Only one Nero was enough to push a thriving city into the deadly flames. The notorious Queen of France’s shameless suggestion to her starving peasant subject during the days of the French Revolution to eat cake continues a blot on her legacy to this day. But what to do when there’s a Nero–ready to fiddle at the expense of hapless millions–lurking in every corner in this star-crossed country, no matter how dire the circumstances may be. For quite some time, people in the flood-impacted regions have started raising their heads; daring to ask their feudal landlords about their due share of the relief goods. But nothing can trump what transpired in the town of Nasirabad where none other than a district judge led a sting operation against an influential councillor in a bid to recover as many as 500 tents and ration packages. The same judge had similarly conducted another raid to find 200 tents stuffed inside a local authority’s office. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands continue to bear the brunt of rains under open skies, desperate for a single morsel of grain or a sip of clean water. That Pakistan does not need the help of any enemies to plot against it has long been written on the wall. The neverending greed and obsession with misusing whatever power one has is now a part and parcel of our national character. At a time when the entire nation should have joined hands and unitedly stepped forward to take care of as many as 33 million brothers and sisters, those sitting on seats that actually matter are either jocking for their own gains, smearing mud on others trying to make a difference of peddling a political narrative. Such tight is the Machiavellianistic grip on our societal mindset that the pleas of the hungry, thirsty and homeless continue to fall on deaf ears. The government is constantly sounding the alarm over the virtually incomprehensible extent of the devastation but its requests for an immediate lifeline have not yet warranted a response from the developed countries. The stunning statistics, the saddening stories and above all, a negligible share of the egregious climatic damages, all seem to have failed in gaining their empathy. Thinking again, why should they? When heated propaganda over the black market sale of international relief items and media reports about such reprehensible actions become the order of the day, those sitting outside the stadium are bound to pull back their hands. Why bother wasting their precious resources on a country that is itself not interested in helping its own? *