This month it will be eight years since I have contributed a weekly column for this newspaper. This makes about 400 columns and each at 1,000 words, a total of 400,000 words. That by any estimation is a lot of words for somebody who is not a professional writer. As I think back over these years, the one thing that stands out is that rarely did the Daily Times editors ever try and redact any significant amount of my columns. In the earlier years, there was a ‘bright’ young woman who always changed my titles and even went as far as changing my ‘lede’. When I protested to the editor about this, her interference decreased rapidly.
There were a couple of rather amusing episodes for instance when ‘pomo’ (short for post modern) was changed to promo in the title, and also throughout the text. Fortunately, from a postmodern point of view that did not make much of a difference. Then once my title ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen’ from the song ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun’ was rejected for being ‘derogatory’ to Englishmen or perhaps to mad dogs, I forget which. Obviously, the op-ed editor had never heard of Noel Coward. And another editor once replaced the word ‘tween’ with ‘teen’ throughout another column.
In all these years there were only two times that my column was actually edited for content. Once when I compared a bunch of marauding black burqa-clad young women carrying sticks to female dominatrixes and as such the dream women of all religiously inclined men in Pakistan; and the other time was when I wrote a rather emotional column on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Both times justifiably. Other than that I have had a reasonable relationship with the editorial page editors and one of the reasons why I have stuck with this newspaper even after the mass exodus of its staff a couple of years ago was that I believe it is still the only politically ‘liberal’ newspaper around.
Here I must admit that over the last year or so the editorial pages have become much more pro-’Balochistan freedom’ than in the past. Interestingly, that is one topic I have never wasted any ‘ink’ on since in my opinion if Jinnah and Liaqat as well as all succeeding governments in Pakistan could not make the Baloch happy, then perhaps the Baloch rather like their persistent state of unhappiness. I also believe that if most people think that something is wrong with you then the chances are that something is indeed wrong. More importantly, I find it hard to sympathise with the ethnic Baloch and their self-proclaimed misery; after all the total number of these people is probably much less than the population of any one of the bigger areas in Karachi.
For obvious reasons, I wrote a lot more in my earlier columns about the ‘trials and tribulations’ of adjusting to Pakistan after having lived abroad for 30 years. In terms of content, I have been pretty consistent. The few things that seem to be a recurrent theme are my disdain for excessive demonstration of public piety, my great respect for people of faith, my utter bemusement at the concept of ‘moderate’ Muslims and its derivation, ‘enlightened moderation’. Besides these my love for my city of Lahore, for mangoes and for the people in general have emerged as a common thread. Of course, I was greatly ‘traumatised’ when basant was banned a few years ago; I still sort of hold that against my lord the Chief Justice of Pakistan.
As far as politics is concerned, I have always been in a slight state of bother about the misuse of the labels conservative and liberal. Most media in Pakistan use conservative for those that in the US for instance would be called ‘social conservatives’ and liberal for ‘social liberals’. In this context, I have often tried to present the point of view that many social conservatives in Pakistan are often quite liberal when it comes to politics, the reverse being equally true. For this reason, I have often felt that our ‘centre-left’ parties should try and make room for social conservatives that are politically liberal or even progressive, though I don’t like the latter term. It was a lot easier when liberals were liberals, and socialists or communists were quite proud to call themselves just that.
Over the last few years, I have become increasingly cynical about the state of politics and politicians. As an old-fashioned liberal, I always believed that most people in positions of power and authority do what they think is the best for the country. Sadly, I am starting to doubt that point of view; it is not just because of the present state of politics in Pakistan, especially the confrontation between the executive and the judiciary, but also what is happening in politics in the US. Never before have I seen such polarisation in the US over all the years that I have lived there and followed politics and elections in that country. Perhaps what we are seeing is a global collapse of civility and an ever-increasing level of mutual distrust. Whether this is due to an increasing level of religiosity remains to be seen.
Finally back to my relationship with this newspaper. Recently I was asked to submit my columns almost three days before the date for publication. To comment on current affairs so far in advance is something that I am extremely reluctant to do. Anyway, this will probably be my last summer in Lahore so perhaps the time has come to move on, get my 400 odd columns together and arrange them into some sort of a book. And while I am at it, consume as many Dussehris and Anwar Ratols as I can.
The writer has practised and taught medicine in the US and in Pakistan. He can be reached at [email protected]