Good Times Are Here - Part 1 & 2

FEBRUARY / MARCH 2001 There is no need to be depressed, no need to knock back pills. There is no need to despair and no need to worry any more about the glorious state of Pakistan. All is well and better than ever before, so much clapping is called for – as soon as I can find my other hand. From whence blows this wind of cheerfulness you may well ask and I am pleased to provide you an answer almost immediately – the HRCP ‘s report on human rights in 2000. Briefly, we are doing wonderfully well.

There are more people jobless than ever before, the bureaucrats more thoughtless than ever before, the judiciary is lawless and the army is more clueless than ever before. The land is peaceless, the economy moneyless, society hopeless and the police merciless. Less is more has never more true than in Pakistan and 2001 looks bright, sunny and carefree. It may be hard work to better the records we have set in 2000 but did you ever meet a Pakistani who was willing to throw in the towel? Agreed that most didn’t have a towel to throw in but only the spirit is weak. The flesh is doing alright.

65 ordinances were issued in the year because there were no proper law making bodies in operation and in any case the armed forces have little time for boring legal procedural rigmarole. Left, right, left, right and the job’s done. Having to sign so many ordinances caused the President severe arthritis in his right hand but this didn’t stop him from carrying out his noble duties seeing that this was just about all he did other than look serious. The ordinances set new benchmarks in terms of numbers alone and we hope to cross the century mark by end December, God and CE willing.

Six judges of the Supreme Court (yes, we have a Supreme Court and no the rumours are greatly exaggerated) including the Chief Justice and 13 high court judges – the ‘h’ and ‘c’ are no longer capitalized, declined to take a new oath of convenient allegiance, and were promptly dismissed – retired is the word. This confirmed once more that it doesn’t pay to fool around with men who wear heavier boots than you do. Their lordships are now taking long walks and contemplating on their navels. In a move that can only be described as progressive, lawyers were regularly attacked and bumped off at a rate that they are still busy working out.

Women and children made tremendous progress in Pakistan. We maintained our top position in the global sweepstakes for highest maternal deaths and sadly the credit for this cannot be given to the PCB chief who had nothing to do with it. Not resting on our laurels, we improved on our ‘honour’ killing performance by killing more women than ever before. Husbands, fathers, brothers, uncles and servants complied with orders and maimed, slaughtered, shot, strangled, chopped, burnt and raped over 500 women left, right and center. Honour was vindicated each time and many congratulations to all the hard working males who brought the nation this unique honour. The nation will salute you if we can find a spare soldier anywhere – they are all busy doing civilian duties. In 2001, we hope to continue the good work and kill 1000 women. I wish the economy could take a lesson from this. 80% of women between 18-24 were unaware of the terms of their ‘Nikahnamas’, which just shows that education has made sweeping progress here. They were blissfully unaware of their rights – most couldn’t tell whether ‘rites’ applied to them or ‘rights’ till they were informed that the former was the correct application at which the women rejoiced greatly and danced happily till they were arrested for dancing, also known as obscenity here. Incidentally, stove-killings as a science perfected by in laws gained support and was popularly being adopted across various socio-economic classes.

3.3 million children engaged in labour and 4,000 juveniles rotting – sorry flourishing in Pakistani jails were a marked improvement over the previous year and all who are responsible for this excellent result deserve the nation’s profound vote of thanks as soon as the CE lets us have the votes again. We made good progress in nutritional deprivation and neglect. 50% children under the age of 5 suffered from mental and physical stunting and surprisingly so did all the MNAs and MPAs. These two categories of former office holders are now classified under flora and fauna, after a rather simple research conducted two years back revealed that they had the same intelligence as turnips. The chief turnip is currently cooling his heels in SA, but that’s another matter. 31% of school going children suffered from hearing defects. This must be related to the fact that ghosts populate most schools or stranded army inspection teams and staffed by teachers who are so bad that children stop listening. The army high command was also diagnosed with the same hearing problem – something to do with the water drunk in Islamabad.

While black Mercedes limousines continued to hiss along the country’s roads led by evil-looking heavy mustached heavy bodied traffic dare devils, escorting an unmentionable number of VIPs (the breed never died but was temporarily absent for a few hours on 12th October 1999), 23 million graduates remained unemployed proving once again that there is nothing to be gained by educating the youth. While most of the country could not write beyond A,B,C and G,H,Q billions were still made in shady deals by using mobile phones for which no formal education or training is required. 38% of urban residents remained jobless which serves them right since no one asked them to live in urban areas. Luckily, the government made a smart move to balance the position – having failed to balance the economy, which refused to get back on the rails, and laid off thousands of workers. This move hailed by the cabinet and seven other supporters, placed Pakistan at the 92nd position out of 94 on gender employment measures. Next year, the government is determined to make it to 94 and our best wishes are with them in this noble venture.

These few items can explain why most people in the world prefer to live in Pakistan. At last count (last night) there were 146 million but no one knows how many are there this morning.

Good Times –Part II

The year 2000 was full of splendid achievements. In a move that Steven McQueen would have personally endorsed, the nation’s greatest son with the largest mandate fled the country thanks to the khakis who obviously didn’t have the courage to pursue recovery of the money Mian and party had looted. Mian’s 14 years prison term became the biggest joke of all times, with the people being the butt of this macabre joke. However, the political climate improved and rains disappeared for all times.

Elsewhere, freedom of expression made great progress as thousands of Hindus fled from their homes in Baluchistan chased by happy, gun toting Baluchs. Great victories were scored for the glory of Islam when ten Ahmedis were killed in Punjab. Other provinces are gearing up for better results in 2001. The Malakand region continued to be in the grip of progressive forces which banned driving on the left side – the left being unholy in some way and stoning of people, vehicles and women continued providing much relief to the entertainment starved folk of the area. NGOs aka No Good Organisations remained under fire as it was established that they were actually agents of Zionism and forces of evil out to destroy the Ummah. The clergy spent most of the year plotting the downfall of the NGOs and were awarded a special prize by Mulla Omar, the enlightened leader (till last night that is) of a country whose name I cannot recall at the moment.

As many as 3000 people made it to the country’s most popular list – The Exit Control List and many more were waiting in line but membership to this august club was sadly restricted by the armed forces who were not armed at the time when they were making up the list. It was rumoured at one time that President Clinton was also on the ECL but the interior ministry which as you might have guessed is found in the interior, made a boo boo and allowed him to get off the ECL. Although so many made it to the list, no cases of harassment of people were reported at the airports which disappointed the corps commanders no end and earned them a severe rebuke from the CE. Mian Sahib, sadly never made it to the ECL.

Education received the strong support it has always had from the government of the day (and night – since most activities take place at that time). Amidst loud applause and cheers of ‘A,B,C’ the nation was informed that we were still the most illiterate nation in South Asia and our literacy rate was 47%, an achievement that burnt countries like Sweden and Germany with envy. Happily, we were able to maintain our position among the world’s 20 least educated nations and spent all our resources on buying bigger tanks, guns, planes and other educational aids. The country spent a walloping amount of its GDP on education reaching new depths of glory and made rapid advances in this field - not to be confused with a field of turnips. Having established that education and schools have no relationship, we were able to maintain 45% of schools in Punjab without buildings, setting a new record in the process. A new species was discovered. Called paper teachers, this variety or life form numbering 20,000 was discovered in the Punjab alone. Studies to find the actual teachers continue. The Punjab University – the news of its demise are greatly exaggerated, was able to pass another milestone in its great march and attained the 100,000 mark of degrees pending distribution. It is hoped that in a few years it will have at least 500,000 degrees that remain to be awarded. 6,000 madrassas – no these are not schools for mad people, set a new record when government investigators were beaten back from entering the premises. Good going holy warriors. Hyderabad set a new record and earned the pride of performance award from the ministry of education, which has actually no relationship with education, when 85% students appearing in the Intermediate examination managed to fail thus setting a lofty goal for others to try and follow. The event was to be recorded in a book except they couldn’t find a book in Hyderabad. Apparently the goats had eaten them all.

The government worked very very hard and was able to control spending on health care keeping it below 1% of the nation’s GDP. Next year’s target is aimed at a 50% reduction in the above number and our thoughts and prayers are with the noble souls who give health a new meaning here. At the same time, not content to rest on our laurels, we remained in the 90s, achieving a 91mortality rate for every 1,000 births. The government proudly announced that with rapid progress in every sphere, one infant was dying every 40 seconds. Hopefully, next year we can make it two infants or 20 seconds, whichever is handy. Good going boys. In Tharprakar, locals beat the world record of 24 people in a Volkswagen when 70,000 residents managed to get on to one bed in the local hospital. This has now been officially claimed as another achievement of the armed forces. And 80% of all dental work is provided by quacks. Who is providing dental care to the quacks is of course another matter or perhaps it doesn’t matter at all anyway. 50% of food items on sale in Lahore were unfit for human consumption and were given to the politicians. We have no news if Gujranwala’s fried chirras are kosher since Mian Nawaz Sharif is not around to endorse this particular product.

Katchi Abadis continued their popularity climb, as 35% of the country’s urban population chose to live there and shunned all efforts to drink clean water or follow standard sanitation procedures, claiming these were not in line with their lifestyles and were not fashionable. In Lahore where the Governor lives against his will in a home which can accommodate about half of Lahore, 50,000 people announced that they were enjoying life so much they had decided to remain homeless for another year. The government promised that they would continue to support such good causes and hoped that the number of homeless would be raised to 100,000 in Lahore alone. In the meantime, the Governor continued to appeal to the people to free him from his prison saying that he was dying to be with his homeless friends. And lastly, every 5th Pakistani was hit by a water borne disease, which is now under control as there is no longer any water.