Perhaps the most important thing Imran Khan found out about Donald Trump was that he doesn’t bite.
Apparently, Trump was deeply impressed. At last a world leader who could talk at his level. The only person Trump would feel more comfortable with would be Usman Buzdar.
For Trump, even Nawaz Sharif was an intellectual giant. Maybe that was part of the attraction of North Korean President Kim Jong-un; that he’s a dumb cluck.
Imran certainly didn’t impress him as he did so many others, with the secrets of reverse swing. Trump must have also been told that Imran was a man after his own heart, though I’m not sure if he handed out Stormy Daniels’ phone number.
They belong to the same generation, with Trump only seven years older. Both are not married to their original wives, and both have multiple ex-wives in the background. Of course, Trump’s daughter is in the White House, her husband an adviser and with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman the architect of the peace deal Trump intends to impose on the Palestinians. Imran would deny he has a daughter, though Tyrian White has been adopted by his first ex-wife.
Imran would look with more favour at the new British PM, Boris Johnson, who must know something about the game, and is also an old Oxonian, while Trump, an uncompromising American, went to Wharton, which is the University of Pennsylvania’s business school.
However, Trump must be both happy at having such an acolyte (to the extent of having two ex-wives in the background) become British PM, though also a little threatened by having another challenger for the title of Leader With The Most Ridiculous Haircut. Trump had a dismissive nickname for the first challenger, ‘Rocketman’ Kim. Does he have a similar nickname for Johnson? Of course, there is the mystery of how someone with a name like Boris would end up as Tory Prime Minister. Much the way that the Tories (in the 19th century, no less) picked the son of a Jewish convert, Disraeli, to lead them.
Reverting to Trump’s alma mater, another alumnus, one with a doctorate, Miftah Ismail, was busy obtaining bail before arrest. He is wanted by NAB in the same case as Shahid Khaqan Abbassi was arrested in, the Qatar LNG case. Imran had better watch out, for he used Qatar Airways to travel, not PIA. But then, he will never be out of power, so NAB will never take an interest in him, will it?
Anyway, getting back to Miftah Ismail, does he need the interim bail because he needs to be sewn a long kurta with purple and yellow flowers on it, to go with his black dhoti? Someone tell him it’s alright to go into NAB custody wearing shalwar qameez, with the dhoti kurta required dress only for those accused of murder. And he should be told that fright wigs are not a requirement either, at least not for NAB cases.
He presumably will not use his bail to escape into space, which is where Space and Technology Minister Fawad Chaudhry wants to take us. He says (with help from our Chinese friends) we will have a man in space by 2023. Whoever goes, we must make sure he takes along Mufti Fawad’s moonsighting app, which he has just used to tell us we will have Eidul Azha on August 12. Already, the applications are pouring in for the honour of being the first Pakistani in space.
Realistically speaking, it should be some PAF officer. After all, the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, as well as the first man to make a spacewalk, Alan Shepard, and the first on the surface of the moon, Neil Armstrong, were all military aviators (the Americans were actually naval aviators, but then the PAF collectively reveres Top Gun, the movie about naval aviators). The first Saudi in space, Bandar bin Sultan, was a Prince, and we don’t have any of those. Unless someone wants to send one of Imran’s sons into space. Or stepsons.
Of course, we could strike a blow for women by sending up Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan. And then make a lot of people in Sialkot happy by not bringing her back. But if not a PAF officer, why not Imran himself. After all, he built a cancer hospital. What does that have to do with going into space? Well, the same thing as with being PM. Or why not General Musharraf? He himself said he was a commando, and commandos can do anything. And he can show the universe his fists, rather than just Parliament.