Quite like the gossiping girls

We sit before idiot box wasting our time

The Race Course Road, with its red and yellow pagodas and the famous cartoon-network striped airplane that adorns the China Chowk, seldom knows rest. However, it hardly ever experiences a road blockade, especially the Race Course Police Station part.

Last night at nearly eleven, our car slowed down on the Race Course Road, near the Jinnah Bagh’s entry, with the traffic receding to an almost halt. It was quite surprising for the unhurried traffic’s pace since the 11pm FM radio news gave no announcement of an MP, or the CM or the PM driving through this part of the city. Maybe someone must have encountered an accident, I thought.

Snailing further on, we noticed that the media news transmission vans were blocking two-thirds of the road. Media, out on the roads? At this hour? That raises eyebrows even in this city – the heart and hub of Pakistan. The vans didn’t stop in number at the count of two or three, there were at least ten. Capital TV, Waqt, Express, Geo, Samaa, City 42 to name the few that I still remember.

The cameramen and their spokespersons had arranged their tripods and cameras in a neat file a mere few yards away from the police station’s main entrance. There was no movement in the queue; all were patiently yet eagerly waiting for someone or something – some talking calmly into their cell phones while the rest leaned against the nearest van. Sharply in contrast, not more than two feet away, all hell broke loose: horns honking indecently, bikers elbowing their way amidst the side view mirrors, drivers craning their necks from within their respective cars, trying to get the car move an inch here or there in order to escape from this late-night seemingly nonsensical extravaganza.

Just then it dawned on my mother as she exclaimed, “It must be Imran Khan’s nephews! They were taken in this lockup.” In the next five minutes or so, we were set free from that traffic jam.

I wasn’t tired when we reached home. Pakistani civilians are well-trained to wait for VIPs’ cars speeding through a temporary signal/traffic free road. We could have, rather we would have, waited an hour there if needed. What troubled me more than most was the fact that not one television channel would film these “gossip girls” as they waited to roll their tapes and film two juveniles on account of their appalling behaviour.

My maternal grandfather, Mumtaz Ahmed Khan, called the television, an “idiot box”, and right he was!

Those vans were guzzling fuel in wait for news that would feed the lustring eyes and ears of the general public, and to what result? A scraggy, skinny, scrawny result it is. The nephews of Imran Khan, “the most celebrated icon of Pakistan”, are in the lockup. What colour are their shirts? How was their treatment in the prison? Were they accused rightly? The point is, why are we insisting on highlighting two lads who were merely accused of lashing out on a traffic warden? Have we sorted out our other problems, more demanding ones, already? As a nation have we paid off the debts of countless international agencies and our local banks? Are we wealthy enough to waste away the hard earned fuel for this news of these two youngsters? Forget about health, education and economy. The Jail Road crossing near the Sherpao Bridge is still in tatters. Can our country afford that degree of leisure, of stupidity?

On the other side of the screen, we have our families and civilians wasting away their sight and right while flicking through numerous channels: “Oh, that channel has a clearer view!” “Did he seem ashamed?” “No, that uncouth adolescent still had his head held high!” Straining our eyes to get just one more glimpse at this latest “Breaking News”.

I thank my paternal grandfather for ordering my father not to get cable TV installed in our house. We still don’t have it. We are spared the torturous routine of such irrational news streaming live off our screens. Thus, my idiot box is not that idiot after all.