Tomato
politics
Shakir
Lakhani
NOVEMBER 22, 2019
So Nawaz Sharif has
finally been allowed to go abroad, but the government spokespersons are doing
their best to portray it as a huge victory for Imran Khan. While the lady
information adviser says that the PTI respects what the court has ordered, the
lawyer looking after whatever science and technology there is in the country
wants to challenge the decision in the apex court. As if the nation didn’t have
more pressing problems, like the price of every edible item going through the
roof, or hundreds affected by dengue or dog bites.
Perhaps the high price of
tomatoes and other edibles would be responsible for the Great Khan’s downfall,
just as another Khan (Ayub) had to go home after the disappearance of sugar. By
saying that tomatoes are available for just seventeen rupees a kilo, the
finance genius responsible for the tottering economy proved that those who rule
over us are out of touch with reality. Just like the lady doling out
misinformation day in and day out is convinced that peas are available for five
rupees a kilo. Or that ‘highly efficient’ chief minister who thinks that the
price hike is artificial, definitely caused by those who are jealous of his
huge accomplishments in the country’s largest province.
Last night at a wedding
dinner, a guest showed two video clips doing the rounds on Twitter on his
thousand-dollar smart phone. The first was of a woman speaking chaste Punjabi,
and although I didn’t understand all of it, I could understand what she said. I
won’t repeat all of it here as it was too graphic for sensitive souls to hear.
She very clearly said what should be done to the Dear Leader for having fooled
the public with his false promises while campaigning.
The second clip also
showed a woman, this one from Karachi. The way she spoke Urdu it was clear that
she was either the daughter or granddaughter of someone who had come to
Pakistan from Modi’s home state of Gujarat; those who heard the late Abdul
Sattar Edhi speak will understand what I mean. And she had evidently seen much
better days, as most people in that ethnic group are reasonably well-to-do,
among them being those who, according to the late President Ayub Khan, “are the
owners of half of Pakistan”. This was in the 1960s, when East Pakistan was
still a part of the country. So as I said, this woman in the video burst into
tears while complaining vociferously about the rampant inflation and her sons
being jobless, regretting deeply that she had voted for PTI, and asking if this
is what Imran Khan had in mind when he spoke about turning Pakistan into
Medina. It was very poignant, and almost everyone at the dinner table was
affected. Soon, as most of them had voted for PTI, they began talking about the
past fifteen months that the party has been in charge of the country, and how
people all over the country are thoroughly disillusioned with it.
The owner of the expensive smart phone said the Great
Khan is not to blame for the situation, it’s his advisers and ministers who are
responsible. They don’t have to go out to buy groceries so they don’t know how
steeply prices have shot up. They don’t know the cost of petrol (which in any
case they get free from the government), so a hike of five or ten rupees a
liter doesn’t affect them. But he agreed that the buck stopped with the Dear
Leader, because he’s the one who selected his ministers and advisers.
All the men sitting at the
table were sorry they had voted for PTI, and were quite sure they would never
vote for PTI again.
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