Month: January 2025

Another Week of Void.

Just another week of fight. Then finances will be all right. For one week at least. Another two weeks to make a complete circle of life. Before halting into another void.

The void. Where you exist and function and feel nothing. But you are not entirely numb either.

The void in itself isn’t bad. Afterwards, after entering the void, I can feel your pain and all the pain around the world and can translate it into the words I know badly.

You may have realized it or not, but tight spaces and pain bring a lot of imaginations. A lot of words. Every stranger is a walking afsana (short story). Every road is a road to eternity. Every story is a sad story. Everyone looks miserable.

And you can relate to the real world. The real, real world.

Like that lady who walks a kilometer daily to her bus stop to save rikshaw money. Do footpaths matter?

Or that sabzi wala who is going to drag his cart with shaking wheels throughout the day to make enough that would never be enough. Do quality of road matters to him?

Or that guy wearing a dirty shirt over his clean dress-shirt with a tie and shining shoes; and speeding his bike to work where he would be listening to insults almost the entire day. Does he matter if his bike slips, and he dies in an ugly accident with his blood making a new lane on the road?

Or that new girl in town who came with the love of her life only to be sold out here. Should she take bath and scrub the skin, or should she pass another zombie day as every day is the same day? How many times would she serve today? She wonders, who she would be opening up to tonight?

Or that man who is going to court today again. For over a year now. All his savings have gone in the gutter of laws and justice. But don’t feel bad for him. He’s going to court to lie again about the property that doesn’t belong to him. The misery would stand on the other side of the courtroom. I don’t know her. But does air conditioning matters in the courtroom?

And among all these miseries and routine tragedies are those sleeping on footpaths. High on dose. Drugged. Away from the falling meteors of the universe. We feel bad for them. They feel bad for us. For sure they sleep better than us. Like the laborers who sweat all day and have no home to go back to and just sleep wherever they can. Without a sleeping pill.

Or that new Deputy Secretary going to office on his official car – the car that belongs to people mentioned above – to pass another day with nodding and some quotable quotes. Too drugged from last night. Got some fresh weed and consumed more than routine. Now, he would need four cups of coffee – yes, coffee funded by the miserable lot of people – to at least be able to sit and nod and look like the smartest one in the room. By that way that room too is bearing operating costs being borne by the miserables mentioned and not mentioned above.

Now tell me, isn’t tightness beautifully sad? Hundred stories day after day. Walking novels. Running mysteries. Sleeping nightmares.

Sorry for all that. Just another week…

£180 million

Even if you play devil’s advocate and try to defend it with all the ifs and buts and legal jargons, you know that was corruption. A massive one. With clear benefits for the people in the government of that time i.e. PTI.

Otherwise, you don’t present an ex-agenda item in a closed envelope to be approved by the Federal Cabinet without even knowing about it. Shireen Mazari objected rightly.

And that is not just one case. Asim Bajwa’s pizza worth billions were cleaned and okayed by the same Prime Minister. “I’m satisfied”, he said then. And you don’t approve pizza without taking a pie. Your pie. Or maybe you don’t like pizza at all.

Then there were so many other cases. Clear for some. Unclear for others. It depends on the stand of bias where you sit.

The mantra from getting billions of offshore money back to Pakistan was turned into another mantra of putting it back into the account of the corrupt offshore holder. How convenient!

A journalist gets a plot of 1 kanal from Malik Riaz and everyone is of the clear opinion that this journalist and his entire TV channel is corrupt. But Khan gets 458 kanal, yet he stays incorruptible.

By the way, Raheel Shareef got 868 kanal in Lahore. After retirement. For serving the country. I’m sorry. It’s a landmark deviation.

Anyway, just when homes and apartments – Remember Nasla Tower? – were being bulldozed by the government and the Supreme Court, Imran Khan got clearance of his Bani Gala residence for pennies. Literally pennies. Rs.6 per sq. ft.

Meanwhile, exactly around the same time, poor people in Islamabad and Karachi were thrown out of their homes by Development Authorities in the name of legalities.

And exactly – another meanwhile – the same time came Malik Riaz who grabbed 30,000 acres of land in Karachi, threw people out of their homes, apartheid small villages, and made billions. That was PPP supporting him in Sindh and PTI helping him out in the Center. You listened to that song “I hate you, like I love you…”. Makes sense?

Now, did Zardari took cash? Any evidence? Leak call? Something? No. But we do know he’s absolutely corrupted in this matter or any other. Just like he did what he did for Rao Anwar (444 encounters including Naqeebullah).

Allow His Highness another deviation.

Rao Anwar was not just a usual DSP. He made 74 trips of Dubai in 6 years at a mere salary of Rs.95,000. He has multiple properties (apartments, offices, suites, etc.) in Dubai which generates rents in thousands of dollars. But he was not corrupt. Never raised his hand on anyone. Just a bullet 444 times. And the court cleared him. Getting that?


But in dark nights, his conscientiousness doesn’t let him sleep. Dostoevsky novels hurt him – which he hasn’t even read. Crime and punishment kinda. He wakes up and walks around in his villas all night and thinks to commit suicide.

Not really. He takes his branded wine. And he sleeps well. Don’t be an idiot like you always are in defending your godfather.

In a very, very nutshell. NCA investigated. Froze £180 million. Malik Riaz got in trouble. Comes Shehzad Akbar (why, why?), who tells NCA that Riaz will drain you out in a legal battle with money. Comes settlement. Fine. NCA to transfer the stolen wealth back to the country from where it was stolen. Comes Pakistan. Comes Federal Cabinet’s meeting where, on directions of Imran Khan, Shehzad Akbar asks the cabinet to approve the agenda without knowing about it.

The whole Federal machinery helped him. The same Malik Riaz who himself never has defended his corruption. But now, as we are coming closer to the stink of everyone, he sounds pious. Just in this episode. Please allow this benefit of doubt for the sake of the greatest of all times. Just this one time. Nah!

Because in return, Khan got 458 kanal. Yes, right. For university. In the name of religion. In the name of holy texts. They corrupt you like no one else.

Now, are you an idiot?

Or are you that hunter who goes to hunt a bear in the woods? And every time bear hunts him – yeah, the other way round. By the third time, bear squints. “You’re not really out here for the hunting, are you?”

Stop hunting. This one case is as clear as the sun in a summer sky. But since you don’t want to believe it, it’s ok. After all, it’s not the pawns. It’s the system. And this one case of Malik Riaz unites all. PPP, PMLN, PTI, military, and the whole bureaucratic machinery.

Just like the military unites them in times of extensions. And extraordinary budget.

Scar. Not Mufasa.

Sarabi: His [Scar] destiny was to save you [Mufasa].

How convenient when you are destining to become his wife? Meanwhile, Scar knew his destiny was stolen.

It felt entirely different than was being shown on the screen. The movie “Mufasa” has different story.

We always disliked Scar – or Taka, his real name. Without knowing the history, we hated his actions. We hated his actions for power to be the king of the jungle.

On a flipside, and with innocence, it was Mufasa who robbed him. Mufasa – due to negligence of his parents – yeah, yeah, accident – became a stray. Scar saved him from crocodiles and took him home. Gave him a mother, his mother. Lost a race to save Mufasa’s life from his father. And stood with him for years.

Scar was the first one to question the rules of monarchy. He didn’t accept the bloodline shat. He raised questions. He was the fist lion to voice meritocracy over the vague birthright.

Anyway, when the new kingdom became dangerous, Mufasa and Scar left to find a new land. How easy it was for Mufasa.

Then, Scar fell in love with Sarabi. He told Mufasa. But then, it was a triangle. Sarabi told Mufasa to be the mover of his destiny and love her back and Mufasa accepted instantly. They could have shared Sarabi. They were lions, man. They mate with different lion every season. Coulda… woulda… shoulda…

Comes another kingdom. Just when Mufasa was about to lose life, he motivates the innocent animals to fight against the while lions – when it was crystal clear that white lions only wanted to kill Mufasa to take revenge. Even then, it was Scar who saves the life of Mufasa. Twice.

You may think that Scar was disloyal for one moment. Well, no. Scar had no obligation to be loyal to Mufasa in any way.

You know the rest. Comes Simba. Generational wealth. Monarchy. Lion King.

The victors write history. The truth depends on who tells the story. In this case, Disney, mainstream media, stories, books, and everything supported a clever lion who became a monarch and an absolute ruler while living off on others.

Remember, the true hero. Scar. Always was.