Proasic for the People

OCTOBER 1996 - My friend Z, who has been a real pal all these years, called last Friday threatening to break off all diplomatic ties with yours truly unless I desisted from what she called, ‘the voice of doom and gloom.’ She was referring to this abominable column which appears with monotonous regularity every blooming Friday and which, claimed Z, was the last thing she wanted to read on her day off. In fact she used a far more prolific turn of the phrase in describing the effect the gloomy columns have on her every week, but I can’t repeat it here since there are children reading the paper in many homes. ‘Aren’t things already bad enough ?’ she asked. ‘Must you sound the death knell and ruin everybody’s Friday?’ she added, and since she usually has the last word in such encounters, let fly with a dire threat. ‘If you don’t stop writing this miserable column, I am through with you and that goes for all your friends, the ones you still have that is.’

The last column on the plunder of Nathiagali had got her goose (or is it gander ? One can’t be sure of anything any more.) Of course my friend has a very valid point. Not too long ago, I ran into another friend who doles out alms to our needy Prime Minister whenever she jets into USA as she is currently doing. As and when that happens, my friend pops in some more dollars for more development projects (Mercedez Benz 500 S) and the joint communiqué duly rolls out announcing another ‘historic and successful foreign tour of the PM.’ However, having met him after years in Islamabad this summer, he attacked rightaway. ‘Why the hell have you become so serious and morose ? God, it sounds like the end of the world reading the column in Washington,’ he added. ‘Live here for a week and you’ll feel the same way too,’ I said. ‘I am sorry to sound so gloomy but hell, life is very gloomy in this part of the world. Frankly I can’t laugh it off,’ I said, but it didn’t sound very convincing. Now Z has a point as well and if wishes were horses, etc., etc., I suppose the best thing would be to write light and heady stuff every Friday so that we all have a good weekend, the newspapers being so full of bad news that the gloom doesn’t necessarily have to spill over into the columns as well. Logical and very nice, I agree but hellish hard to accomplish.

For example what else can one talk about this week other than what happened at Clifton on the 20th September when a single bullet that took six inches off a cop’s fleshy and well-rounded thigh ended up with seven dead some thousands of rounds later, fired more or less from one side only. That the dead included the PM’s brother escapes comment. What can you say ? So everyone last week and to date has written reams about it, thereby making it easier for me not too comment on it at all, which I know will please my pal Z no end and help lift the dreadful embargo she has planned. So in deference to her desire for a good, mellow and peaceful Friday when she can loll in bed, sip her coffee and read pleasant stuff, we stay away from 70 Clifton and hope that the KMC has managed to clean the street and washed the bloodstained asphalt. Since one cannot or should not be talking about ‘that’ incident, can one talk about the law and order situation in the country instead ? The answer is another emphatic no. We all know far too well what that situation is like and there is no need for any column-writer to depress anyone any more than they already are. Similarly, we cannot really talk about the economic situation because as I understand it, there is nothing economic left here, only a very, very bad situation and that too is getting worse. We have no money, not even enough to buy the polo ponies their next meal of hay. Perhaps one can talk about the Lahore airport which shows no sign of getting ready. Now that is not an offensive subject, but the point is what aspect of that sorry looking airport can one talk about without jeopardizing the well-deserved holiday. Let’s look at the lighter side of the arrivals lounge where they have these gray trolleys which look like something left over from the last great war.

The trolleys must have been built for body builders and successful candidates who had passed the Charles Atlas courses with distinction. Anyone less endowed and not built on the scale of Arnold what’shisname, cannot propel these juggernauts more than a few feet without collapsing on the murky floors (which weren’t always murky). Designed to cart heavy cargo, fertilizer plants, trucks, boilers and grain silos, these three, sometimes two wheeled disasters have a built-in directional device. In other words they tend to go where you least intend them too and in the process are quite liable to run over and kill passengers. These being dicey times, you could well be shot by a cousin of an MNA should your trolley bump him from behind. Or perhaps it would be all right to talk about the ‘security’ at the airport where no one can get in without passing a dozen barricades. The logic here is wonderful. Because a bomb exploded here, there are now stringent ‘security’ measures in operation at Lahore, but because a bomb did not explode in Islamabad, there are no similar measures in operation there. This is fine till a bomb explodes there. Then Islamabad too will have the same goon squads doing their goon-thing. Ten bombs later, we will have a uniform security system operating at the airports here. Sounds good to me. Funny there are no such measures at international airports where millions of suspicious looking foreigners board hundreds of flights all the time, all year round. Poor people. They obviously haven’t heard about the ASF. It was a very puzzled Thai Air staffer at the TG counter in Bangkok who in answer to my request for three hand baggage tags, shook her head and said they had none. The Thais are obviously not security conscious. Poor people. They should learn from us.

Is all this bordering on bad news ? I hope not and perhaps next week with the PM back (will she ?) and with more bucks in her handbag, we all might breathe a little easier, cross all our fingers, the big toes and anything else that can be crossed, and hope for a sunny, calm, relaxed and light Friday. As for Nathiagali, I never haerd of the place.