Enjoy The Mangoes

JUNE 2004 - I mean the President is not the only one who’s got problems. I am having one hell of a time myself. Too many people are complaining to me about the doom and gloom that I bring into their lives on Sunday mornings. The first surprise about this disclosure is that other than self and dog, I wasn’t aware that anyone was reading the weekly pulp. I am forced to read – but not always thank God, what drivel I produce and my dog is far too deep into bad literature to stage any kind of recovery. I know for sure that my editor, wise man that he is, never ever reads what I send. The proof is that usually all the typos, the bad grammar and the wrong facts go right through with the same ease hot knives profess when cutting across regiments of fat butter.

Readers – at last count, at least four, not including the dog, have been moaning of shards of pain shooting between their eyes when the open that dreaded page on Sunday morning. Quite rightly they are asking why must they be further punished. As one of them put it, “Every Sunday I wonder what further depression will you inflict on poor old me? I mean aren’t things already bad enough that I can’t even have half a decent Sunday? I’ve had a bad night, my back’s gone for a six and bleary-eyed I open the paper and damn, if it is not another long wail about rivers and ethics polluted, trees and pride felled and the country gone plain crazy. Give me a break,” she adds. Helpful suggestions like reading the column late at night or in four parts with a break of 45 minutes each at least between parts, are not acceptable. Even the brighter suggestion – a stroke of genius from someone who has neither had genius or any stroke worth the name, that she altogether not read the darn thing, elicit no positive response. Now this is serious business. Reader feedback- never mind if it is only three and a half, is essential, it is what many of my leaders have wailed for and never had, ‘positive criticism’ – poor Z. ul Haq of the ill-fated mango fame, always yearned for it and never got it and his worthy successor, the man with the many caps trick, yearns for it too with the same intensity. If nothing else, feedback improves output and we all know that after good governance and enlightened moderation and sleeping with strange bedfellows, Islamabad loves output particularly as our GDP climbs to – oops sorry forgotten the figure, but it is more than one.

Which brings us back, to doom and gloom or gloom and doom, take your pick. Like the mangoes, both are available widely and are yours for the asking, courtesy the present rulers of Pakistan and where they are present, I don’t have the foggiest notion. I don’t have answers for everything although most of the time, they do. Like this business of taking out the General’s convoy on Clifton Bridge in Karachi. We are doing well since more than one official has informed us that it was a terrorist act. This is probably the best news most of us have heard for a long time as it puts an end to political speculation. It is this kind of breathtaking and deep insight which gives many of us hopeless people, a glimmer of hope that things are not all that bad as we make them out to be. I mean, even before we could utter, “What the hell is….” they had already figured it out that terrorists were behind the latest insult to good governance. Now those of you who have no experience of good governing have little idea how difficult it is to read such complicated situations like the one that shook good old Clifton Bridge. It means much to us, the common plodders because it shows that the government is thinking smart even though it has Sh. Rashid on its roll call. This is no small achievement. However, I was hoping that someone from the official and authorised sources was going to enlighten us moderately by letting us know that they had also unearthed another chilling similarity between this raid on a convoy and the other one in December in Rawalpindi, namely that terrorists of the variety that we are growing in our backyard love to do it with bridges. Now if I was security head, though head implies presence of grey matter which we all know is banned in Rawalpindi & Islamabad regions, I would immediately place a red alert at all the bridges including the one that cuts a neat path across Lahore’s pride and joy, the Nullah Noir which some ill-informed citizens say is the sluggish flowing black river of disease and filth that runs right through Samnabad. For those of you who don’t know what is Samnabad, it is a large area between Mian Nawaz Sharif’s Motorway and Ch. Pervez Elahi’s underpasses – (gosh how many does the man want?) where people live. Not very important people like the DHA people or the Cantonment people or the Clifton people, but ordinary people, like teachers, doctors, lawyers and other equally unimportant varieties.

So, all bridges on red alert – that means they will be painted red. Loitering on bridges will not be tolerated. The order banning photography at all bridges issued in 1547 – or was it 1546, is to be reinforced in letter and spirit – no cut out the spirit since that could put many of us in grave difficulties. Since no one takes orders seriously, an ordinance should be issued immediately bringing the total to over 4 million ordinances that the current government has issued since it came into being – (what was it before it became a being?). Since no one takes ordinances seriously, something else should be issued. Don’t look at me. I don’t have all the answers. I don’t even have one answer. Families posing for pictures at any bridge, including Gutter Ravi Bridge should be arrested and sent to Wana. Nek Mohammad can help out with devising new tortures. Any person or persons, placing explosives or bombs under a bridge like they were doing in Rawalpindi for over six months before the Presidential convoy went over it, should be told to take the explosives elsewhere, since these can cause damage to bridges, vehicles traveling over bridges and the country’s future – in that same order. This will greatly reduce terrorist activity since they will be very confused where to plant their next cache of explosives. While we are at it, the government of Pakistan – and we all have to assume we have one, must lodge a strong protest with whoever is planting aliens amongst our people. True they come from another galaxy long ago and far away, but enough is enough. There are more aliens than Pakistanis in Pakistan and all they want to do (it seems) is ignore shaving, avoid baths and plant bombs, a peculiar combination that Islamabad is not relishing. Other than that, nothing is wrong.

Incidentally, the report about 300,000 pine trees ready for the chop to accommodate New Murree, are false and spread by anti-development forces. A good friend in the Punjab government has categorically informed me that there are no plans to cut 300,000 pine trees down. He disclosed that this was simply not possible because there are no pine trees anyway in the Murree Hills. Well that is reassuring news for us tree-idiots. I hope that the 144 trees in the now-sold Falettis Hotel can be vaporized so that we don’t feel the pinch. In the meantime, as my friend, the good doctor told me, ‘Forget Pakistan. Enjoy the mangoes.’