A show starts on radio in 2004 on a new radio channel still not done yet with its test transmission, hosted by two new RJs who still have to learn the ABCs of courteous radio hosting. The two couldn’t get any better time allotted than 12 o clock midnight, a time reserved for soul searching and sweet talking. The RJs on air at this time know the art of hypnotizing their insomniac audience to sleep. Another addition to the long list of midnight shows? Yes. May be no. It’s tough call; alertness levels are near zero at midnight.

Three months down the line the audience explodes with a bang. The show got an estimated million record breaking audience. Karachi’s Generation Next finally has a tit-for-tat for their grannies’ nostalgic tales about waiting for radio programs. The TV was still in its golden era in Pakistan, but radio caught the city’s beat again at perhaps its last successful battle with the TV. It was the Azfar-Mani Show, and something about it absolutely clicked. That something had been clearly missing from the Pakistani youth culture:

‘One thing we did at the radio show was stop being pretentious. Both of us had little background with the radio linguistics, but surprisingly none of us thought a big deal about it. We dug into the seats, loosened up a bit and kicked the show without thinking or preparing much.’ Recalls Azfar rather modestly.

But what was more than mere modest was its lingering impact. While it’s impossible to catch up to the youth today without reverberating with their wavelengths, the duo being young and social, was able to do just that. It turned out to be a launch pad for street philosophy and mean humor. Until of course it started arousing trouble with the managers from more conservative age groups and demographics. Good things come to an end and so did the show. But the legacy continues. Azfar, Mani and the brainwaves underwent repeated metamorphosis -from radio to streets and from streets and to TV.

To date, Azfar-Mani show has hopped between three radio channels before finally settling into a national television. The Azfar-Mani success story is a representation of an egalitarian youth culture that suits the mega polis of Pakistan like Karachi and Lahore. It is here on this broader stage that we can give the entire nation a lesson of tolerance for differences in culture and language.