Sight for sore eyes
A classic “topi drama” unfolded when The Sheikh of Lal Haveli made his bid for a spectacular protest appearance in a central Rawalpindi chowk. This was on October 28 and supposedly a choreographed part of The Great Khan’s dharna protest. Except that The Great Khan did a no-show and The Sheikh was left to his own devices. He managed to secret his way to an alley off the chowk and was ready to burst on to the stage when he realised that the local populace had also done a no-show. Some quick thinking resulted in the decision that he would ride into the sunset on a motorbike a la Mullah Umar escaping his would-be captors. Except that, The Sheikh reasoned, his trademark hairpiece could not be relied upon to stay put on his breezy motorbike ride. So he removed the hairpiece and put on a tight cap, the topi clinging to his head! And off he went on the back of a motorbike, whizzing in an out of an empty protest venue! A sight for sore eyes!
Visceral fundos
Talking to a well-versed persona of “the agencies”, our mole stumbled upon an interesting fact. The persona revealed, in an aside, that the late unlamented Hakeemullah Mehsud, one time leader of the Taliban always preferred to have Punjabi bodyguards, as opposed to Pakhtuns. Reason? Because, revealed the persona, Hakeemullah held fast to the belief that Punjabi religious extremists were far more “visceral” than Pakhtuns ever could be, because the latter’s worldview was “complicated” by considerations of tribe, honour and Pakhtunwali, their own cultural code. Punjabis, said Hakeemullah, were black and white in their views, hence most reliable.