Committee Fever

JANUARY 2002 - It is not possible to hold any kind of public meeting without an army – and one uses the word in its widest sense, of speakers to pontificate and hold forth as the clock ticks away. It seems that without a large number of speakers to ‘grace’ the occasion, the event would not be complete and those who organize such thrilling events are convinced that this point is well appreciated by all who are attending.

Consider the number of people who spoke and expressed opinions at a recent memorial meeting to pay tribute to the late dancer Faqir Hussain Saga. ‘Rich’ tributes were paid at this function held in the Lahore Museum and the party of speakers and experts included Hanif Ramay, Farrukh Sohail Goindi – perhaps it is Gondal and the reporter who must have been furiously scribbling name after name on a scrap of paper (they never carry pads) can be forgiven – in any event, the list continues. Fakhar Zaman who is a must at any such gathering, Abdul Shakoor Rana – can’t be someone impersonating the late cricket umpire though you can never tell these days, Dr. Khalid Javed Jan – we will never know if he is a medic or a professor or both, Dr. Anwar Sajjad, Munnoo Bhai, Sajjad Haider, Iftikhar Hussain Bokhari, Shahid Mahmood Nadeem, Madeeha Gauhar (where was Feryal Gauhar; she could also have spoken), Parveen Atif, Dr. Ajmal Niazi, Javed Shaheen, Khawar Naeem Hashmi, Aziz Mazhar and Afzal Malik. The newspaper report ominously concludes ‘and others also spoke on the occasion.’ Of course the one big name, which is surprisingly missing, is that of the city’s leading chief guest, Dr. Nasim Hasan Shah and the only reason he was not presiding over this gathering of intelligentsia must be that he was chief guest at three other functions the same evening.

There is more thrilling news in the offing and listeners and would-be attendees can look forward to more of the same in the days ahead. The World Punjabi Congress has been blessed with the formation of an advisory council that makes impressive reading by any standards. In it are, Abdullah Malik, Hameed Akhtar, Ahmad Bashir, Hayat Ahmad Khan, Farrukh Sohail Goindi (there he is again – it is Goindi after all), Anwar Ali, Saleem Shahid, Tahira Mazhar Ali, Shaista Habib, Parveen Atif, Shireen Masood, Nasreen Anjum Bhatti, Obaida Syed, Bushra Ijaz, Dr Syed Akhtar Hussain Akhtar, Mudassar Butt, Jameel Ahmad Paul – please don’t run away, there are more – Muhammad Junaid Akram, Tanveer Zahoor, Dr Ajmal Niazi, Abbas Najmi, Abbas Mirza, Iqbal Qaisar and Ilyas Ghumman just as I was beginning to despair how we could possibly create an advisory council and not have a Ghumman on it. Mercifully, this report does not conclude with the scary ‘and others’. If this is just the advisory council, one can only gape in wonder at all the other heavy weight committees and councils that must be shouldering the burden of the World Punjabi Congress. It is altogether an irrelevant point how effective such a gigantic body can be but I suppose we shouldn’t lose any sleep over that trifling matter. Far be it for the likes of me to wonder how those who will monitor this body, if indeed a small word like body adequately covers such an entity, hope to make it work precisely and deliver the results they are hoping for. Firstly, simply the task of collecting even half these people under one roof on a given day at a given time will create a new world record. Even more bewildering is the thought of those unfortunate ones who will have the unenviable task of coordinating the advisory council’s comings and goings. In a city where it is difficult to gather three people at the same spot on the same day at the same time without running into two hour delays and mixed signals, the task of gathering the city’s heavy weights, Punjabi-style has me foxed, but then I suppose when you are a professional organizer, these things are as simple as a, b and c. I do think, however, that the powers that move the Congress must induct Dr. Nasim Hasan Shah, without whom such things cannot be taken seriously.

Someone once said that a camel was a horse designed by a committee and truer words were never spoken. In government circles – and circles is the right word because nothing is ever straight, all committees and there are zillions of them, are automatically ‘high level.’ I have yet to hear of a low level committee but one lives in hope. There are, undoubtedly committees that preside over other committees and are in turn presided over by others and so on till you reach the top of the rubbish heap, only to find there is another committee. I wouldn’t be surprised if Osama Bin Laden – or as Stephen Fry put it so delightfully the other night on a TV talk show, Bed Linen, is not a man but a committee. If Pakistan had anything to do with him – and we all know it did, naughty naughty, they must have persuaded him to become a committee. There is a general belief here that no task can be completed unless a committee is entrusted to perform it and to complicate the picture, there are also task forces which I suppose are a higher spirtual form of committees and are designed to operate at steeper altitudes. Maybe the country has primitive skills in most areas but it seems that when it comes to forming committees and the like, we are somewhat in a league of our own. This of course explains the country’s perpetual fascination for setting up huge bodies comprising everyone and their aunts. What the advisory council will achieve with so many heavyweights talking at the same time and airing their views in no uncertain terms, one can only guess but perhaps the organizers will consider it a roaring success if they manage to hold even one meeting. It is also plain that such a meeting, if it takes place, will undoubtedly create another committee and so on and so on.

Poor Dr Saga who died dancing in, of all the places, Mandi Bahauddin, which I always thought was more into turnips than peacock dances, must be wondering what he did to deserve such a turnout of intellectual heavyweights after he had passed on. Had half of them showed up at his performance would have gladdened his heart but what escapes me is why call so many people to speak on the same subject? Is it that those who conjure up these events believe that if they don’t persuade two dozen people to pontificate, they wouldn’t be doing justice to the person in whose name or in whose memory they are holding the function? What can one speaker possibly add that another and the one before him has not already covered? Would it not be more meaningful to simply limit the number to a decent level instead of the charge of the light brigade where one after another stalwart march to the rostrum and hold forth? Who can tell how the intellectual biggies think? Do they think, come to think of it? Well that too is a moot point and one could easily form a committee of say 200 people to deliberate the issue. The fact is that there is no memorial day or anniversary, without hundreds lining up to speak endlessly.

Perhaps it is time to erect in each city, a monument to pay tribute to the courage, patience and fortitude displayed by thousands who brave the elements and go to attend the stampede shows day after day. We could form a committee of say 50 to deliberate on the matter and then pass the findings to another committee - or simply keel over and be violently sick.