Though he might be a Mardan boy with Mohmand Agency origins, Saleem Safi’s dry wit and devastating use of wry understatement have something quite English about them.
He has employed them to good use in his columns in Jang and his own program, Geo’s Jirga, but of late, it is Geo’s Report Card, hosted by the extremely competent (and underrated) Ayesha Bakhsh, that we get to see it of late.
Now it is no secret that our man does not like Imran Khan, his party or the party’s chief minister. Compile a Greatest Hits album of Safi’s zingers, and PTI takedowns would dominate it.
Such was the case in the 3rd November episode of the program. (Link below for online readers.)
When asked about Imran Khan’s decision about calling off his lockdown, Safi said he would like to reply in the form of an joke: there was once a big Khan by the name of Lakhkar Khan (Lakhkar is Lashkar in the Pukhto dialect; the name has a martial connotation) and he used to like to smoke charas (sniggering by the copanelists by around this time; who else likes charas, asked Niazi) and he had a buddy that he liked to smoke up with.
So in the next village, there was a ne’er-do-well called Sharif Khan (this allegory isn’t subtle) and he beat up this friend of Lakhkar Khan’s. He went to the latter, complaining. Enraged, Lakhkar Khan said that he would go and kill his friend’s tormentor.
As the two set out, Lakhkar thought it best to puff the magic dragon. And, after that cigarette was consumed, him and his friend had another one. And then another one. By this time, they weren’t really able to go anywhere, lesser still to be able to fight. So, Lakhkar Khan looks at his friend as says, ‘If I have to avenge the injustice you have been subjected to, what good is the Almighty for? No, we will let the Almighty take your revenge.’
Safi says he was reminded of this joke when Imran Khan had announced his decision. He said that the prime minister had already asked the Supreme Court to form a commission on April 22nd and we’d thought that if such issues are to be settled by rallies and lockdowns, then what good is the Supreme Court for?
