An American politician once said if you really want to know what the people are thinking and feeling, read the letters column in your daily newspaper. Mind you, this was way, way before the telly, computers and cell phones inundated our land. These days, when you switch on your TV set, you’ll find at least a dozen channels, all competing for attention, all spewing out more or less the same type of programme and tackling the same thorny issues. The current flavour of the month hasn’t changed. It is still being served in generous dollops with second helpings by three out of the four major political parties that contested the recent elections. At times, the effect is maudlin and dull, like a slow march. On occasion, it is highly entertaining, like when all panelists compete for the extreme facial expression award and all end up speaking at the same time. As long as the subject is politics, it is all right.

But back in the early 1960s, it was the letters column that, in a sense, described the pulse of the people. Of course, there were no extremists trying to disorientate society. But there was, nevertheless, a highly elastic censorship, and no journalist would ever venture to openly criticise the prevailing dictatorship. And so, leader writers got rid of their frustrations by venting their spleen on what was happening in the Congo, Kashmir, and Palestine and used the same technique that Polish film-maker Andrej Wajda employed in Man of Marble — symbolism. In 1969, when it looked like Ayub Khan’s rose was beginning to wilt, I became an avid reader of the letters column in six Karachi newspapers. The subjects were quite intriguing and stretched from US scholarships being awarded to the wrong people, to suggesting a ban on hitching old racehorses onto tongas, to the dead buffalo that had been lying in state for over a week near the water pump in Nazimabad, that was being used as a landmark to people looking for an address.

There were also a few pleas for constructing public urinals in the city for men so that the walls of government offices didn’t have to be distempered every few months; and for women who, though they have learned the art of self-control through years of endurance, have started to develop problems with their kidneys. But I was amazed at the number of people who had a natural predilection for falling into open manholes and citizens who believed that the people who planned the city’s bus routes were unmitigated idiots. Then there were the natives who were constantly singled out by the Anopheles mosquito; and those who hadn’t received their pension since 1956.

But strangely enough, I never came across more than a couple of letters that exhorted members of the public to live an honest and simple life without resorting to unnecessary extravagance and wanton waste. That’s when I came across that superb Volkswagen (VW) campaign: “Think Small”, created by Doyle Dane Bernbach which Ad Age ranked as the best advertising campaign of the 20^th century. In a world where cars weren’t just a way to get kids to school, but fashion statements, testerone boosters and muscles on wheels, the VW Beetle — the Peoples’ Car, whose development was closely tied to Adolf Hitler — appeared as a small, slow, ugly foreign immigrant. But when it was displayed as an undersized car against a mass of white space, it was turned into an iconic piece of American pride. It’s still not too late for our leaders to “Think Small” and emulate the lifestyle of the Iranian leaders.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 26^th, 2013.

Election 2013 was the worst managed ballot in which I have participated since 1970. I had to make three trips to my designated polling station housed in a boys’ school off Zamzama Boulevard in Karachi — because the electoral staff did not turn up until 1600 hours. There were no apologies, no explanations, no excuses. The two-furlong queue that was there in the morning and early afternoon had disappeared, after having acquired a nice tropical tan. Inside the premises, it was suffocating. The place was teeming with women. We were, after all, in a PTI citadel. The heat was unbearable. A scuffle broke out when a woman slapped somebody else’s child. It was unrelentingly miserable and grizzly. But there were also a couple of touching scenes when somebody administered first-aid to two sweet old ladies who had fainted.

Upstairs, a young man with long hair burnished like the autumn leaves and a tattoo on his wrist asked me who decided to hold elections in the hottest month of the year, when one could have quite easily held the popularity contest a bit earlier in March. It was a rhetorical question, which was followed by another equally testy one. What kind of a country are we living in where we don’t have money for the special paper used in passports, but plenty of funds to purchase cruisers and armed guards for parliamentarians who get paid for doing no work? I told him that he was unleashing his frustrations on the wrong person and should address his queries to the president. Apparently, the fellow’s passport had expired and he couldn’t get back to his college in the States.

If one looks for a simple explanation, it will have to be the usual cliches … unprofessional conduct, gross incompetence and a total disregard for time. These are three national traits that we have worked exceptionally hard to develop and perfect. That’s why voters in different parts of the country, who faced similar problems, accepted the administrative cock-up with calm stoicism. That’s the way things are done in this country, mate. One or two rather irritable citizens did contact the chief election commissioner to complain that the electoral staff had not turned up at their polling centre. And a harassed Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G Ibrahim is purported to have said, “What can I do? I’m short of staff.”

As expected, there were serious allegations of rigging. This is nothing new and was to be expected. After every national poll some party or other asks for a recount of votes or a fresh election in those constituencies where the performance of their candidates fell short of expectations. That there has been rather spirited rigging in a selected number of polling stations in Sindh seems fairly obvious. It appears that something is being done to remedy the travesty. Well, there won’t be a change in the country in the sense that Imran Khan had promised. But the voters have at least gotten rid of the ham-fisted PPP that pushed the dollar to a hundred rupees. Nawaz Sharif has made the right political gestures with the oleaginous heartiness of a successful businessman. Currently, his associates are fighting for their place in the political pecking order. Had Imran Khan held the scepter, there is every likelihood that he would have skewered the rich in their own hubris and lived in a modest three-bedroom house in the capital and turned the prime minister’s house into a hotel. Frankly, I would do the same with the presidency.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 19^th, 2013.

Last week, there was a gripping unknowingness about which party would finally get a chance to take a bite at the national cherry — that is, after holding out a carrot to coalition partners. Well, the anguish is finally over. The election has taken place, much to the surprise of the postpone-the-election lobby and the acute discomfort of the militants and their foreign benefactors who, hell-bent on disrupting the process, have become quite blase about cruelty. My heart goes out to the ANP and the MQM, which bore the brunt of the torrent of grim violence in Karachi that the caretakers did absolutely nothing to stop.

The team referee will now be busy mopping up the count, listening to objections and accusations of rigging, before he announces the final list of people who crossed the finishing line. I bet some of you stayed up all night with your eyes glued to the TV screen, applauding each time a favoured candidate topped the list, and cursing under your breath as news of fresh disasters poured in. Nevertheless, we now know into whose hands the destiny of the nation has been entrusted. One can only hope the mistakes of the past are not repeated and a sincere attempt is made to re-establish the rule of law.

As a writer, I have always refused to join a political party in spite of receiving a few invitations, because it would have compromised my right to scalp the craniums of heads of state, corrupt politicians and civilians who have systematically, either through careful design or gross incompetence, defrauded the exchequer. How else could stories about Pakistanis having stashed away billions of dollars in Swiss banks keep resurfacing from time to time. I never really had much of a stake in this grand popularity contest. In fact, my pledge to the democratic cause was limited to the fact that as a loyal citizen of this beleaguered republic, I dutifully cast my vote according to my conscience. And that was it.

Irrespective of which party was going to triumph; I honestly did not believe it would be interested or capable of treating the criminal cancer that is eating into the vitals of our society, inhibiting foreign investment and traumatising the whole nation. Sure, some of the leaders made all kinds of promises about fixing the water and electricity problems and used a few of these commitments as election slogans. But so far, not one of the leaders demonstrated a spine of real concern and stated categorically, with a bit of fist-thumping for theatrical effect, that his first and foremost priority is to hit the militants with all the civilian, military and paramilitary resources at the nation’s command. And after that, he will take on the other criminal gangs.

There is a whole raft of complaints, and newspapers — for as long as I can remember — have been littered with grievances and protests. But before any serious attempt can be made to alter the mindset of an essentially medieval society, and get people to do the work they are being paid to do, without asking for compensation, the militant problem has to be tackled by a hawk with a one-track mind, and this endeavour has to have the full backing of the federal and provincial governments. Frankly, I can’t see somebody like that being thrown up, either this year or the next. Or anybody being able to lick the electricity problem. If a little more tolerance can be introduced and the new government can control wasteful expenditure and deficit financing, it would be an achievement.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 12^th, 2013.

General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani comes across as a quiet, somewhat taciturn person, who shuns the political limelight and speaks when he has something important to say. This time, there were two terse messages. Don’t listen to the rumours which have been popping up like weeds. The elections will be held on May 11. And, the military is determined to ensure that the extremists and militants do not derail the democratic process. The messages were as plain as a pikestaff.  That old chestnut, the war on terror, is far from over.

The pronouncement has been well-received, especially as the caretaker government in Sindh hasn’t been able to stop the vicious attacks on the offices of the three liberal, secular parties. It is obvious the militants couldn’t care less about the democratic process. But in their twisted logic, they probably feel that by directing their aggression at the parties that stand for the qualities that were bequeathed to this nation by its founder — they are making sure that their brand of theocracy will triumph in the end.

Recent cartoons by Sabir Nazar in The Express Tribune perfectly describe the situation. One of them showed a vicious looking militant armed to the teeth in a bowling alley. In front of him are three pins marked PPP, MQM, and ANP. He is gloating at the prospect that he can bowl an inswinger, which will knock off the three pins in one swift action.

On Wednesday evening, I watched final round in the “Perspectives” programme of PTV World. Fazal Qureshi was listening to representatives of three political parties making small anodyne statements while they composed their faces into deep meaningful intent. The Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif was represented by Nehal Hashmi. At first, he sounded somewhat ambivalent about the subject of the meeting. He spent considerable time outlining the PML-N programme and suggesting that if his party came to power, the country would see a true Islamic welfare state, which, curiously enough, is what is also being preached by Imran Khan.

Syed Wajid Hassan of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the other right-winger, came across as a balanced, thoughtful speaker with a reasonable command of English. He gave a painstaking, somewhat ecclesiastical analysis of the problems facing the country in his slow deliberate elocution, where every sentence came with an exclamation mark, and admitted that all parties should be given a fair chance to contest. But he managed to tie himself up in knots, while trying to dissociate his party from any kind of obvious Taliban patronage. Saeed Ghani of the PPP, very much the underdog, put up a brave front, but he knew the chips were down. But hats off to Bushra Gohar of the ANP, who was a welcome bloom in the brickwork. A little emotional, but to the point, she was the only one who asked the crucial question: “When candidates from other parties can move about freely in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, why is it that ANP candidates are targeted all over Pakistan?”

Published in The Express Tribune, May 5^th, 2013.

KARACHI: Fans of Western classical music were in for a treat when they were treated to a piano recital by French virtuoso Martine Mirabel-Pitte at Alliance Francaise de Karachi.

Mirabel-Pitte’s cultural credentials are blue chip. She has a formidable musical track record and kept an audience spellbound for 60 minutes when she performed on Thursday evening.

As I belong to that tribe that believes that no programme of light music, especially if it involves a piano, can possibly be complete without a prelude or a nocturne by Franz Liszt, I did wonder at the choice of composers and the selection of pieces.

Could there have been a thread that stitched together the fabric of composers as different to one another as Brahms and Rachmaninoff? The clue lay in the time span. All pieces were composed between 1885 and 1915. With that object in view the selection was sharp and compassionate.

Mirabel-Pitte has an exuberant style that emphasises movement and sensuality. Her handling of the grand piano was both powerful and rhythmically subtle with astonishing evenness of touch.

The way she drained Debussy’s L’Isle Joyeuse of its emotional juices was also quite involving. She is privy to the music’s moods, nooks and crannies and above all to his flashes of Impressionist colour that have taken French music into a new dimension.

Before moving on I must point out that Achille-Claude Debussy was among the greatest and most important of 20th century composers. His use of black chords of harmony with a modal flavour and based on the whole tone scale, the delicate colours of his orchestration , his technique of layering sounds, the declamatory yet wholly lyrical writing proclaim him as an innovator of the first degree. The label he acquired of ‘Impressionist’, while accurate, nevertheless tended to obscure the strong sense of form that underlies all his works.

I am glad Mirabel-Pitte included Faure in her selection, especially as most recitalists these days appear to have given him a wide berth.

Gabriel Faure, now acknowledged as one of the greatest of French composers, was a master of the song-cycle, a poet of the keyboard and a profound composer of chamber music. His delicate and elegant but by no means harmonically unadventurous style has an unsuspected strength and emotional appeal. The Bacarolle and Nocturne were a study in pure elegance. She never put a finger wrong and played with remarkable fluency.

The audience also got a glimpse of the great Rachmaninoff.  His Prelude Opus 23 is a highly descriptive tapestry of sound that makes exceptional demands on the recitalist. In this exuberant variety there are passages of extreme muscularity, flashes of rhythm, passages that are subdued and meditative and others that are nightmarish and full of Stygian gloom. The visiting artist played them all with a raw passion elemental in its strength. Her vigour and warmth were awe-inspiring.

As a teenager when I first became aware of the beauty of classical music the members of my Big Five Club were Haydn, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven and Schubert. The bones of these immortals were not exhumed at the concert, but one must nevertheless be grateful to Mirabel-Pitte for giving us an insight into the music of two of France’s greatest sons.

Perhaps next time we’ll also hear Ravel, Massanet, Saint Saens and Benjamin Godard, most of whose music regrettably has perished except the beautiful Berceuse from Jocelyn.

The writer is a senior freelance journalist and columnist

Published in The Express Tribune, May 4^th, 2013.

The first time I heard of the Ides of March was when the bard from Stratford-on-Avon wrote a play which started with an old codger predicting the assassination of a Roman emperor. I didn’t care too much for it in school, because it popped up in every end-of-term exam. In fact, I only started to enjoy that earth-shattering soliloquy when Marlon Brando had a go at it in the film — after his accent had been given transatlantic plastic voice surry. Mind you, I feel old Caesar still came out tops. After having been stabbed about half a dozen times in all kinds of places, he turned to his favourite senator and whispered sotto voce “Et tu Brute?” Now, in case you have completely missed the allegory and are still wondering what this clip of theatrical trivia has to do with the heading of this article, relax. It is to remind you that the Ides of May are just round the corner.

The choices appear to be pretty limited now that the returning officers of the Inquisition have tarred all surviving applicants with the spiritual brush. There are nine major parties contesting the elections. But the spotlight is now focusing on three. A couple of months ago, the contest appeared to be a straightforward fight between the two old rivals, the two major patrician clubs — Nawaz Sharif’s wing of the Muslim League and the PPP of the Bhutto-Zardari clan — both of whom have already had two bites at the national cherry. Most critics dismissed the tornadoes unleashed by Imran Khan because they said his marmalade was spread on only a few parts of the toast. Yet, last week, one well-documented poll showed the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf going through the roof of the graph, with the PML-N foundering around the 40 per cent mark while all other parties were hovering around the 12 per cent spot. Another showed a photo finish at the winning post between Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan. One thing is obvious. It is highly doubtful that any party will obtain a complete majority. A coalition government appears to be inevitable.

One can’t do very much for the Untermensch in the rural hinterland. Despite the rhetoric of Imran Khan that the country is on the cusp of momentous change, and efforts made by Altaf Hussain to alter the feudal mindset, the yokels are afraid that if they don’t listen to their landlord, they might find a couple of buffaloes missing and that somebody has cut off their water. It’s a little different in the urban setting. There are people who belong to the category that has really given a lot of thought to the issue and is now totally committed. There are still some who belong to the tribe that doesn’t vote ‘because the same old gang of assorted patronising toffs that make promises, which they have no intention of keeping, is going to come back to misgovern and loot the country’. But if you haven’t yet decided, it’s time you did some serious thinking. Check the candidate even if he is from your party. And remember, the charming story of Arbab Khizer Hayat, the politician who changed party loyalty 14 times, about whom Nawaz Sharif recently quipped “And how long do you propose to stay with us this time, Khizer Saheb?” This is, in many ways, a crucial election. It will set the pattern for the future. Your vote is valuable. It might just make the difference between those who care for the country and those who care only for themselves. It might be our last chance.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 28^th, 2013.

The agony is finally over. At last the cleansing action has been completed. Hopefully, we will soon be on our way to the 13th century. Now, what would we have done without those sagacious returning officers? For a brief period, these perceptive and astute vigilantes, with their medieval outlook, had their moment of glory. Because of them, we now have the pick of the bunch to choose from to take us once again to the glorious dark ages. Remember how the wicked squirmed under the glare of the inquisitors? Whoever drafted those trenchant questions deserves a special award. In case you aren’t familiar with the queries — here are four of the really incisive ones. “Are you properly circumcised?” “Have you ever stood outside a girls’ college?” “Have you ever eaten pork?” And, “In case you land in a situation when the only drink available to quench your thirst is alcohol, would you drink it?” Even if the poor secular mutt managed to lie through his teeth up to this point, what was he going to do when he was asked to recite from the Scriptures?

Now, I was under the impression that the job of the election commission was to try and find honest, straightforward, God-fearing, sensible and educated men and women who had never been suspected of or convicted of moral turpitude. And that they were to give a hard kick in the pants to the bank defaulters, tax evaders, rapists, men who sodomise young boys, people who steal electricity and those in positions of power who siphoned off millions of dollars into Swiss banks. From what I can gather, the people who are calling the shots have apparently decided that Pakistan does have an ideology after all. And that it is a blend of the Objectives Resolution, Ziaul Haq’s Hudood Ordinances and the belief that as Pakistan was created as a homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent, it has to be a theocracy.

This is what I find so confusing. I belong to that small tribe which has become an endangered species. The tribe that still believes that the Ideology of Pakistan is, and always will be, come what may, what Mr Jinnah stated in his oft-quoted presidential address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on August 11, 1947. You know the one where he said, “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the state … We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state.” Mr Jinnah believed in a Muslim majority state, not a theocratic one. When Pakistan Television and Radio Pakistan were instructed to edit that speech by cutting out the bit about religion and the state, in my study of jurisprudence, they were committing treason. As you can see, there is still a certain amount of confusion in the minds of the people, particularly members of the older generation who lived under the secular government of Ayub Khan. I think the chief election commissioner should hold a press conference and also appear on the telly to let the nation know just what our ideology is supposed to be — so that the matter can be cleared up once and for all.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 21^st, 2013. 

I never thought I would start off a column by mentioning the Lahore High Court (LHC) and Ayaz Amir in the same breath. It’s rather like talking about the Teutonic Knights and Alexander Nevsky — though the contexts, location and period are rather different. I have never been a great admirer of this particular geographical limb of the Pakistani judicial system. Many of the verdicts handed down by Their Lordships in Lahore in the past were loaded with darker imperatives that went against the groin. The one that particularly nicked the collective nerve was the way Mukhtaran Mai’s appeal was handled. Let me assure you, it’s not only the women who would have liked to have seen those crabby members of the panchayat, who ordered the gang rape, strung up in the central jail. I would have gotten Jamil Dehlvi to make a black and white movie of the whole distasteful episode and shown the wily old codgers lined up along the Appian Way. It has a nice Roman ring to it and I am sure the Thinking Man would have recognised the symbolism.

Anyway, getting back to Ayaz Amir, I was immensely pleased when I heard on the jungle telegraph that the election tribunal in the Rawalpindi branch of the LHC had overturned the decision of the returning officer in the election commission who had bounced the politician out of the race for the National Assembly. Now, before you order the public disemboweling of the bloke who gave Ayaz Amir the thumbs down signal in the Coliseum, just ask yourself, how did it come to pass that a returning officer had been given so much power and authority to decide who should and who shouldn’t be given a salary to sit in the lower chamber of freeloaders? The chap who was conducting this particular inquisition was obviously hooked, gaffed and kippered by his own interpretation of Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution. It is, however, not very clear just what it was that miffed the returning officer in Ayaz Amir’s case. Was it his questioning of a law that was often misused to falsely implicate Christians on blasphemy charges; or that he imbibes; or that he is just doing what the founder of this republic asked the nation to do in his historic 1948 speech at the inauguration of the State Bank of Pakistan?

I don’t remember Ayaz Amir, after hearing that a fellow Pakistani had wounded and buried six young girls while they were still alive, standing up in the National Assembly and saying “Don’t interfere in our customs.” Or defrauding the nation by taking kickbacks. Or saying, “What’s the difference? After all, a degree is a degree.” He leads a quiet life, keeps to himself, writes, occasionally appears on the telly and comes across as a well-read, pleasant, urbane and reasonable chap that doesn’t kick the neighbour’s dog and a golf club would not have to be paid to say nice things about. I remember spending a delightful evening at his residence in Rawalpindi a number of years ago when we were both writing for Dawn. We listened to a recording of Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, the “Pastoral”, while wolfing down lots of kebabs. I told him that we were both members of an endangered species and total misfits in a society that was slowly, but perceptibly, becoming increasingly obscurantist and retrogressive. Fortunately, we still have freedom of the press bequeathed to us by Mohammed Khan Junejo and endorsed by Pervez Musharaf. Let’s hope they don’t take that away from us.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 14^th, 2013.

I did wonder when that cryptic email, followed by an SMS, would land in my part of the beleaguered city. You know the one which reads, “This year, April Fool’s Day will not be observed on April 1, but on May 11.” Gross or cool, you might say, if you belong to the tribe that was educated in the US. The fact, however, is that quite a few people in Karachi feel that the chap who thought of the droll message certainly has a point. Mind you, the election commissioner is doing his very best; the electoral machinery has been well-oiled and is displaying a comfortable no-nonsense enthusiasm. And along with the Supreme Court, is doing a hatchet job of the blokes with the fake degrees. And so, they should, especially when they had no business being in the assemblies in the first place. I did wonder, however, if the head honchos in the election commission had seen that particular email and if the quip had induced them to add the no-vote option in the form. Personally, I don’t see why a voter has to select a candidate if the list contains a bunch of yahoos.

But for all their inquisitorial proficiency, I do believe, as Raza Rumi pointed out in his report published in The Express Tribune on April 4 entitled “Zia’s unfinished business”, that the election commission is being pressurised by the religious right to strictly enforce Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution and to chuck out anybody who does not strictly follow the strictures contained therein. Clause (d) seems quite straightforward. Nobody in his right mind in this country would want to willfully violate Islamic injunctions. Not even the Christians, who are, from time to time, framed on fake blasphemy charges. But how in blazes can one prove that a candidate is honest? Clause (e) is the one that stipulates that the candidate should have adequate knowledge of Islamic teachings and should practice obligatory duties prescribed by Islam, as well as abstain from major sins. Now, what on earth is a major sin? Committing murder? Committing treason? Stealing a widow’s property? Committing rape? Is wife-beating and throwing acid on women a minor sin?

A month ago, I hadn’t met anybody who was actually looking forward to the national elections. Today, most people I speak to, especially the youth with voting rights are solidly behind Imran Khan. They admire his steely resolve and brush away all the innuendos that have been hurled against him by his opponents. But, the real issue is, will the government that is finally formed be able to cleanse the Augean stable? This would be rather like hauling a grand piano up a spiral staircase. Will the new government be able to restore the rule of law, change the mindset of the people and bring back the spirit of tolerance preached by the founder of this nation? Will it be able to stand up to the international bully and stop the financing of local militants that are reputedly being paid by certain Arabs to wipe out some of the minorities? Will it hang the fanatic who assassinated, on national television, the governor of Punjab, and who was subsequently garlanded by 300 zealous lawyers who, I believed, somewhat naively were supposed to uphold the law? Will it be able to rein in the militants and hitmen of the various political parties? And will it stop the ridiculous employment of police to guard parliamentarians, so that they can get on with the job for which they were initially hired?

Published in The Express Tribune, April 7^th, 2013. 

I was entirely satisfied with the choice of Justice Zahid Kurban Alavi as caretaker chief minister (CM) for Sindh. He is a person of unquestionable integrity. As I do not know the CMs of Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa personally, I shall make no comment on their appointment, except to assume that they share sterling qualities. The post of chief minister of Punjab, like the other provinces, had also been up for grabs. Most of the names that had been tossed around like a Waldorf salad were a bit wan and washed up. And then, the selectors must have had a sudden moment of distaff brilliance because Najam Sethi had tipped the scales and was chosen to take the oath of caretaker CM. This was good news indeed, because a representative of the journalist fraternity, rather than an old boy from the feudal network had finally made it to such an elevated post — even though it is only for a couple of months.

I really like Sethi. He is superb in both print and on the telly. He is one of the most clear-headed writers and speakers I have come across in this country and has the rare gift of being able to reduce a bit of complicated political gobbledygook to its bare essentials, in a matter of seconds. He always looks with disdain at speakers in talk shows who give off mixed messages and are in love with words at the expense of coherence or logic. And he is exceptionally polite and gives the asking of permission its faux poignancy. He doesn’t have the manufactured conceit of some of the Pakistani politicians and hopefully will be allowed to fully cooperate with the electoral process without interference from the goons of the former ruling party or the Muslim League.

Lots of people ask me who I am going to vote for on the eleventh of May, as if my vote is going to seal the destiny of this beleaguered country for the next five years. They also ask me who I think will win the election, as if I am on a hotline to the Oracle at Delphi, who as it is, is having a hard time due to the financial crisis in Hellas. I honestly believe social stratification has a great deal to do with the kind of candidate one wants to support. Mind you, unless you trot around the country in order to gauge the collective pulse of the voters in different provinces, predictions will inevitably be based on a mixture of pure conjecture, hearsay, the ability to pull crowds and sheer personal preference.

The people I play bridge with are hardcore members of the bourgeoisie, who belong to the group that says “There’s really no point in voting because the same set of lousy politicians will be returned.” They don’t vote and couldn’t really care less who wins, provided they can take an annual holiday abroad. Among the chess players, who are highly motivated, politically, one is for the MQM, one for the PPP and the third is non-committal. I suspect he is for Imran Khan. The waiter who brings us black coffee is from Punjab and is supporting Nawaz Sharif. The score at half time was a tie. Secular 2- Fundo 1. All four, however, are totally against Pervez Musharraf, whom they regard as the Swiss army knife of character thespians who didn’t do very much when he enjoyed absolute power and might turn out to be an unmitigated nuisance to everybody if he is allowed to remain in the country.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 31^st, 2013.