A Date With You

AUGUST 2004 - What can explain Kamran Lashari’s love affair with date trees? Hardly had he arrived in Islamabad a few months back and there were date trees sprouting everywhere. The Blue Area, which was never very blue, was the lucky beneficiary of the trees that overnight arrived – some said from as far away as Brunei, others said they were from an unending reservoir of date trees in Sindh. Before you could say ‘Lash your uncle,’ they were up, slightly wobbly and dry after the dehydrating journey, but up nevertheless. Now that they have all taken a firm grip in Islamabad, including their benefactor, it is time to rename the Blue Area. Call it Date Avenue, Date Boulevard, Date Shate – it really doesn’t matter.

What’s it about these trees that’s got everyone on the go? Firstly, not many of us know if they are date trees. Are there going to be dates? Are we going to become surplus in dates and then become the world’s largest date producers? Is this the magical solution we have been searching for to bring about a revolution in our foreign exchange collection drive? If there are going to be dates, can I bid for the contract now? And what kind of dates will these be? Yellow ones or dark brown? Or will they be in between types? How will we prevent diplomats from carting these off while zooming past in their 4x4s? And God forbid, if Asif Zardari returns and wants to race his hi speed luxury cars past the midnight hour on the wide boulevard, will he have the date trees chopped off since they might impair his horizon-vision? These are important policy matters.

There are date trees in Lahore also. Some say that Shahbaz Sharif of the Transit Passenger Fame had a weakness for them. Is this true? Is it that when planted these look so weather beaten and bald with hardly a leaf on their top that all those similarly afflicted have an instant rapport with them? What else is common between Shahbaz Sharif the date planter of Lahore and Kamran Lashari the date planter of Islamabad? Others say that all Pakistan being the domain of males – the females being the same in number but hardly of any significance, trees such as the date tree are great favourites. Theorists say that as men get older, they look more and more for power symbols. Those who have money and also know how to spend it – two very different things as we all know, want to buy bigger limos, high speed performers with so much horse power that it’s a wonder these vehicles don’t get parked in the stable. The more power their vehicle has, the less inadequate they feel. When these high performance vehicles growl and snarl, the owners get a kick and feel charged up, ready to ravish anyone from the opposite and much, much weaker sex. So don’t be surprised when you see spindly, wobbly-kneed men alight from vehicles that look more like tanks and are built in the same fashion. So is it that the date trees give their promoters the same kick? Is it also that they rise upwards and provide a feeling of immense power particularly to those who erect them in the first place?

We all know and have now come to love the version of fine arts as represented by the armed forces. These much-loved symbols of death and destruction now adorn our towns, cities, roads, buildings, parks, markets and airports to name just a few. There are more tanks standing guard at every corner than we have in the standing army and the amount of jets that are now ready to take off at every street corner is beyond count. There is a submarine in Lahore’s Fortress Stadium, which we all thought, had wandered off and taken the upriver route of the Indus and ended up shopping outside Potpourri Department Store, but the navy clarified the matter. They said that it was not a navigational error but had been deliberately brought here since the people of the Punjab hardly get to see submarines and keep asking for them. Thus these were transported to give joy and happiness to the people of the Punjab. So encouraging was the response that the navy has now gone ahead and planted a torpedo next to the Pearl Continental Hotel. Although, so far, it is not pointing towards the hotel and guests, therefore, need not have sleepless nights, it is still rather scary. Firstly it is red, which is a macho color that men are particularly fond of. Secondly it is so shiny that it looks like it’s come out of the packing case and therefore can go off in a flash. If it does, Shamim Khan will have to find another campus for Aitchison College. The air force jet at China Chowk (or is it China Chow?) – it has a pagoda type structure just to give it a Chinese touch – they could just as easily have erected a large bottle of Soya Sauce, is now a happy home for the city’s junkies who hang out in its afterburners before they crash out. Who says pieces of useless hardware have no use at all? Elsewhere, even in the main street of Haripur you can eat a local ‘kulfi’ and marvel at the one made by the Pak Army. Red tipped, it looks like the real thing and can – or so it seems, take off into the blue Hazara skies with just a nudge or whatever makes missiles go bonkers.

In reply, what can the poor civilians erect which will do their hearts some good? Although there were suggestions that a monument made up of files might be a worthy spectacle, it was sadly not implemented by a task force which had discovered six months into its tenure that like all the country’s task forces, it neither had any force and worse, no task. So that was that. Other suggestions like a forest of paper clips, ‘feetas’ or the string with small metal edges that ties the fate of millions here were also not considered nation-worthy. A garbage heap in fiberglass courtesy the Nazim of Lahore was also not okayed because the fiberglass manufacturers confessed they could not quite replicate the real thing. Animals were discarded although some officials thought that it might be a good idea to kill all the ones we still have in the zoo and stuff them. Other suggestions like replicating a 100 Minar-e-Pakistans was shot down because someone said the proposal would not be approved by the CII, whatever that is. In the end it seemed that date trees was a good idea whose time had come. Those who favoured it said that since the army calls all the shots, they wouldn’t mind okaying the trees provided someone could tell them that it was actually the Hataf Missile disguised as a date tree. The same visionaries went on to explain that the date trees looked like large bullets, easily passable as first cousins to the navy torpedoes, the air force missiles and almost all the other rockets, tank shells, mortars and whatever else that guarantees peace in the world. Nothing else can really explain the growing emergence of the date tree as the country’s latest symbol. All we need is large quantities of sand and we will soon look like Dubai and that means the tourists will start flocking in.

I am certain – being a Lashari believer that he will soon ensure that date trees in Islamabad are placed according to seniority grade, so that those trees that go up on Constitution Avenue (can’t we rename it Ordinance Avenue?) are Grade 21 and those in Blue Area, Grade 20 and so on. As for the mystery whether these trees will bear any fruit, should they fail to respond to Mr. Lashari’s orders to produce, we can always manufacture plastic dates and paste them up, a kind of permanent icon for all to enjoy. This week I am buying a date tree for my home. It’s never too late to turn a new leaf.