‘No issue’, indeed!

These terms are used by those who have transgressed or are trying to get away from some form of embarrassment.

About two years ago, I was invited to Shimla to attend one of these Track-19 or whatever they are, peace conferences that go nowhere because of the dinosaurs in both establishments, and from there, took a taxi to Palampur just to relive the stories my grandmother had told me of the family tea estate there: the even now-named Wah Tea Estate.

It is a magical place, Palampur, with the beautiful Dhaulagiri range of the Himalaya so near, you felt dwarfed by it; it was full of birds of every description: parakeets and bulbuls and Alexandrine parrots and partridge and songbird of every description. But to get there was a gruelling eight-hour drive with us getting caught behind many a bus or truck, one of them with the slogan: “No Girral Friend, No Tensin”.

Took me a moment or so to figure the spellings out, but then I got it: just before leaving Lahore, I had seen a rickshaw with the exhortation: “No Tension”! And sure enough, when today you call the plumber to please come on time to fix the guest bed’s leaky basin tap, he will come back at you: “Sir, tension na lein. Mein pooray 6 bajay shaam ko pohunch jaoon ga.” Different matter but he almost never turns up on time! “Tension” my eye!

Likewise, two other annoying terms are now doing the rounds in Pakistan: “No issue” and “No worries”. These two, you will also see, are used by those who have transgressed or are trying to get away from some form of embarrassment in the clumsiest manner possible. Quite frankly, a simple “sorry” would be a far, far generous way of dealing with the “issue” or  “worry”, whichever it might be.

A few weeks ago, I was invited to a talk show on my old channel DawnNews. I asked the young researcher/assistant producer, who telephoned me, who else was on the show, for the reason that I simply will not be seen with nutcases, where inanities are exchanged, you shout at one another; and everybody comes away feeling sorrier for the country, and those who sail in her, than before you went into the show.

The lad said he did not know but would get back to me when he did find out. Anyhow, whilst that call never came, I still cancelled another TV channel’s invitation and asked some guests to delay their arrival for dinner by an hour, all the “spicy” shows taking place between the hours of 8 and 9 PM: in the homes of non-beautiful people, dinner-ish time; got all suited-booted and drove off to the studios.

I did all of that because I am an old-fashioned sort of chap and owe Dawn a thing or two: my English language talk show was featured there; I wrote for the paper for well on five years; first Abbas Nasir and now Zaffar Abbas have been friends for well on 25 and 20 years; and I’ve known many of the good people at Dawn on familial basis, some from the time that I was: well, a mere boy!

And who do I find on the panel? “Hazrat” Zaid Hamid! As I announced my protest and started to walk out, guess what the anchor says to me: “I don’t do the selecting, my producers do; no one forced you to come, sir; anyway ‘no issue’”! But it was an “issue”, damn it all. Four issues as a matter of fact!

I should have recalled that I had cited in Dawn itself on August 13, 2011, this same anchor when she was working for another channel, and “Hazrat” Zaid Hamid her guest, for their shrill and nasty attacks upon the South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA) that had arranged a seminar where Mr Nawaz Sharif had said some positive and good things about amity with India.

Not only were these two extremely mean about SAFMA, they also were scathing about Mr Sharif. Here is an excerpt from that piece “Kudos and condemnation”: “The question to ask is: did the compere and her violent guest say what they said because they wanted to say it, or were they parroting the Deep State’s line that India is enemy number one of Pakistan? That there can be no peace ever with India, and that anyone who says anything to the contrary is a traitor and worse?”

The perfect gall of the channel is that despite what happened only two weeks ago, it still had the temerity to call me evening before last for another session with the same anchor! Needless to say, I refused outright. Might I repeat what I have said often enough: people who spread hate and rancour should be starved of all oxygen; this country is already so confused it doesn’t know its left hand from its right. Pray do not confound it further. “Hazrat” Zaid Hamid does exactly that, threatening the world with nuclear Armageddon.

As we wrap up, let us give thanks that Imran Khan, one of the finest sportsmen that ever lived; and the person who has given us the superlative Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital that makes no distinction between its poor and paying patients, has survived well the terrible fall he suffered some little time ago and has now taken oath as an MNA.

Thanks to the Almighty, too, that the penny has finally dropped, and he has recognised that shooting down US drones is not child’s play and that doing so would isolate, even desolate Pakistan to an extent that is unimaginable. And that the only way forward is dialogue.

And finally, for those who are adamant that Pakistan speak to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) because the Americans are talking to the Afghan Taliban, the Afghan Taliban are asking for their country back, rightly or wrongly, grabbed by them. But their country nonetheless.

What are the TTP, among whose numbers are Uighurs and Uzbeks and Chechens and Somalis brutally killing Pakistanis for? Suzerainty over Fata/Swat/Buner and then inch forwards to Hazara, and ... ? Their version of Sharia? An end to democracy in Pakistan? Burning all portraits of the Quaid and the Pakistani flag? What are their demands please?

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

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