writer who would tell him of a television channel in the pipeline, that would later be called Geo TV. Ali's Benazir impressions were famous among his friends and Imran told him to take it to the airways with the television channel once it got aired. A show dealing with political humour around the time of election in the country aptly named Hum Sub Umeed Se Hain (idiomatically translated as We Are All Expecting (Pregnant), but meant to translate as We Are All Hopeful) showed people impersonating the election candidates. Ali would do his Benazir act here for the first time on the tube.

After a while with the act, Ali would came to realise that the act alone wouldn't shape his career and he had to do more with his talent. It was from this very act that Ali gained the nickname BB or bibi meaning lady in Urdu. Omar Adil, an orthopaedic surgeon by profession, doctor to Madam Noor Jehan was a close friend of his. With an extensive research into Pakistani cinema under his belt and ties to multiple television channels, the doctor suggested Ali with the idea of having a dragged-up character as a host for a talk show. Thus, Begum Nawazish was born.

Late Night with Begum Nawazish Ali

Ali cross-dresses as a woman wearing a sari and asks influential guests provocative questions in his show Late Night with Begum Nawazish Ali. He would invite two guests at a time to be interviewed. The name Begum Nawazish Ali was suggested by Dr. Adil talking of his neighbour with the same name, wife to a colonel. Ali could relate strongly to this persona as an alter ego. The facts that the Begum they created lived a wealthy life living off the money of her late armyman husband and was a socialite, bore resemblance to the life Ali himself had lived in his earlier days. The rights to the show were sold to Aaj TV where the show airs every Saturday night.

Courting controversy

The show has invited the likes of business tycoons, industrialists, actors and actresses, government and religious leaders. Begum would flirt with any one of the male guests "using suggestive banter and sexual innuendo". It's just this use of gestures and acts that Begum has earned a nasty reputation amongst the more fundamentalist ideals of the religious leaders (where some are even amused by his show) but has still ventured into the hearts and minds of the younger generations. While talking of taboo topics like "sex" in Pakistan where it is strictly off-limits even trying to mention it, Ali has been spared a backlash only because when on-the-air he is personifying a woman. Women, however, say that they are still afraid to do what Ali is doing on the show.

Where television talk shows in Pakistan are reluctant to take on criticism for the military backed Pakistani government, Begum had always been critical of a general seated as a president. Due to these critical claims, former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was opposed to the show's airing. This fair bit of opposition led to the temporary closure of the show. Offers however extended from across the border in India for a follow-up of the show by the name Begum. The reformatted show aired 26 episodes with Indian celebrities on the channel 9X from India.

Big Boss 4

Ali is currently participating in Big Boss 4 in India. There has been some controversy about Pakistani actors working in India.

External links

• Washington Blade John-Manuel Andriote interviews Saleem Ali
• Washington Post contributor Amar Bakshi interviews Begum Nawazish Ali in Pakistan
• Interview - Ali Saleem
• How Pakistan's 'Dame Edna' has upset Musharraf
• DAWN.com