Revolution awards

Ladies and gentlemen I welcome you all to the Pakistan container revolution awards. Every year we bring you a new revolution at odd timings, but this year was particularly special. The whole revolution happened in broad day light and was live telecast by all the TV channels of the country.

For this I would like to thank the hidden hands of our sponsors and all the entertainment starved viewers who made the whole thing a huge success. So without more delays, let the awards begin.

The first category of the award ceremony is the ‘Prediction of the year’ award. Although the competition is tough in this category but on behalf of all the known and unknown busybodies of this country I would like to give this prestigious award to myself. After all wasn’t it me and only me who made the following prediction in my last column ‘Sheikhs and khadims’.

Considering that I made this prophecy entirely on my own and without the help of any inside sources, I think this award is quite well deserved. Not only did the entire revolution happen in ‘the behind of a container’ but the very container also became the talk of the town for a full three days. And if you don’t give me credit even now then I think this is all a conspiracy to break the ‘Noon League’ vote bank.

Don’t ask me how. I don’t have all the answers you know. Moving on, the second category of the award ceremony is the ‘Phrase of the year’ award, and the nominees are: ‘The cat has come out of the bag’, ‘Jamhoori quwatain’, and ‘mufahamat ki siyasat’. The said cat, as we all know, came out of the bag many times as soon as the SC verdict on the prime minister’s arrest was announced. Everybody took a cat out of their given bag, but failed to explain what the cat was doing in the bag in the first place.

As for the jamhoori quwatain (democratic forces) and mufahamat ki siyasat (politics of reconciliation), well what can I say? Although these phrases are so trite that they should be banned from ever being used again for times to come, yet we will keep using them because we are all jamhoori quwatain who believe in mufahamat ki siyasat, and that’s that.

Thus it is proved that the award for the ‘phrase of the year’ should instead go to a third force called ‘masoom aurtain aur masoom bachay’ (innocent women and innocent children).

Now sometimes during this time, the women became the ‘boorhi aurtain’ (old women) and the children became ‘bemaar bachay’ (sick children); at others the women became ‘kamzor aurtain’ (weak women) and the children became ‘nehattey bachay’ (the vulnerable children), but all in all this phrase remained the most repeated phrase of the revolution and revealed a much needed secret to the ‘mankind’ of Pakistan:

All Pakistani women are innocent until proven otherwise. And that ladies and gentlemen is what we call consensus. Moving on, the next category is the ‘Mystery of the revolution’ award, and the nominees are: Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and his premonition that a dialogue was about to take place in a container. In his declaration of the revolution-in-the-container speech, the gentleman revealed that he had prayed earlier that day for the upcoming dialogue to be a success. Now how he knew that a dialogue was about to happen in the container is one big mystery that we need to solve.

The second mystery is Dr TUQ’s demand that President Zardari should come to see him in 45 minutes, when he knew that the president was ensconced somewhere in Karachi. Now why did he make that demand is a mystery that again needs to be resolved as soon as possible. And the third mystery of the revolution is how the government representatives became so punctual all of a sudden when they came to meet TUQ in his container. As the whole nation watched as the TV channels did their reverse countdown; a bunch of people who represent a nation notorious for its tardiness, changed clothes, said their prayers and made it to an appointment right on time.

Amazing, isn’t it? Yet the mystery of the revolution award goes to one mysterious person who typed the draft of the declaration-e-container. Not only did he type it but presented it to the PM all in a span of 30 minutes. Who it could be who took notes of the dialogue, wrote a draft, revised it, typed it and then presented it to the PM is the biggest mystery of all time.

If anyone has an answer, please let us know. Unfortunately, the awards are many but my word limit is running out so we will quickly come to the last and the most important category of the award ceremony: ‘The Man of the Revolution Award’.

And the nominees are: President Asif Ali Zardari for not coming out of his proverbial bunker; Dr Tahirul Qadri for not coming out of his bulletproof container, and IK for successfully coming out of the mother of all political dilemmas ‘To join or not to join the container revolution’.

Predictably, according to the unanimous decision of the people of Pakistan, the ‘Man of the Revolution Award’ goes to none other than Imran Khan.

As it turned out Imran Khan remained the only politician who didn’t ridicule the long march, and yet he didn’t join it either. Like always his decision was based on what is right and constitutional, and not on some vague notion of reconciliation and some sinister idea of an existential threat.

As for us, the ardent IK fans, we always knew the difference between TUQ and IK in so many words. Where IK has the ‘X’ factor, TUQ has the ‘why’ factor; where IK has the ‘wow’ factor, there TUQ has the ‘how’ factor. And that, ladies and gentlemen, makes all the difference.

The writer is a teaching fellow at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS. Email: adiahafraz@ gmail.com