The Pakistani Dream

March 20, 2010

I found myself at a happening event in Lahore last week – not that anything in Lahore is “un-happening”. I discovered that our introductions have evolved over the years to now incorporate the most useless of facts. We used to meet someone, introduce ourselves (using both first and last name, unless you’re Madonna), tell them it was oh-so-jolly that we got to meet and thereafter, proceed to enquire about their day/health/the weather. These days, we jump to the statistics and the imperative facts: what we’re made of - hot air or regal lineage? If you're beneath me, why squander precious banter time on you? That’s why it was absolutely apt that someone introduced themselves as a *insert caste name here* and another as having lands. All this with the backdrop of a bomb going off in Model Town, nothing short of a massacre in R.A. Bazaar and then seven other trinket explosions in Iqbal Town. We don’t lose focus.

I read about the water shortage that has left the women of Sind scaling miles to retrieve about two gallons for their family; very efficient and very hygienic indeed. But let me not waste time on things that don’t affect me directly. I live in the real Pakistan – The Punjab, the blessed – Alhamdulillah! We are so blessed that not only do we have access to water with the turn of a tap, (sans someone filling the tank once a week) but we also have a daredevil provincial parliamentarian who wants her husband to marry a second (third or fourth) time without her consent and another, who generously gifted her dupatta (her honor, if you will) to Shahbaz Sharif – who incidentally pleaded with the Taliban (trading his honor) to leave his province and focus on the un-real parts of Pakistan, if it so pleases them.

But Sind is strange; they are not allowing the Taliban within their borders, chasing them out by spewing their Urdu-Speaking-ness at the speed of the Rawalpindi express. The Taliban are men of God, don’t they know? I fail to understand why we allow non-Punjabi’s to consider themselves Pakistani, let alone human, they be so stupid. We’re more Muslim here in the Punjab than they are in Sind and Baluchistan combined! We stand by our Tehreek-e-Whatever, because their name sounds more Muslim than “Muttahida Qaumi Movement” and all their members fashion unruly beards. Answer me this: was Pakistan not claimed in the name of Islam? I believe it was; therefore, these people ought to know better! They don’t stand for the principles our Father-e-Nation taught us. It is claimed that he was in fact just looking for a secular state, but I know he meant for the words “Islamic Republic” to precede our country’s name – forget that it took us almost a decade (1956, to be exact) to realize that.

I’m not going to comment on the PPP; I mean, they’re in power, their name includes “Pakistan” and their slogan “roti, kapra, makaan” points all fingers towards the Punjabi dream. Why else do you think Punjab incorporates all agricultural hubs, Faisalabad and endless developing housing schemes (read: “for its elite” – the only people that matter)? So, when James Truslow Adams spoke of the American Dream he only did so because he saw (just as Zaid Hamid sees the coming of Ghazwa-e-Hind – which by definition is flawed but who cares because he’s Ali-Azmat-endorsed) the coming of Pakistan where his words would stand true. In “Epic of America” Mr. Adams writes: “It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely (because I have my lands to support my feudal ways), but a dream of social order in which each (Punjabi) man and each (Punjabi) woman (haha kidding, women are just to fill those pre-assigned seats in parliament so we can show the world that they’re equal and attend committee parties. They know their real place is in the kitchen where they shall concoct new variations of the Paratha) shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable (i.e. how much you can bribe), and be recognized by others for what they (i.e. their forefathers) are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position (again, kidding. You know only *insert caste name here* have it made).” Mr. Adams was innately Muslim being a direct descendant of Hazrat Adam, his name standing testament to that; and we all know all true Muslims are Pakistani (read: Punjabi) at heart.

When we Lahori’s mingle in our (sheltered) environments, be it a GT in Bedian or a launch of some new brand, we’ll talk about the weather, complain about how Muslims around the world have it bad: “I got stopped on my weekend trip to Prague because my green passport smelled of curry” – pass a quick comment on Palestine and sip our lattes as we gaze scornfully at someone’s top-of-the-range LV purse. Similarly, our local assembly debates things of importance, how to get our youth off of those late night phone calls because what is happening in the wee hours of the morning on your budget-talk-phone-plan can only be the workings of Lucifer himself. Astaghfar! We don’t need to take more action against the increased terror attacks to the city that are causing our children to miss school, we simply deploy the best of our army and police to protect those that matter (minutes after the Model Town blast, I was stuck in traffic because of our V.I. Premier moving out of this beautiful city into the safer realms of “I don’t even care”).

This is why Punjab has always been represented better *ahem* in government and why we epitomize Pakistan. We can’t have some Muhajir representing our country now can we? Only the silly Americans would allow a foreigner like Schwarzenegger to hold government office. But then again, he is the Terminator. I mean, forget that we’re all technically Muhajir because we all were Indian about sixty some years ago. But yeah, we’re the real Pakistan and Punjabi is the real national language; we just say it’s Urdu to keep the little folk happy and out of our hair so we can shop in peace. So, as we sit out our late night talk shows, discussing (yelling/rambling) matters of importance in our Punjabi-English accent, Sind, Baluchistan and the NWFP for that matter, can take up inconsequential things like the Taliban and the drones that seem to miraculously kill dozens of their people every week – Note: their people, their problem (just don’t let your internally displaced filter into our nicer parts of town; that’ll really upset us). That’s why they’re not invited to J&S’s latest ball. They wouldn’t know how to represent.

Please, Sind, Pakistan is not “khappo-ing” it is only you that is creating the racket by screaming that incessantly into our ears. Kindly refrain. Thanks.