Saki Nama

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.

Let me re-write what I have been writing for the last 3 years on 31st December.

Khalid Hosseini writes in ‘And the Mountains Echoed’, “Should have been more kind. That is something a person will never regret. You will never say to yourself when you are old, ah, I wish I was not good to that person. You will never think that.”

Happy New Year with that though it doesn’t matter. If you are in pain on 31st of December, you will be in pain on 1st of January. But if you are happy on 31st of December, there are chances you’ll be unhappy on the 1st of January.

Afterall, happiness in itself is a façade. A lie. One cannot be happy within this body, with this mind, with this soul, and with ultimate disregard for everything and disrespect for his/her own self.

You can counter with what Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote. “Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn’t calculate his happiness.” Thought, all you need to do is to know Dostoevsky and you may not find an unhappier man.

Anyway.

2024 was ugly like any other year. Not ugly for Palestinians much because they had all the years like that, and they shall have some more. Still, the intensity of 2024 being ugly depends on where you live. For example, Parachinar city and Kurram district saw an ugly year. Cruel. People were killed. Children were killed. While the state was busy in Islamabad with both Punjab and KP.

Unlike Parachinar, and like Palestine; Balochistan suffered the same. Nothing uglier. Ugly, but not uglier. It suffered in the microwave oven for the entire year. Equally. So, we can neither mourn nor be happy. We can be content.

The overall country went down though. Further down the pit. It was better under previous martial laws because this one has taken down everything. Even the Supreme Court. With the dummy parliament, this era would be remembered as worst martial law in the history of the country.

But who knows. I used to call the martial law of Bajwa (2016-2022) the worst one too. We never know what gift there is with another year. The current one…

By the way, imagine this: Nawaz Sharif was the PM. Then Khaqan Abbasi. Then Nasirul Mulk. Then Imran Khan. Then Shehbaz Sharif. While the whole time, Bajwa remained intact.

“Object of power is power.” Yeah, Orwell said that. In his 1984 which is our perpetual year.

All the same and old ugly ducklings are dancing to the tunes of Pindi. Duffers remained in power. Only a General Election was stolen. So? It happens every time with elections. But do you know what happens when Elections are not stolen? Yeah! Dissection. Rise of Dhaka.

The business of murders and rapes remained intact. Kids remained unsafe. Women too. Humans too. Camels too. Courts too.

All the travesties traveled from one ugliness to another for over a year for nothing. Imagine travelling hundreds of miles for travesty. But not in a hundred years of solitude. I didn’t watch that yet but yes. that novel is one of the finest reads I remember.

In all this mess, there is still a need to manage paperwork. For that, we have bureaucracy. My favorite idiots of all, because they don’t even know what they are signing. Or approving. From top north to bottom south, there is nothing but disregard of public. Through public money. And public offices. In the hands of those who shine on Twitter and Instagram after passing CSS.

Now, bureaucrats are onto another mission. To curtail pension and retirement funds. So, they are doing that. While they are working for their own good on the same hand. Let me quote Dawn here, “Punjab’s civil bureaucracy has launched a lucrative loan scheme, offering loans from Rs5 million to Rs25 million to the “PAS (Pakistan Administrative Service) and PMS (Provincial Management Service) officers only” at just two per cent interest rate, sparking allegations of favoritism and burdening taxpayers.”

Think. take a loan of Rs.25 million. At 2%. And then you don’t even need to imagine what to do with it. It’s how bureaucracy works. It scams people with their money while sitting in the most legal spaces.

Yahya once dismissed 303 bureaucrats with a single order. That is known as “Three Nought Three”. Later on, some of them were dismissed from the services forever. Today, one doesn’t even need such an order. FPSC is unconstitutional. After the 18th Amendment, Federal government cannot hire employees for provinces.

A day will come, when Faiz Ahmad Faiz will see, when all this hierarchy of bastards will be disbanded.

Anyhow. I deviate. From one bunch of idiots to another and I forget that it can lead to blasphemy. By the way, blasphemy remained blasphemous this year too. Religion remained in blood. People were killed. In police stations. In markets. In clinics. Burnt alive. Celebrations were there afterwards. The living hell is living.

Nothing changed from 2023 to 2024 except for everything getting worse. The worst version of Nawaz is back in town. Khan is in prison for exactly the same crimes. But crimes don’t matter. Criminal does. For now, Nawaz is acceptable, and Khan isn’t. Simple. And it can take a 180 turn any day. And even that won’t be a surprise anymore.

People are still looking outward. Beyond borders. Moving out. Migrating. It is not 80s and 90s of secular democracies. It is a new world of radicalization and right factions are rising from the ashes. Even in the top ranked countries of Europe and Scandinavia. Gradually, things are going to be pretty bad for expats and everyone else. The future is bad particularly in the west. Because the Muslim world and Africa have already been bombed out and robbed.

Thus, here we are. Not by choice. Never by consent. Welcome the new year of 2025. Open your arms. Close your eyes. And get ready to embrace the same ugly filth that you have been embracing since existence. Nothing is going to be a new-new.

Nietzsche said, “The text has vanished under the interpretation”. That shouldn’t happen. People do spend their lives explaining what they meant with their spoken words. Fine. If this happens with written words, that’s ugly. Step aside. Let the crowd settle. Majority of the brains are the same.

Text. Interpretation. Misinterpretation. Like it happens with all the holy texts. More text for further clarification. Further clarification for further chaos. More misinterpretation. Doubts. More doubts. Then more text. For more clarity. Then it becomes a blackhole of its own. Big giant entrance with no exit. Schools of thoughts over schools of thoughts. Jurisprudence. And then… truth vanishes from the texts.

How can it be that interpretation of a couple of decade of a holy figure never ends?

Because truth is straight. Easy to understand. Ultimately, it is your own personal journey. Your own soul searching. Your own delving into your own self for your own God. Between you and your God.

Too long. Yet too less.

I just edited a couple of sentences from the words I wrote last year today. And before that year too. And before that too. This is 4th consecutive 31st December post with sustained pessimism and realism.

The same will be done in the years to come.

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#SakiNama

Lahore has its charm. Winter arrives at night and leaves at noon. Long nights with stars and planets above with a beautiful metropolitan below. Wide roads. Parks and trees – depending on where you wander or live; but yes.

Smog came and disrupted the air we breathe. Then it went away. Every day getting better than before. Today, the Queen has lifted her veil completely and beauty has mesmerized the believers of the city.

And then this city never sleeps. It’s wide awake. Just when you can’t eat outside after 10 pm, is the exactly the time when you eat outside.

Don’t get me wrong. Have seen London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Stockholm, Brussels, and Paris. In days and in nights. In weeks and months. Once you live and know Lahore… it’s Lahore afterwards. Or you can keep on comparing. Like just when you want to eat street food. Or cheap BBQ. Or even a cheap cigarette…

Would definitely choose this city again, in any given day in any given life.

Because it is relatable for me. I can feel Amritsar from here and can relate to it through my grandparents. I can relate to mutiny of 1857. I can feel the era of Ranjit Singh and can feel the affiliation. I can relate to this city personally from before arrival of Budha to reign of Asoka to the arrival of Alexander to Maurya to Gupta to arrival of Arabs to Delhi Sultanate to Mughals to Sikhs to British Raj.

Just stand there on Azadi flyover and you can see generations and eras this city has embraced. Lahore Resolution in the form of Minar-e-Pakistan, Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in the form of Badshahi Mosque, Maharaja Ranjit Singh in the form of Gurdwara Guru Arjan of Sikh Rule, Lady Wallington Hospital of British Raj, multistorey homes of Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims on the other side of the Ravi Road, and the Red Light Area that survived through the eras mentioned above.

Which other city offers such an incredible and historical panorama from a single vantage point?

Can you relate to French Revolution in Paris? English Civil War in London? Fall of Berlin Wall in Berlin? Or Red Light Area of Amsterdam? Ok, don’t answer the last one.

Just wanted to talk about this city. An ancient living wonder of the world; that embraced and renounced different religions and faiths at whims and bloodshed. A blasphemous city; hence, a beautiful one.

Lahore. A whore. As Bukowski said, “like one of the greatest whores of all time.”

Imagine this December. This winter. These long nights. This city. And a walk to remember in a park under a zillion stars and some planets – with a significant other whose hand gives you shivers down the bones more than the wintry night itself; then you may understand. It’s not just the significant other but the significant city too.

Even your husband shouldn’t be allowed to picture / record you during intimate moments. This is not just red line but far from red line. This is the first thing you must know about yourself and your self-respect.

But as majority is comprised of idiots, so they do. They record such moments as just another normal moment to be recorded. You really need to be top-level-stupid to do that.

Rest is what has been written earlier. The online world is unsafe for all genders EQUALLY. Anyone can be a victim. However, women suffer more in the end. Men are awed by their ‘scoring’ even with their tiny instrument they happily record and share. This is another level of being an idiot.

Here, in this discourse, we are part of the problem. The problem is our obsession with seeing others doing things which are natural and biological.

We all do the same things. As we all are the same. With the same needs and systems. Just because you are safe by now doesn’t mean you have moral authority over today’s victims.

Involuntarily, people have been taped in washrooms, try rooms, cinemas, hotels and everywhere. Married couples have been taped by hidden cameras. Because cameras are everywhere.

Only if we stop talking about leaked stuff and stop sharing it, this shall change. If society will stop labeling someone because of a leaked video or picture – made voluntarily or involuntarily – the related risk and trauma will diminish gradually.

On a sidenote: Every single share is a downgraded version of your moral self. And every single share is kind of “gunah-e-jariya”. You’ve seen, fine. Why is there this need to share?

The moral brigade who thinks naming and shaming would make them pious. Well, that won’t. Those who are caught doing anything – including cheating – were just unlucky.

That reminds me of what Adam Sandler once said in a movie: “It’s easy to be a judgmental prick when nobody wants to fuck you.”

First, we are curious to find such videos and pictures. Then we use them ‘personally’. Then we share and talk about them. And after that we give lectures about morality and religion and how bad society has become.

Bhai, society has always been like that. Read Manto or Ismat or anyone. Or pretty much anyone who has penned down human behavior. You love Bukowski, however pretty much he offered was words for what we have cameras now. Cameras. The only difference. Cameras in our pockets all the time, with memory disks, to record stuff and make lives around us miserable.

And what has changed actually? Nothing. Bodies are same. They have pretty much same operational capacities. The numbers are same. Yet, there is this constant sale of sex, sexuality, and glamour on TV (and now social media particularly Instagram) that people are becoming obsessed more than ever before.

With more additions. Strange ones. Porn. More porn. More and more porn.

Society is as ‘immoral’ as it was before. For me, this isn’t even immoral. Immorality is violence, rape, child abuse, domestic abuse, and related stuff. If madrassahs don’t make you angry for unsafe children, then it’s better to shut up now because these male dominated schools are the foundation of sexual molestation in Pakistan which then spreads all over the country.

May be, some day, when the entire world will be naked, no one be curious enough to count the moles over other bodies. By the way, this is to happen. This is the way next life would be, during the final trial, and no one would be looking and lusting at that time.

You have all just become materialistic and worldly and consumer of the modern world. You have forgotten the great lessons.

Remember tasawwuf. Spiritualism. Sufism. Mysticism or meditation in case Osho is your guy. Or anyone. Every faith has a name for it.

The point is: you forgot the lessons.

If you inhale the negative energy, and think positively, and then exhale it out – the negative energy wont damage you. It will make you stronger. Because what doesn’t kill you, makes you spiritual.

This smog is just a test. Of your faith and spirituality. Become Rumi – not while reading him but while inhaling the smog. Take deep breaths. Deeper. Keep it inside for long. And then exhale the positivity out. Make the world better with your lungs.

The thicker it is, the better. It’s more about IQ. Not AQI.

Smokers have been serving forever. Inhaling tobacco and exhaling art. Offering the world and spreading positivity around the world. All over the world.

Don’t forget the lessons. Don’t be terrified. It’s nothing around you except an aesthetic world to be painted and written about. Be a Rumi or Osho – whoever suits you – and be on the path of Nietzsche’s Ubermensch or Iqbal’s Khudi.

Finally, he’s gone. Delayed riddance. Not just from his post of Chief Justice but also from the country.

He’s the second person to trash the hopes of people across the country. He made an image of himself larger than life. Stood against authorities. Stood against the government. Delivered bold speeches in conferences.

Qazi Faez Isa has not only broken the hopes but also the constitution, procedures of courts, judicial independence, freedom of speech, rights of missing people, free and fair elections, and what not.

He didn’t care about hundreds in jail since the drama of 9th May.

He didn’t raise his eyebrows against Military Courts he always hated when he wasn’t a CJ.

He has empowered ECP that Military doesn’t even need to rig elections anymore. All they need is a ‘seasoned bureaucrat’ like Sikandar Sultan Raja – a man without conscientiousness – to come and deny a party. With that shall go the 26% reserved seats. And with that, that party may not be able to form a government.

Simple recipe: made by military, served by Faez Isa through the hierarchy of bastards of bureaucrats.

But how could you judge such a man? Such a fine hypocrite. He stood against military courts and wrote a beautiful dissenting note. Words. With example of Jinnah. 8 years later, as a CJ, he stood for military courts. How could you judge a judge who would eat his own vomit live on TV?

If it would have been a movie – like The Godfather – where Michael Corleone took revenge from all, served it cold, as a dish; then we could call Qazi Faez Isa our modern-day Corleone who took revenge from all who were against him and ruled shamelessly to empower the same powers he once was against.

PTI and military together wanted to remove him from the scene. Today, PTI is removed. Military itself relied on Faez to get a Constitutionally-Amended-Perpetual-Martial-Law.

In his stunts, Faez Isa didn’t even shy to cut the hands of Mansoor Ali Shah – the hands who saved his tenure as the Chief Justice of Pakistan.

Because he was for revenge. And he took his revenge even from those who stood with him. From journalist. From activists. From all the common people who saw him with hope. He hurt everyone without discrimination except the military. In fact, he has done his part to hurt the future generations of the country too.

It’s debatable if he was the worst Chief Justice of Pakistan but it’s not debatable that he was among the worst ones.

It has always been like that. You cannot put your home in a single person in political and social levels. As soon as you do, he/she will trash them in no time.

Anyway, it’s better to fall to the worst level than to prolong the worse. Now you know the enemies (of course) who are not outside the border but within. But know one more thing. No politician or political party can change the course of Pakistan. The framework in which they are asked to govern is compromised. The constitution is nothing more than trash. The bureaucracy needs to be abolished – its already invalid – to change the system. And military needs to be cut down to barracks and barracks only. Until then, nothing and no one can change anything for good. Be it a long-awaited messiah to come down from heaven. Nope.