Flood? What flood?

First Fasi calls me a cockroach, then George attacks Maula Jatt. Wait, the whole flood thing is still going on?

That whole flood thing is still going on? What do you mean? It’s been, God I don’t know, days since that started. I only just remembered it because someone sent me a picture of Angelina Jolie sitting amongst survivors. First I thought she was one of the affected. Maybe she and Brad had purchased a house in Punjab and she was now stuck in a relief camp while he fought for a handout thrown from the back of a truck. Then I read the caption and realised she was trying to bring attention to the plight of the victims. Well, it certainly worked for me.

Now before you all get angry at me for losing focus, at least consider what I have to deal with. First Fasi called me a cockroach. Then George attacked my hero Maula Jatt. Then everyone decided the most important thing for them to do was to debate what species of insect would best suit us. Then I had to join a Facebook group defending Maula Jatt. Then everyone who has an inch of column space in the newspaper decided the best use of that powerful tool, that can be used to communicate new ideas and drive awareness of important issues, was to defend against a series of polemical rants. Then I demanded they change their passports. Then I defended them because I got confused about what side of the issue to fall on. Then I realised I had spent over a week reading articles and blog posts and twitter updates about an inane issue that matters not a whit on any measurable scale. Then I realised I am part of the problem because I just dedicated an entire paragraph to this stupid topic.

I woke up from the hypnotic haze of duelling op-eds to discover a new YouTube clip doing the rounds in Pakistan. You know how in other countries people love to share videos of kittens falling over and babies sneezing? In Pakistan our YouTube output tends to be a bit different, a bit…darker. We prefer to swap footage of vigilante mobs beating people to death and politicians charged with responsibility and power drunkenly falling over.

The latest video, enthusiastically emailed to me by almost everyone I know, showed a badly dressed British Pakistani counting piles of money as he destroyed the few remaining scraps of dignity our cricket team had left. Personally never having cared for cricket (my inability to coordinate hands and eyes as a child meant I was never included in any teams) I was planning on ignoring this new fiasco. Then I realised it was impossible to ignore something when it is all everyone can talk about.

Finally, just as the resultant debates died down and we all collectively decided that the best person in our team was the same guy caught publicly digesting a ball not that long ago, I opened the newspaper this week to discover the Punjab government was valiantly devoting time and effort into battling the insidious influence of cartoons based on Hindu mythology. Apparently, Muslim children in Punjab can have their entire religious belief system eradicated by animation and the Punjab government was having none of this. All this and Eid is upon us, which means I have to now prepare to avoid hug-hungry relatives.

Terrorists don’t seem to suffer from this kind of Attention Deficit Disorder. They are focused in a way that should be studied. It doesn’t matter how much suffering and misery the country is experiencing, they shall not be swayed from their goal of killing as many innocent people as possible. People that the government seems too distracted to remember to protect.

So you see? Angelina really did come here at the right time. Now that I’ve remembered how millions need all the help and aid we can provide, maybe I will stay focused on the issue this time. At least until she leaves.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 9^th, 2010.