Daily Times

Politics in Pakistan is becoming much too predictable. Imran Khan is up in arms once again, and the cleric from Canada might join him again. The prime minister does not seem to have recuperated completely from his medical interventions. Load shedding continues apace both the announced and the unannounced sort, creating the expected discomfort among ordinary people. Of course, all those that are in charge of load shedding never really suffer it themselves. And the big question still looms.

The big question is of course about the next chief of army staff. Concerning any political changes, there are about four weeks left before the Pakistani people go on a meat-eating binge, and all others of any consequence go off to the holy land for the express purpose of expiation of “unexpiationable” sins. After that, we will have to wait for the middle of the first month of the Muslim New Year for real action if any.

Fortunately, the weather does seem to have eased up a bit, and the good mangoes are still around. In the balance then, things are not too bad. Perhaps the best political news comes from the United States (US) where “short fingers” Trump seems to be in a self-destruct mode. Mr Trump for all his foibles and peculiar behaviour has lasted this long, so I expect him to survive the present downturn in his electoral prospects. It is still about three months till the US general election so much can still happen. And I have three months to talk again and perhaps again about those elections.

So what then can I talk of without sounding a trifle trite? After literally sleeping on it I decided to leave load shedding alone. Complaining about load shedding is about as useless as complaining about the persistent traffic mess in Lahore from the ongoing construction, or perhaps more appropriately, the destruction of the city I grew up in and learned to love. As it is I am not in a complaining mode. So I will try and ‘accentuate the positive’. The problem of course is to try and find the positive. Perhaps the most positive thing I can think of is that there has been no major terrorist attack anywhere in Pakistan during the last few weeks. I suppose the absence of really bad news can be thought of as good news.

The one thing I have not commented upon is honour killing of young women. The reason for this is probably that as the father of a young woman I just cannot understand or imagine how parents or siblings could do something this horrible. Here I do have a confession to make. The killing of Qandeel Baloch was particularly disturbing, perhaps for the reason that I knew a little bit about her and had seen some of her videos. However, the most disturbing thing about this murder is that an attempt is being made to destroy her reputation. Typical attack-the-victim mentality when it comes to young women that are the object of societal disapproval. Perhaps it is also an attempt to salvage the reputation of the religious divine whose pictures with the young woman possibly incited her murder.

Unfortunately, the trajectory of this case is quite predictable. It will disappear from the news, and then in time the family will forgive the murderous sibling at the behest of a slew of heavily bearded lawyers representing the accused. Some money from unknown sources will change hands. And the poor woman will be dead and soon forgotten. That is something I will complain about, but like the progressive destruction of Lahore, nothing will come of such complaining. Honour killing will go on, and another one is already in the news of a married young woman visiting Pakistan and her family from England, murdered by her aforementioned family for marrying the wrong person. As long as perpetrators of honour killing do not get appropriate punishment, this sort of thing will go on.

So, I am still looking for the positive so I can appropriately accentuate it. Even cricket is a bit dicey right now. The humiliating defeat in the second test match was depressing enough, but the second day of the third test was almost a positive event. Though losing a wicket in the first over and then on the last ball of the day is the sort of thing probably unique to the Pakistani cricket team. As has often been said in the past, Pakistani players have the great ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I will watch the next couple of days of cricket in between bouts of load shedding and with expectations of a batting collapse.

Sad is it not that after considerable thought the only sort of positive thing I could come with is our cricket team and its performance on the second day of the third test match, and yes, the improving weather and the continued availability of good mangoes. Of the latter I must repeat what I have said before. In my opinion, the rating of desirable mangoes is Dusseris as number one, Anwar Ratols as number two and the Chaunsa (formerly known as the Samer Bahisht) at number three. Here I must admit that I was quite impressed to find out that some of the better Anwar Ratols come from Mardan now. Bravo Mardan! So that last is a positive development worth accentuating.

And yes, I was saddened a bit to see the chief minister of Sindh replaced by a younger person. The old man was fun to see on TV and to read about. He personified politics in Pakistan. Politics, what politics? He according to many of his detractors slept through the last couple of years of his stewardship of the aforementioned province. If all the politicians did the same perhaps Pakistan would be much better off, and Lahore might still be intact.

The author is a former editor of the Journal of Association of Pakistani descent Physicians of North America (APPNA)