Of the Cricket World Cup restored the dignity of Pakistani cricketers, the series also exposed the morality of Pakistani bureaucracy. Caught on camera are some senior most Pakistani bureaucrats sitting as spectators in cricket stadiums in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. These public servant cricket enthusiasts have been identified as either heads of various public sector corporations that are sinking fast or board members of corporations and banks that were sinking and were privatised as a remedial measure. Our honourable government servants and guardians of the family silver are determined to serve the public and what better way to do so than grab a few more freebies. No longer is it enough to draw fat salaries and bags full of perks. Glob trotting to watch and cheer the Pakistani cricket team is now an important part and perk of the job.
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Being a double-decker can be quite tedious as one VIP black coat is finding out at first hand. We hear that the war between his wives is getting out of hand especially since he moved into the Governors mansion. Recently, at the wedding of the son of party comrade Jehangir Badar, the two wives put up their own entertainment show. Bivi number two arrived with four private bodyguards who watched over her, fired in the air when Bivi number one also turned up and started shouting at her. The host was asked to get rid of this heckling political opponent and he did so little knowing that he had actually thrown out Bivi number one. Bivi number two spent the rest of the evening working furiously on her worry beads while her bodyguards stood around her, rifles drawn. Apparently, this security arrangement is there to protect her not from your average everyday suicide bomber. It is there to save her from Bivi number one.
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If you want to dress classy this summer you are destined to participate in a lawn war that is every way as vicious as a military conflict. On one end there are designer lawns being projected on billboards by glamour icons such as Sushmita Sen and Kareena Kapoor. On the other, there are buyers queuing up for hours and convinced that the outfit will make them look like the Bollywood glam girls they are not. This week one store in Lahores Liberty market, offering a designer line, experienced such an onslaught of buyers that it was shaken to its foundation. We hear that some buyers queued up for hours before the store opened in the hope that they would buy a stack and later sell it at a premium. Others were desperate to get even a single jorra. There were scuffles and cat fights. At one point, the store management actually pulled down its shutters in order to calm the crowd. Now who says business is slow in Pakistan? Not our designer lawn manufacturers for sure.
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