ANJUM IBRAHIM

A frog or a toad?

“Yaaaay.”

“The economy right, the stock market volume and…”

“Hey stock market is not where the poor man invests – not in Pakistan and not in the US…”

”Oh you mean the 4 percent growth rate, this was as unexpected as…as…why as Nawaz Sharif’s heavy maindak way back in…”

“Hey back off – Nawaz Sharif has since spent a lot of time in Park Lane where you may know the language is English, posh English for morons like you, so the word is mandate and…”

“Sorry, but maindak in Urdu means a frog or is it a toad?”

“Don’t know but where does that information fit in the scheme of things?”

“Haven’t you heard a throat lozenge advertisement? You know that you have khich khich in your throat and need I add the three-time elected prime minister was sent apacking three times and that to me means there was a frog in the throat…”

“Whose throat?”

“Hmmmm, you won’t make me say what I reckon you want me to say.”

“I am not trying to make anyone say anything – but in any case when I said yaaay, I wasn’t referring to frogs or toads – be they in the throat or be they jumping near ponds.”

”So what then? The Khan went inspecting the progress of the 10 billion tree tsunami yesterday and my question: how many of the 10 billion he actually saw?”

“I would imagine he couldn’t have seen more than 200 at best.”

“So that’s what percentage of the total?”

“It made a nice photograph silly. Anyway when I said yaaay I wasn’t even referring to the Prime Minister’s daily dose of ribbon cutting or inspections or briefings…”

“Phew I give up what did you mean?”

“My theory is that a time comes when one has had enough. I mean this time around the Israeli disproportionate action against the Palestinians didn’t lead to the usual results…yes the US President sided with the Israelis but don’t forget there was pressure from within his party to stop Israeli bombardment, the Irish parliament has passed a resolution…”

“Agreed.”

“So yaaay to the fact that Shahbaz Sharif finally said something publicly which gave a shut up call to his niece – namely that one party cannot ostracize another within the Pakistan Democratic Movement umbrella.”

“Wait, she will fire back, that’s in her nature….if daddy stops her then she may be quiet for a while but she will respond either directly or through daddy in days if not hours to come…”

“One cannot change one’s nature at her age but…”

“Let’s wait and see.”