Pakistan News And Discussion-9

Naresh · 01-28-2007, 05:35 AM

[center]Thoroughly irrelevant: Masood Hasan <!--emo& Confused

tupid--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/pakee.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pakee.gif' />[/center]

If there isn't enough confusion all around, we have to go and make a very large mountain of a very small molehill. I refer to this irrelevant and quite useless debate that is raging on the front pages, the back pages and the inside pages of every newspaper and the forty five billion unwatchable channels that have arrived in all their grainy wonder. Is the president going to doff his uniform and what is going to happen in the coming elections? As far as I am concerned, I would be much happier if the elections were going rather than coming, because it is clear no one is going to do any work for this whole year other than go on debating what's going to happen. Surely, there must be, there should be other topics that we should be involved in like the end of the world, as Stephen Hawking has predicted or the latest flop Sharon Stone has starred in. Instead it's elections, elections, elections.

There being no dearth of crackpots, there are billions of theories floating about and anyone who has nothing else to do is floating his personal theory to add to the popular ones that are already in the air. Are we really interested? There is the timing of the elections and frankly I have had it up to here with this particular wart. It's September, no it's October, no it's not this year. It's next March. Sorry, it's not March. It's April. No, no it's October, no not this year stupid, but next. I mean can there be a more boring and sillier way of spending time than tossing about dates and months and years like confetti? Suppose it is none of these. Suppose it is August. I don't know which year. Perhaps this one. Perhaps the next. Perhaps the one after that. So what? Will it make a difference and will petrol cost the same as a bottle of water? Of course not, but to consider the intensity of the statement-mongering, you would think the planet's very existence was hinged on this business.

The president is under great pressure to hold elections is another crackpot theory I am bored to tears with. Pressure from where? And how is this pressure exerted? 'Listen, General Sir,' says the geezer from somewhere between Arkansas and Port Elizabeth. 'You better hold them elections cause the folks up in Wyoming are kinda getting' all worked up about this 'ere little matter. Get ma drift?' Give me a break fellas or to borrow Mickey Shafi's immortal three word wonder: I ask you. Every time someone or the other arrives in Pakistan from somewhere which is not Lalamusa, there is an immediate theory pinned to the visit. And it's always the same, more or less. The Pakistan government is not doing enough -- often it is not even known what about as everyone is supposedly so familiar with the well-trodden path that there is no need to go and elaborate what precisely is enough. It could be Kashmir, it could be Afghanistan, it could be mining borders, it could be law and order -- another two boring subjects beaten and discussed to death with no real purpose -- and the list goes on.

It seems to me that all over the world, bored statesmen and women, senators and secretaries, experts and non-experts, ministers former and present, various other factotums of varying plumage, having time on their hands and a return ticket about to lapse, head our way. They arrive to a royal welcome in Islamabad where half the city is perpetually at the airport or on its way there to welcome yet another important guest and a great friend of Pakistan. These dignitaries, hardly known three feet outside their cubicle, descend into the Islamic Republic of Pakistan amidst great fanfare and are received by everybody who happens to be permanently free in the capital. Feted, dined, chauffeured and mollycoddled by every rank, they have a jolly good time and then when it's time to go, leave some obscure statement floating in the air that puts the Pakistanis in a spin and all the crackpots back in circulation again.

Sometimes I feel that this country is being run by the protocol boys aided by their blue book or whatever colour it is. To think of the number of people coming and going, you'd think we had a bumper sale on -- some say this is true and everything that has not yet been sold to the most undeserving bidder, is up for grabs depending only on how good your grab is -- but the last sale I heard about was the one that said 'up to' in tiny little words and '50 per cent' in type larger than the girth of former minister Ghulam Dastgir of Gujranwala, home of the great but miniscule 'chirras'. There's a nifty little aphrodisiac our sandy brethren have not discovered yet. Should they do so, the Houbara Bustard could have a few days of rest and delayed oblivion.

Frankly and between you, me and the goalpost (no, the rumours are not true and no one has run away with it over the night), this entire elections-uniform thing is a waste of time and absolutely monotonous darling. Elections or selections or whatever, please put it aside. Mian Sahib will not be arriving to open the innings. He hasn't been in the nets long enough. Even Bob Woolmer can't help. Talented brother therefore is also not coming and Mushahid sahib need not feel unduly embarrassed running into them in the streets of the prime minister's sprawling metropolis, also known as his house. So no front foot drives will be taking place. Ms Bhutto will successfully lead a great life and talk about democracy and elections -- one of these days she might even hold the latter in her own party and win again much to the delight of her potty supporters. Mr Zardari will continue having a great time while we suffer more articles from their next generation and their accumulated wealth -- sorry, wisdom.

The good and enlightened Chaudhries, may their tribe increase, shall remain loyal and dependable partners to the House of Musharraf, no reference to the wonderful farm we hear is coming up and where I hope to be invited one day to walk amongst the leading cabbages of Pakistan, who undoubtedly would be on the VIP list of invitees. New leadership will be grafted in Chaudhry nurseries and even as we read these rather useless lines, the young scion of the family is already ascending like a healthy creeper, green but getting better all the time. He cuts a fine figure, patiently hearing complaints and heartbreaking stories of suffering humanity who have prostrated themselves at his Bally shoes and plead for favours. The best thing that ever happened to this country, namely the creation of the armed forces, shall continue to run its affairs and may even introduce some new flavours in their Corn Flakes range -- nothing like getting the share of mind of the people right at the start of day -- 'from those great folks who gave you enlightened moderation, now a new raspberry flavour'. As for Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, well he might return to the land of Oz and live there happily after or he might simply continue having had such resounding success in both his home constituencies, Tharparkar and Attock or was it Badin and Charsada -- one forgets. The truth is that by and large, mostly large, the Pakistanis have thrown in the towel <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/Flush.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='Flush.gif' /> -- no idea where they got it in the first place and have readily, wholeheartedly and happily accepted without any reservation, the existing dispensation. I wonder, therefore, if Confucius was indeed from Daska, for he truly spoke for this country when he said: 'When in soup, enjoy flavour.'

Cheers <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' />

Login




Remember me Lost Password?