The week that nothing happened

And it has been another week when peace and tranquillity covered the land with a benign sense that all is well. There were no deaths in the demonstrations that never happened. The business of governance sailed serenely on the sea of democracy sails a-billowing and smiling politicians dispensed sweets to adoring crowds nationwide. There was not even a hint of trouble in any of the large and smaller cities where people came out on the streets carrying flowers that they did not put in the muzzles of the guns of the paramilitaries that were not there to deal with any situation that was not getting out of control. Anywhere.

Across the land there was no sense that in any way that a totally invisible and completely fictitious corner had been turned on a road that we all know is as straight as a ruler and leads to a sunny horizon where children wave excitedly as they see the future and it is golden, decorated with jewels and awash with milk, honey and the balm of human kindness. For them, there is only a life of ease and prosperity, free of hunger, poverty and disease, living in a country that is so ably governed that airports are thick with delegations from foreign powers anxious to come and learn the lessons our perfectly-functioning democracy is delivering hour by hour.

Have you noticed how tolerant our country is? The way the lion lies down with the lamb and swords are forged into ploughshares at smithies everywhere? Gone are the guns! Everywhere you look there are wall-chalkings advertising interfaith harmony groups where there will be singing and dancing, the cutting of celebratory cakes, interfaith marriages arranged and adhoc classes in transparency spring up at the drop of a hat. Several hats on a really good day.

Age-old divisions were never really there and the distortions of history that portray anything other than a land blessed with an abundance of everything and no divisions were on display anywhere in the last week. Not one. Not even a tiny rift. It is a seamless world, resting on gilded columns as it rides through the grubby comity of nations that surround us with their lies and doubts and deceptions. They are all deceivers whispering falsehoods in our ears. But do we listen? No we do not!

So another glorious week in our stainless history passes and no there is no balance-of-payments deficit and who told you that lie I wonder? Probably an American. They are all over the place, watching and reporting on the serene beauty of the wonderland we all live in. Dirty spies. A nirvana among states where week after week precisely nothing happens beyond a renewal of the rosy glow that envelopes every single one of us lucky enough to live here.

So little happened…well nothing, really, that it is difficult to pick out anything to write about. How wonderful, to be in a position where all there is to see is bosky dells and wooded glades where in fallow deer graze and infants gurgle beside babbling brooks that are filled with singing fish. Singing fish. A soft cool dew caresses the feet as you wade through the lush grasses on the dawn of another day in Paradise.

Gosh how lucky we are to be in that eternity of nothing ever happening. There is no need for newspapers. Good heavens no and we are so much better off without them. Word of mouth is good for a land where there nothing ever happens so there is nothing to talk about and thus we go smiling and mute, waving as we tread the rose-petal way through to a serene dusk and a benign sunset. How good it is to sit at the edge of a starlit infinity and gaze across the heavens secure in the knowledge that we will go to bed and sleep the sleep of the just, the good, the beneficent. Beside us our children are safe in their beds, are untroubled by anything because there is nothing to be troubled about. And that was the week where nothing, nothing whatsoever in any way shape or form, happened in Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 30^th, 2017.

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