If you are planning on taking out a long march of your own, make it a point to go through these six tips to maximise the impact of your revolution
It’s the season of revolutions. Wear your Che Guevara shirt and storm towards the capital. It’s like Bastille Day. Come out of your prisons and march towards independence.
Or just ignore all that nonsense and waste your Sunday reading nonsensical columns like your very own The Horizontal Column.
You might not want to participate in the revolutions but you can’t possibly ignore them. Immy’s Azadi March and TuQ’s Inqilab March as of 6:24 PM on Friday have given us very important lessons. Revolutionary lessons that would help anyone who wants to challenge the status quo some important pointers.
Here are seven of them:
- 1. Book your marches in advance, if you want everything to be on schedule
We were told that the Azadi March and the Long March would manifest themselves in all their glory and chaos on August 14. But since they couldn’t arrange everything on time, things got out of hand. When the two revolutionaries were scheduled to be bellowing in D-Chowk Islamabad, they had barely reached Azadi Chowk, Lahore. It’s like Murree during the summer holidays. If you don’t book your marches in advance, you might not get a slot. You don’t want to miss out on all the fun.
- 2. Don’t announce your march if someone else has booked a slot
The Azadi and Inqilab marches became competitors despite having the same goals. This is only because the two baraats (to borrow Chaudhry Nisar’s word) were supposed to leave from the same place, reach the same destination and all this was scheduled for the same time. The lesson is clear, don’t be a copycat and schedule your march for some other day.
- 3. PML-N has dangerous Butts
They shatter cars. They throw stones. They are destructive and extremely dangerous. The entire superstructure of the current ruling party’s tenure rides on the pulverising shoulders of their Butt brigade. (Please note that any puns that you might have noticed were accidental and do not bear semblance to any person living or dead)
- 4. Your choice of breakfast has no bearing on your sense of revolution
Imran Khan had a gluten free breakfast as his march took off, while Tahirul Qadri enjoyed halwa puri on his way to Islamabad. Such contrasting breakfasts prove that what you eat doesn’t define your tendency towards revolution. However if one goes by the saying that “you are what you eat”, then it’s Khan’s gluten free revolution versus Qadri’s fatty revolution.
- 5. Twitter is an integral part of 21st century revolutions
That’s certainly the biggest lesson that the Arab Spring taught us as well. What you can do is take lots of selfies during the long march. This would make you proud when you look back at your revolution with your grandchildren. However, more importantly this gives the electronic media the fodder to cover your struggles in detail. The media will make you feel more important than you really are. We promise you that.
- 6. Not all you-know-whos with mustache are mean
You-Know-Who, not doing you-know-what at you-know-where, you-know-when proved that not all yous with mustache are mean. Our prime minister must be breathing a very high sigh of relief as things stand. Unless You-Know-Who has summoned a you-know-what on Saturday. In that case just scratch anything and everything you’ve read in this piece.
The writer is a standup revolutionary and a long marcher for hire. All side effects of reading The Horizontal Column are the readers’ headache.
