For obvious reasons, this is a watered-down version of the joke
And I think I have mentioned it before
Two saints are playing golf
One dearer to God than the other
Let’s call him the high priest
The other saint, let us just call him the saint, hits the ball for a perfect 300-yard drive right down the middle of the fairway
The high priest swings and chips the ball far left and lands in the branches of a tree
Frustrated he looks up into the heavens, raises his arms, and suddenly the sky darkens
A thunderclap rings out, rain pours down, and a stream rises among the trees
The ball floats down the street stream when a fish jumps up to bite the ball
At the same moment, a bald eagle flies down, grabs the fish with the ball in its mouth, flies over the green and the fish drops the ball right in, for a hole-in-one
The high priest turns to the saint with a satisfied grin as if awaiting plaudits
The saint looks at the high priest and says “Do you wanna play golf?
Or do you wanna HORSE AROUND?!” Scene changes
I am standing at a grocery store
An ageing man comes in
Asks about the price of eggs
As is customary he is told how much it costs in dozens
He seems to do quick maths and asks for four eggs
Before the eggs arrive, he suddenly sinks his hand into his side pocket, takes out some change and counts it
Then with a jolt, he asks the shopkeeper to amend the order
He will take three eggs
He buys the eggs and leaves in a hurry as if to avoid any embarrassing questions
True story
Happened only yesterday
Another scene
In the late 1990s, Herald magazine published a set of ironic film posters
One such poster shows a man sitting at a dining table holding a gun to his temple
It is obvious he is about to take his life
Next to him sits his mother asking him, “Beta pehlay khana tu kha lo” (Son, take your meal first)
The legend on the poster reads, “Jo ghar gaya, woh mar gaya” (he who goes home dies)
Yet another scene
Director Satyajit Ray’s beautiful film
Shatranj Ke Khilari or The Chess Players based on Munshi Premchand’s short story of the same name
The year is 1856
The princely state of Awadh is about to be annexed by the East India Company
As is evident from the title the state’s affluent are busy obsessing about chess when their state comes under attack by a handful of company men
As all of this is unfolding, two noblemen Mirza Sajjad Ali and Mir Roshan Ali flee Lucknow leaving behind their wives and escape to a small village just to… wait for it…
play chess
And a more recent one
One day the maid hired to do daily chores shows up with her underage niece
The kid was going to a local government school which charges only a nominal fee
But money is tight and her parents cannot make both ends meet
So, she has been taken out of school and now she will help her aunt with daily chores who in turn will share some of her earnings with the girl’s parents
The maid is told that child labour is illegal
The girl is sent back home
The salary of the maid is quietly increased upon the promise that the kid will go back to school
You and I can afford to waste time on political minutiae because we do not go hungry
But elsewhere the future of generations is being destroyed because of rising poverty
One more story
I think I have quoted this one more than once
But you make it so relevant each time
I am summarising it
It was told by playwright Ashfaq Ahmed in one of his Zavia episodes
The story of a Chinese farmer
The old man lived in a village with his son and a beautiful horse
One day the king offered to buy this horse at an exorbitant price
People came to congratulate the old man that his life is made
The old man refused the offer
One day the horse ran away
People came again, calling him unlucky
The man said it was only a phase of life, not a great tragedy
Three weeks later the horse returned accompanied by twelve similar horses
People came again congratulating the old man
He said the same thing
Only a phase of life
The story continues showing the ebb and flows in his life and how others are benighted and mistake a part of his life as a whole
Not a day passes by without the pundits telling you who is winning and who is losing in Pakistani politics
I have a nagging suspicion that we all are losing
When a boat capsizes in the deep sea it matters little who is the strongest of those who are sinking
But sirs, in politics too do not take anything for granted
Pakistan is facing one of its worst economic crises
It is also enduring the revival of the existential threat of terrorism
Switch on your television and browse through the news channels
Do you see any reminder anywhere of the tragic fact that over a hundred policemen were killed in Peshawar only a week ago? Or that the country’s forex reserves just dipped below 3 billion dollars? Or that the poor are all but killed by inflation? Or that Imran Khan and two retired generals’ policies are directly responsible for this mess? No? Why should you? You are not among the elite or the media’s priorities
Petty politics is
Sadly, the institutions of the country, from parliament to courts are not helping either
The big picture is missing from every scene
The pundits who were predicting a sovereign default until yesterday in sympathy with the opposition are now arguing that default is actually a good option
Go figure
The situation can be salvaged dear reader
As it has been time and again
If we behave like a nation
But there is a little indication it may even want to be one
They say someone asked Faiz (poet, not the general) if Pakistan would survive
The good man said that he wasn’t worried about the country’s survival but that it might continue to survive in the same tumultuous way
Sadly, that’s exactly what is happening
Do you think the common man on the street who has been destroyed by tough economic conditions cares even a bit about your precious politics? Sirs stop horsing around before it is too late
Published in The Express Tribune, February 10th, 2023
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Date: | 12-Feb-2023 | Reference: | View Original Link |
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