Now, tell ‘em you ain’t gonna go anywhere, anytime soon
Hell, about time that we head back to corrupt, good-for-nothing, utterly devious, and downright pathetic Parliament,’ something similar must have gone through the mind of Kaptaan before he decided to send his members back to NA
‘Sit-ins, dharnas didn’t work out. God, even lock-down backfired and had to be turned into ‘Youm-e-Tashakur’. And then, them lords showed lack of spine, the whole court got jumpy. What to say of other institutions, they are deteriorated beyond repair. And people, well, they are in love with their cozy, comfortable living rooms, bedrooms, and cafes or dhabas. My own party workers, they are always ready to dance their hearts out on tunes of hope and change but reluctant to get their bodies bruised by one proper spell of indiscriminate lathi charge.
Hell, about time that we head back to corrupt, good-for-nothing, utterly devious, and downright pathetic Parliament,’ something similar must have gone through the mind of Kaptaan before he decided to send his members back to NA.
So, now that Kaptaan and company are back. After quite a long time we won’t be able to see him playing ‘hope-spreading messiah’ on a truck nor a saviour dressed in black shalwar kameez sporting a green and red wrap around his neck on a container nor even as a zealous orator telling the wronged ones tales of injustices, corruption and exploitation they’ve been suffering for past many centuries at the hands of the House of Sharif.
The spectacular spree of shows is over. The exhibition titled ‘the one who always stands beside the little guy’ has come to an end. The lot vying to have a fair share of ever-shrinking pie has to acquire their piece through the ballot, as boots turned deaf ears to each and every call made.
Now, the ‘hope brigade’ needed a new dais from where to address eyes and ears of the masses. ‘Parliament’ went the light bulb. Why bother spending millions of rupees on rallies, sit-ins when a handful of frantic MNAs, shouting nasty slogans and at daggers drawn with PML-N cesspool can cast the same spell.
Absolutely brilliant idea, but there is a catch.
Just watch out for a certain Abid Sher Ali, the lad has penchant for working himself up on slight provocation. Once ablaze, it takes at least a dozen legislators to firefight Mr Sher Ali.
PTI and both federal ministers whose names end with Khwaja, to say the least, are incompatible. If the vehicular allusion made by Khwaja Asif back in June angered Shireen Mazari, this time Shah Mehmood Qureishi demanded an apology from Railway Minister Saad Rafique for calling his party members ‘hooligans’. Which Khwaja Saad did tender. Shah Ji, I didn’t know that flagbearers of hope and change are so civil, thin-skinned, and well-behaved on the floor of Parliament.
Strange are the ways of time. I’ve read and heard about (and watched couple of clips from) 90’s parliamentary sessions where PPP jiyalas and PML-N shers lodged themselves at each other’s throats. They made spare use of hands, punches, even chairs to decimate the adversary. It mattered little who was in the government and who was not. The one in opposition had to take a swing or two at those on the other side of aisle. Well, I guess, we’ve come full circle. PPP’S tri-colour flag gave way to PTI’s bi-colour banner. Couldn’t sum it up by thinking of something novel. So, have to use a horribly worn-out cliche; the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Don’t know whether you had an epiphany, someone talked sense and you listened or something else. It seems you’ve learned that in order to captain a ship, one needs to board one in the first place
Dear Kaptaan, Now that your MNAs are back in Parliament doing exactly what they get their salaries for, kindly tell them to be discreet with their proclivity for nuisance and ruckus. Nuisance, dearest sirs and ma’ams, ceases to remain so once it becomes the norm. If PTI decides to stage an uproar, day in and day out, what’ll happen is it’ll lose its capacity to startle and the sheen will wear off. And most importantly, news happens when something novel, disturbing, ugly, disastrous and brutal takes place out of ordinary. If something, anything takes place regularly, bang, it dies sans coverage, sans tickers, sans a mention in talk shows.
It takes a stoic or an exceptionally disinterested person to go through long parliamentary sessions. IK, as we all know, is neither a stoic, certainly a disinterested individual in the sessions and debates held in Parliament. He is a man of action, full of vigour and desperate to alter the world around. The Forgotten Man’ of Pakistan — a laborer from KPK, a bank accountant from Southern Punjab, a scion of an industrialist from Faisalabad, a student of MSc from Balochistan, a Christian from Karachi, an unemployed man in his mid-30s from everywhere — thinks of him as their deliverer. Now thatKaptaan is done travelling the road less taken, it led him to the path most tread upon.
Don’t know whether you had an epiphany, someone talked sense and you listened or something else. It seems you’ve learned that in order to captain a ship, one needs to board one in the first place. And put in months and years of apprenticeship before one wears the skipper’s cap.
And lastly, please don’t try to rival the abysmal attendance record of our PM. Being more absent than the PM is not-at-all a medal worth collecting. All said, welcome aboard, Kaptaan.