Sigh. There was a time when the media was full of me. Like myself. And my dharna. No longer. It’s full of the fundos’ dharna now. I’m told the faujis were getting more and more exasperated with the dharna crowd. Er, hell-lo?! Who encouraged me to go and do that dharna in Isloo not so long ago? Haan?
“Things have changed on General Bobby’s watch”, say my sensible party men (of whom there are but a handful), “but lots of people are waiting for the usual 180 degree turn when the next head honcho arrives. Will it be back to molly-coddling the fundos again?” they ask. “Shudder, shudder”, they say, “in that case, we can all kiss the state, society and the economy good bye”.
Oh don’t be so grim, I replied. I’ll have a chat with the fundos and make it all fine again. The last thing we want now is for them to be persecuted. Or is it prosecuted? Although I’ve heard that prosecution is the world’s oldest profession.
I must admit, though, that the fundos are quite impossible. As you know, I’m in alliance with the Jamaat-e-Islami but with extremely moderate overtones. That doesn’t stop what’s-his-name Siraj ul whatever from cribbing about my inconsiderate attitude. “What have I done wrong?” he frequently asks me. I sigh and try and explain, “look, you’re a nice chap but you’ve made a series of fundamental errors. To begin with, you failed to be born in Lahore. Furthermore, you never went to Aitchison. You also don’t have money to lavish on me, nor an airplane to put at my disposal. If you’d taken the precaution to do these simple things, you would never have been ignored by me.”
The other complication is that the Jamaat wants me to come out full-fledged in support of their fundo agenda. I don’t have any problems with that, because I too have lots of half-baked ideas whirling around in my cerebral vortex, but it’s just that Bob doesn’t fancy the fundos. So when Siraj what’s-his-name asked me to say a few words about the current fundos vs Bob stand-off, I said “hello”, “hi”, “salaam” and “Allah Hafiz” and fled from the scene.
“Things have changed on General Bobby’s watch”, say my sensible party men (of whom there are but a handful), “but lots of people are waiting for the usual 180 degree turn when the next head honcho arrives. Will it be back to molly-coddling the fundos again?” they ask. “Shudder, shudder”, they say, “in that case, we can all kiss the state, society and the economy good bye”.
Oh don’t be so grim, I replied. I’ll have a chat with the fundos and make it all fine again. The last thing we want now is for them to be persecuted. Or is it prosecuted? Although I’ve heard that prosecution is the world’s oldest profession.
I must admit, though, that the fundos are quite impossible. As you know, I’m in alliance with the Jamaat-e-Islami but with extremely moderate overtones. That doesn’t stop what’s-his-name Siraj ul whatever from cribbing about my inconsiderate attitude. “What have I done wrong?” he frequently asks me. I sigh and try and explain, “look, you’re a nice chap but you’ve made a series of fundamental errors. To begin with, you failed to be born in Lahore. Furthermore, you never went to Aitchison. You also don’t have money to lavish on me, nor an airplane to put at my disposal. If you’d taken the precaution to do these simple things, you would never have been ignored by me.”
The other complication is that the Jamaat wants me to come out full-fledged in support of their fundo agenda. I don’t have any problems with that, because I too have lots of half-baked ideas whirling around in my cerebral vortex, but it’s just that Bob doesn’t fancy the fundos. So when Siraj what’s-his-name asked me to say a few words about the current fundos vs Bob stand-off, I said “hello”, “hi”, “salaam” and “Allah Hafiz” and fled from the scene.
Im the Dim