Daily Times

Once upon a time, there was a country ravaged by war all because of evil Soviet invaders. Then, by sheer faith and belief, its neighbouring country rescued it by sending pious and upright students laced with their unfettered determination and religious resolve. These valiant students drove the evil Soviets out and established a historical Islamic government in that country. The rest of the world was in awe of the remarkable achievements of these nascent yet scholarly administrators who set exemplary standards of governance and jurisprudence. Despite envy and rebuke from the rest of the world, there were three righteous countries that recognised their exemplary rule and provided them with much needed moral, logistical and, at times, financial support. With their brotherly assistance, the nation was able to rise to such unprecedented levels of progress and development that most of the western world went into a state of shock and undeniable envy.

Being students themselves in the not too distant past, these scholars made their country the fountainhead of knowledge and learning. So much so that most brotherly nations sent their students, thirsty for knowledge, to this country. These remarkable administrators gave their brethren free education in almost every sphere of knowledge known to mankind. The stadiums were filled with contestants who were competing for trivia in Math, Sciences, Arts, Geography, and Technology etc — you get the picture. Peace and tranquility reigned supreme in the mountainous and beautiful country.

At one time, statutes of the Buddha were impeding the new wing for the centre of learning for women, so those statutes were peacefully brought down to dust. After all, something made of dust had to be mingled with the dust. The women were joyous as every street corner had a school dedicated specifically towards female education. The citizens were delighted because of the revival of their superior education system and the economy was booming. The soil that once grew poppy contained all crops, crude oil and natural resources flowing to the extent that this nation was perhaps feeding the entire continent with its abundant resources. The oil rich nations were borrowing and buying from this country. The righteousness and its glory was so self evident that the entire world started rethinking about abandoning their flawed systems and their systems of belief.

The imperialist enemy started burning with envy and, in its envy, concocted an extremely wicked and sinister plot. One morning, in September, it pretended that four commercial planes went missing from its skies and ran some made up footage on television screens. The footage was perhaps produced in some movie studio, much like its footage of the fake moon landing. Some buildings went down, some people got killed and, lo and behold, the blame went to the peace loving scholars of this peace loving country. The evil imperial country went into the peace loving country, destroying everything that was built with such hard work and dedication. All the schools, universities and modern institutions were brought down almost overnight.

The scholars ran for their lives and sought refuge in their neighbour’s mountainous territory. The scars of this invasion really transformed the peace loving and modern scholars, who were followers of Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Dalai Lama, into rabid warriors. They were compelled to trade their pens with guns and swords. Many of them did not even know what to do with these guns and bombs but, with their sheer faith and determination, these scholars decided to form their emirate in the forgotten territory of their neighbouring country. The evil imperial enemy became jealous as usual and very shrewdly influenced the corrupt and inept government to side with the imperialist. This infuriated the scholars who were supposed to bring their glorious era to their newly formed emirate and take it all the way to a city called Islamabad. Very sadly, the city had everything, except the main ingredient, which adorned its name.

So these superior human beings tried their level best to warn the irreligious and wayward citizens of their neighbouring country. These blessed souls even created a local chapter of their pious organisation, meant to bring lost souls to the path of correctness but the sinful people of this sinful country ridiculed the message of peace. Only a former cricketer and some righteous clerics were able to recognise the purity of their message. The remaining lazy, corrupt and sinful crowd stayed under the magical spell of the evil imperialist power.

One day, a mysterious object appeared from the skies, which took down one of the chaste and righteous commanders of the peaceful warriors of faith. It was because of that strange object — which the imperialists called a drone — that otherwise peaceful and non-violent warriors of the faith just lost their patience. Just because of that object, they cleansed this land by dispatching some of the otherwise lost people to the other world. However, that strange object emanating from the skies never stopped. The righteous former cricketer, his fellow righteous clerics and their followers have been yelling at the top of their lungs. All they are rightly asking is the lost government in the centre to stop these strange objects in the skies, at any cost. The lost government in the centre is unwilling to admit to its own people its inability to bring those objects to an absolute halt. None of those fools, at the helm of this pathetic government, understand that it is all because of the drones. Bring the drones down, it will be nirvana, kum ba ya, Om shanty Om — you get the picture — peace, joy, tranquility and prosperity. The lions and the sheep will be at the same stream quenching their thirst. How difficult is this? It is all about these strange objects called drones. Just bring them down with whatever you find: slingshots, bats and sticks. Once the drones are gone, the flute of peace will be played by the pious ones in the heart of the otherwise misplaced capital. Please make sure that you bring everyone from your families to D-Chowk for this historic and memorable event. See you there soon.

The writer is a Pakistani-American mortgage banker. He blogs at http://dasghar.blogspot.com and can be reached at dasghar@aol.com. He tweets at http://twitter.com/dasghar