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comment: An amazing month Shahzad Chaudhry
Come what may, the RPPs will be here, and load-shedding shall vanish on December 31, 2009, at least that is what our minister of power says. I have no doubt that he will deliver. For the faithful though, belated Monsoons have shielded them and kept hope alive
The Holy month of Ramazan has gone by in a swish. The faithful, and all others, celebrate Eid with some sense of redemption.
Minus-one greeted Ramazan with fanfare. Like a Jack in the Box, it emerged from somewhere, set the scene for more entertainment, and mutated itself into a multiplying cellular activity. Soon, the din was of Minus-Two, Minus-Three, and lo and behold, by the close, the numbers planned to be excised had gone up to 1,170 when the bell closed for the day! One is certain of who all were one and the 1,170, but the jury was out on any remaining combinations.
Since General Kayani was not a part of any one of these numbers, it became so much easier to point all guns at him or his Establishment to have been the hidden entertainers. I have long given up trying to explain the composition of the Establishment as all organs of the state that are responsible for running the assigned affairs of legislation, execution, law enforcement, defence and security, policy formulation, and the various structures of the Government, since that is not what the term stands for in Pakistan. It is always Kayani, the GHQ, the ISI and the MI. There cannot be a more convoluted morphing, but again full marks to the Pakistani genius for sticking to its own insidious definition.
However there seemed only one winner when the campaign germinated, and it was the happily ensconced Mian Sahib of Jati Umra; whether he was the one who got the Establishment to launch the show may still be an infertile thought.
Lest the faithful lose their zeal, the PMLN launched a broadside against Gen Musharraf (Retd), seeking his head under Article 6 of the sacred Constitution of Pakistan; no less, no more. This is when the real Houdini got interested in Pakistan what with the worlds a stage and the rest jugglers and entertainers. Raised from the virtual dead came sundry voices, giving a life to every nonsense uttered.
The drama, or, more appropriately, theatre in the true Pakistani spirit, enlivened many an evening right after Iftar, and gave the faithful something to cheer about. It played till it became sickening, and some anchors allegedly started throwing up. Sprucing through some more senior inductions was attempted; but the environs remained obnoxious and foul, the players all losing their dignity and bringing their Alma Mater into disrepute, the little that Kayani had been able to retrieve.
In this fast-paced evolution, one almost forgot about the Minus formulas and Musharrafs head, and instead 1992, the slaughter in Karachi, Jinnahpur, the jackals and the wolves, the Establishment, the long-gone presidents and their off-spring adorned the Iftar table. We couldnt have asked for more; Mian Sahib was not pleased. Altaf Bhai, from London not only had to keep the Karachi crowds busy while the rest of the country broke fast, he also enabled the anchors and the news readers time to grab a few dates to do the ritual. A slack here, or a slack there, was suitably taken up by none other than our numero uno from Lollywood. Now, if that is not public service, what is!
On the side, another drama unfolded. It emerged that the rental power plants had yielded a dividend of some USD 40 million and all out of Pakistans borrowed kitty from the IMF. True, that some investors too benefited without actually having spent a penny of their own, courtesy some strong arm work on the over-stashed banking cartels read Farrukh Saleem every week for added details, or watch Faisal Saleh on any of the channels, especially when he is carrying his dossier around but the biggest beneficiaries remained our very own decision makers Pakistanis. For once, we did not let any foreigners fleece us. It remained an entirely indigenous and home-grown scheme. The American energy experts that Holbrooke is to send to help Pakistan reduce its outage hours are unlikely to ever decipher what ails the grid; they need not come, rather save the dollars needed desperately at home.
Come what may, the RPPs will be here, and load-shedding shall vanish on December 31, 2009, at least that is what our minister of power says. I have no doubt that he will deliver. For the faithful though, belated Monsoons have shielded them and kept hope alive.
To follow were new entries into the Pakistani lexicon, heretofore identified only with Sicily, Bogota and Chicago Mafiosi and cartels. Another expression speedily catching up is the cartelisation of Pakistan. Now that may be too rough, but we are on the verge. The sugar Mafiosi played a great hand and a commodity that was selling at Rs 36 a kilo on one day could only be had at Rs 56 the next. This was Houdini at his best.
What is worse: the Punjab Chief Minister, who along with his family owns nine of the eighty sugar mills in the country (conflict of interest?), raided the stores at the mills premises, nabbed the hoardings, but for some strange reason could not induct stocks into the market. Sugar did finally make a regulated entry into the market, while the price edged itself under that age-old mechanism of demand and supply.
His lordship, the CJ of the LHC, finally intervened, as the ultimate arbiter of market dynamics, and set the figure right; except that no one was willing to sell the commodity at that price. So, whatever little was available vanished and the CM Punjab had to play the gracious saviour and seek further arbitration. Who says, there are no limits to the law. The cartels prevailed as the only arbiters in the market.
There are others too: cement, steel, wheat and flour, corporate farming etc. And, it remains their great proclivity to be the puppet-masters of normal humans. The shameful long lines during this entire month of those wanting an ounce of sugar or flour made Darfur look a picnic in comparison. Alongside, as the masses toiled while fasting, there were cavalcades of SUVs that sped from one Iftar to another. The marquees and the ballrooms remained full with the faithful, earning their rightful rewards both in this world and the next.
And somewhere in the corners of Malakand and Swat, lives were being lost, children orphaned, and sons and brothers destined never to return. But that is another story. Whether the civilians ever turned bloody, one cannot say, the soldiers indeed were ending up bloodied.
One cannot fault the leadership for this mayhem. They were busy repairing the damage of non-democratic dispensations. Three-monthly sojourns to provincial headquarters in China, followed by a three-hour stop-overs at Chaklala, and then dashes to Dubai and the UK for further consultations brought up the middle of the month. The Eid per duty must again be on far shores. This is hard life!
The last ten days of this holy month are to seek forgiveness and redemption. Ordinary souls escape the wrath of queuing up for sugar and flour by isolating themselves in local mosques where communal hand-outs provide for at least their personal needs. The time that they save from the toil is better spent seeking questions of the real Lord. But those that somehow escaped the net on the launch of the month of fasting find the time and the resources to make it closer to His home. By Allah, they need to.
On the eve of Eid, the Lord releases all Satans, I mean, big and small and all those who would have been in His hold in these last ten days especially will fly off to fancier locales and celebrate big time.
I will have a question to ask of my old parents living in my ancestral village when I visit them over Eid: how do some Satans escape the net when the Holy month begins? They just may have the answer. What an amazing month!
The writer is a retired air vice marshal and a former envoy. Contact: shahzad.a.chaudhry***********
Come what may, the RPPs will be here, and load-shedding shall vanish on December 31, 2009, at least that is what our minister of power says. I have no doubt that he will deliver. For the faithful though, belated Monsoons have shielded them and kept hope alive
The Holy month of Ramazan has gone by in a swish. The faithful, and all others, celebrate Eid with some sense of redemption.
Minus-one greeted Ramazan with fanfare. Like a Jack in the Box, it emerged from somewhere, set the scene for more entertainment, and mutated itself into a multiplying cellular activity. Soon, the din was of Minus-Two, Minus-Three, and lo and behold, by the close, the numbers planned to be excised had gone up to 1,170 when the bell closed for the day! One is certain of who all were one and the 1,170, but the jury was out on any remaining combinations.
Since General Kayani was not a part of any one of these numbers, it became so much easier to point all guns at him or his Establishment to have been the hidden entertainers. I have long given up trying to explain the composition of the Establishment as all organs of the state that are responsible for running the assigned affairs of legislation, execution, law enforcement, defence and security, policy formulation, and the various structures of the Government, since that is not what the term stands for in Pakistan. It is always Kayani, the GHQ, the ISI and the MI. There cannot be a more convoluted morphing, but again full marks to the Pakistani genius for sticking to its own insidious definition.
However there seemed only one winner when the campaign germinated, and it was the happily ensconced Mian Sahib of Jati Umra; whether he was the one who got the Establishment to launch the show may still be an infertile thought.
Lest the faithful lose their zeal, the PMLN launched a broadside against Gen Musharraf (Retd), seeking his head under Article 6 of the sacred Constitution of Pakistan; no less, no more. This is when the real Houdini got interested in Pakistan what with the worlds a stage and the rest jugglers and entertainers. Raised from the virtual dead came sundry voices, giving a life to every nonsense uttered.
The drama, or, more appropriately, theatre in the true Pakistani spirit, enlivened many an evening right after Iftar, and gave the faithful something to cheer about. It played till it became sickening, and some anchors allegedly started throwing up. Sprucing through some more senior inductions was attempted; but the environs remained obnoxious and foul, the players all losing their dignity and bringing their Alma Mater into disrepute, the little that Kayani had been able to retrieve.
In this fast-paced evolution, one almost forgot about the Minus formulas and Musharrafs head, and instead 1992, the slaughter in Karachi, Jinnahpur, the jackals and the wolves, the Establishment, the long-gone presidents and their off-spring adorned the Iftar table. We couldnt have asked for more; Mian Sahib was not pleased. Altaf Bhai, from London not only had to keep the Karachi crowds busy while the rest of the country broke fast, he also enabled the anchors and the news readers time to grab a few dates to do the ritual. A slack here, or a slack there, was suitably taken up by none other than our numero uno from Lollywood. Now, if that is not public service, what is!
On the side, another drama unfolded. It emerged that the rental power plants had yielded a dividend of some USD 40 million and all out of Pakistans borrowed kitty from the IMF. True, that some investors too benefited without actually having spent a penny of their own, courtesy some strong arm work on the over-stashed banking cartels read Farrukh Saleem every week for added details, or watch Faisal Saleh on any of the channels, especially when he is carrying his dossier around but the biggest beneficiaries remained our very own decision makers Pakistanis. For once, we did not let any foreigners fleece us. It remained an entirely indigenous and home-grown scheme. The American energy experts that Holbrooke is to send to help Pakistan reduce its outage hours are unlikely to ever decipher what ails the grid; they need not come, rather save the dollars needed desperately at home.
Come what may, the RPPs will be here, and load-shedding shall vanish on December 31, 2009, at least that is what our minister of power says. I have no doubt that he will deliver. For the faithful though, belated Monsoons have shielded them and kept hope alive.
To follow were new entries into the Pakistani lexicon, heretofore identified only with Sicily, Bogota and Chicago Mafiosi and cartels. Another expression speedily catching up is the cartelisation of Pakistan. Now that may be too rough, but we are on the verge. The sugar Mafiosi played a great hand and a commodity that was selling at Rs 36 a kilo on one day could only be had at Rs 56 the next. This was Houdini at his best.
What is worse: the Punjab Chief Minister, who along with his family owns nine of the eighty sugar mills in the country (conflict of interest?), raided the stores at the mills premises, nabbed the hoardings, but for some strange reason could not induct stocks into the market. Sugar did finally make a regulated entry into the market, while the price edged itself under that age-old mechanism of demand and supply.
His lordship, the CJ of the LHC, finally intervened, as the ultimate arbiter of market dynamics, and set the figure right; except that no one was willing to sell the commodity at that price. So, whatever little was available vanished and the CM Punjab had to play the gracious saviour and seek further arbitration. Who says, there are no limits to the law. The cartels prevailed as the only arbiters in the market.
There are others too: cement, steel, wheat and flour, corporate farming etc. And, it remains their great proclivity to be the puppet-masters of normal humans. The shameful long lines during this entire month of those wanting an ounce of sugar or flour made Darfur look a picnic in comparison. Alongside, as the masses toiled while fasting, there were cavalcades of SUVs that sped from one Iftar to another. The marquees and the ballrooms remained full with the faithful, earning their rightful rewards both in this world and the next.
And somewhere in the corners of Malakand and Swat, lives were being lost, children orphaned, and sons and brothers destined never to return. But that is another story. Whether the civilians ever turned bloody, one cannot say, the soldiers indeed were ending up bloodied.
One cannot fault the leadership for this mayhem. They were busy repairing the damage of non-democratic dispensations. Three-monthly sojourns to provincial headquarters in China, followed by a three-hour stop-overs at Chaklala, and then dashes to Dubai and the UK for further consultations brought up the middle of the month. The Eid per duty must again be on far shores. This is hard life!
The last ten days of this holy month are to seek forgiveness and redemption. Ordinary souls escape the wrath of queuing up for sugar and flour by isolating themselves in local mosques where communal hand-outs provide for at least their personal needs. The time that they save from the toil is better spent seeking questions of the real Lord. But those that somehow escaped the net on the launch of the month of fasting find the time and the resources to make it closer to His home. By Allah, they need to.
On the eve of Eid, the Lord releases all Satans, I mean, big and small and all those who would have been in His hold in these last ten days especially will fly off to fancier locales and celebrate big time.
I will have a question to ask of my old parents living in my ancestral village when I visit them over Eid: how do some Satans escape the net when the Holy month begins? They just may have the answer. What an amazing month!
The writer is a retired air vice marshal and a former envoy. Contact: shahzad.a.chaudhry***********
