As it is

Terrorist violence flourishes, as does sectarian violence both senseless and apparently, unstoppable, by ‘agencies’.

Ah, Ardeshir Cowasjee! Well, this column will not be dedicated to him at this stage but will wait for a suitable time in the future. So much has been written on him in the immediate days after his death here and elsewhere, much said on the electronic media, Facebook, Twitter, and many comments, editorials, letters to the editors and a couple of very fine columns.

As my good friend Masood Hasan put it, he had to do a double think about writing on Ardeshir after reading Ayaz Amir’s column “An unusual man” (November 30) in The News, commenting, “an absolutely brilliant account about the life and times of Ardeshir.” The Chaudhry of Chakwal, as Ardeshir always called Hasan, excelled and pipped me at the post, so to speak. So, I am gobsmacked for the time being. And besides, the unalterable fact of life is death and that is still in the process of dawning.

The finest single sentence encapsulating the man for many was in this publication on the day after his death: “Few people, if any, can make the word ‘Saala’ acceptable in a serious conversation.”

And with that, on to the nation and how fares the unfair republic that is Pakistan. Up and down, as is its wont. With reported progress on the Nato front during the Brussels talks and signs of a mild rapprochement in the highly soured Pakistan-US relationship, there is at least a modicum of positivism in our ocean of negativity — as there are apparently in the EU-Pakistan relationship, somewhat moribund trade issues.

But it is not all hunky-dory. Negative happenings back home in the republic continue to reverberate and keep ‘friends’ or ‘allies’ (if indeed they are) wary of what really is what when it comes to Pakistan’s standing image of insecurity, its ambiguous ties with the forces of darkness and its continuous internal strife, the non-governance factor and the fact that its internal and external policies are somewhat like a gyroscope, always spinning around at a frenetic pace but not really getting anywhere.

As the army chief — the most powerful amidst the power hungry — put it some weeks ago, “All systems in Pakistan appear to be in a haste to achieve something which can have both positive and negative implications.” He presumably included his own institution.

Too many of those who make up what is known as the leadership, of all hues, denominations and pillars, including the media, conduct themselves with such irresponsibility and narcissism that most of the time we can only wonder if they are all depriving some villages somewhere of their traditional idiots.

The local home-grown Taliban (as opposed to those with whom talks have happily been initiated) continue on their murderous destructive path, as they did on the 9^th day of Muharram in Dera Ismail Khan, killing eight people, six of whom were children and maiming countless others. And why? Because they were Muslims, but different. Terrorist violence flourishes, as does sectarian violence — both senseless and apparently, unstoppable, by the famed ‘agencies’, the non-enforcers of law and the uncaring political and executive practitioners of unadulterated kleptocracy, which devours their waking (and probably their sleeping) hours.

What with Ahmadi graveyards in Lahore being desecrated, tombstones destroyed and some reports say that even graves were dug up, Hindu temples in Karachi being razed, schools in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Fata being demolished or burnt almost on a daily basis, and the ongoing daily toll of politically-created mafia killings in Karachi — and countless other acts of horror — just where are we all bound for?

With elections coming up, or at least scheduled, the future is bleak. Conspiracy theories are rife as to what plans the political and executive masters are hatching and their intentions. There is nobody, literally nobody, who can tell the truth or anything approaching the truth — it has become a foreign body.

Is it any wonder that those such as Ardeshir Cowasjee had merely given up in disgust, tinged with grief?

Published in The Express Tribune, December 8^th, 2012.