The People’s Festival

FEBRUARY 2002 - Every time someone wants to have some fun in Pakistan, frowning eyes materialize out of the depressing gloom and eyebrows climb into the skies. Ever since Terry Thomas and his motley crew descended from the barracks and decided to force morality down every one’s throat and up every one’s you-know-what, there has been no shortage of moralizers and preachers who have ranted and raved at the people. The poor people, who are whipped with bad news faster than Mian Nawaz Sharif can belch after camel stew, hold their heads in bewilderment as more morality and repentance rents the air and sinners are reminded of the punishments that await their arrival in hell.

There is not much to celebrate in Pakistan given the country’s natural abundance of bad news. It seems even the elements are constantly conspiring to undo us. If it rains, it rains and rains and rains till we have rainwater gushing out of our ears. If it doesn’t rain, it just doesn’t rain. Day after day the sun beats down with the same single-minded purpose as Benazir demonstrated when the word money was mentioned within three miles of her ears. The earth is scorched, the grass turns to sand and the rivers, which at most times of the year bear striking resemblance to their poor relations, the gutters, simply shrink into dirty, murky streams that cannot even move. Either there is no water or there is too much of it. Either there is an invasion of every living variety known to mankind, of bugs that defy death and lay waste entire fields or there is a bumper crop that nobody wants to buy. When oil prices plummet worldwide, they make a striking recovery in Pakistan and climb higher. Every single tremor in the world hits giga time on the lowly scales of the country and if the dollar wobbles, stock exchanges close down and everyone thinks of ten easy ways to commit suicide. Double-dealing is a refined and finely honed craft that is practiced by every Pakistani who is able to walk straight and the presence of well-maintained luxuriant beards or the tell-tale piety branding in the middle of the forehead simply imply that the sting operation is being played at a very high level. Whoever can manage it, manages to cheat whomever they can. It is not dog eat dog – it is worse and it is nationally available all the year round.

Those who survive these and many other equally deadly virus attacks of life in the land of the pure are robbed at will by anyone who has no time for doing things the right way. The people are cheated day in and day out by anyone who has figured out that two and two makes four and better still if half of that is ill gotten and not yours in the first place. Servants steal anything they can steal. They steal food, sugar, salt, tea, spices, oil, detergents, soap, and fruit – the list stretches to Texas where Bush flourishes. When they are not stealing the above, they are pilfering knives, forks, spoons, plates, pots, pans, cups, saucers and anything that is mute and cannot raise an alarm when snitched. Drivers, if you have the variety, cheat on gasoline, service charges, cleaning cloth – anything that the vehicle could possibly require. If checked and a barrier placed between them and the spirit of free enterprise that they seemingly relish, they wear faces that are a few feet long and perpetually in sulk mode. The wonderful thing is that not only are the robbers quite happy robbing you, but are actually piqued should you question their career calling. Although the phrase about suckers being born every minute is pretty old, it is rather startling to realize that it has universal application here and given the sensational birth rate that we have achieved in such a short time, the number of suckers has to be an all time record, likely to remain intact till the cows come home – provided someone doesn’t hijack them enroute – a possibility that is eternally likely. Therefore with so many practioners of the refined arts floating about, the chances of being cheated, mugged, robbed, murdered or all four thing simultaneously are brighter than Mian Shahbaz Sharif dome on a bright June day.

Against such a cheery backdrop, the Pakis venture out daily, having tossed their garbage happily into their neighbour’s drive. They are mentally prepared to be done in before they have taken ten steps and in a sense, they are quite ready for it – a kind of inner stoicism sets in faster than rigor mortis in the city morgue – no it is not the hospitals as some believe them to be. In this depressing gloom, add the holier-than –thou pundits, who break every rule in bestiality and other things equally abominable yet never tire of invoking the wrath of the Lord on those who sin and don’t fall in a heap and repent. The high dosages of this convenient morality take heavy toll of ordinary people who simply wish to lead their lives the way they feel they should and can. Because being happy is a state of sin, anything that the people might remotely enjoy, is frowned and censured. The festival of Basant might have been hijacked by the multinationals and dressed up to look more like a starlet than what it used to be before the megabucks rolled in, but in essence it is a season of high spirits and bonhomie and the people of this land – and all those who find their way to Lahore, deserve more than we all understand. It might send prices of everything skyrocketing and getting a hotel room would be just as difficult as finding an honest cop, and the power cuts can even send Russian fridges into convulsions, but at the end of it, the noise, the fireworks, the raucous music, the sirens, the hooters and the yelling is all welcome. One can happily applaud the men and women who simply dress up simply to see and be seen; and it doesn’t matter if the women look startlingly like cheap extras out to make it to stardom and the men having spent hours manicuring and fine tuning their exteriors, because all they are desperately trying is to have a good time where good times are taboo.

So while the authorities cloak Basant every year with various kinds of decent garb and make many efforts to take away the ‘Hindu’ colour out of this festival, so that the moral censorship is not allowed to rob the people of some of the few things they can still claim as their own, the Lahoris more or less give a damn and simply go ahead. Every year, the moral ostriches moan and groan and exhort the Good Lord to rain thunderbolts on the merrymakers and every year, Basant happens. It is a festival of the people and it crosses all frontiers – including the one of noise. It is one of the few occasions in our chequered public life where the poor have just as much fun as the rich and while we who never venture into the squalid streets of the old city find it trendy to be there, right inside, the locals, while wearing half-amused looks, still open their hearts and make it the one special day in the year. Wish we could Basantise Eid one of these days!