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Benazir Bhutto was in town for three days, but had it been left to former Senator Akbar Khawaja, who followed her like a shadow and never let her out of his sight till such time as he would be told to go home and grab some shut-eye, we would never have known she was here. That being so, if there is a prize for keeping secrets, Akbar Khawaja should get it.

Whenever you asked him what Bibi was going to do that day, the answer was a sepulchral silence, followed by, “I don’t know”. And when you prodded him, all he would come up with would be, “I can only tell you what I know”. “But you say you know nothing”, he would be reminded. “I have to go now”, he would say, and the line would go dead. You could keep calling thereafter as long as you liked, but all you would get would be a recording asking you to “leave a message after pressing 1”.

During Bibi’s press conference with Pakistani reporters — two Indian correspondents came uninvited, but we let them be (something we wouldn’t expect in a similar situation from their side) — old Khawaja kept standing behind Bibi, more immobile than the Statue of Liberty in gale force winds.

For the hour or so that Bibi was there, I kept trying to catch Khawaja’s eye but failed. Only at the end did I realise that I was no match for the three or four TV cameras lining the wall facing Bibi and Khawaja.

Compared to the petrified former senator and his leader, who now floats high into the stratosphere, Asif Ali Zardari was pure bonhomie. Before Bibi’s arrival in the room — he preceded her by half an hour — he kept exchanging jokes with one and all. I actually did not realise A to Z had landed, till I heard him recite a snatch from that old Iqbal Bano song: Hum bhi tau paray hai rahoon mein. The line was flung at me since I had failed to see him enter for the simple reason that I have no eyes at the back of my head, and the ones in front need reading glasses.

Bibi spoke for twenty or so minutes in her delightful Urdu. When it came to question time, I asked her if she would kindly switch to English since one of the Indian correspondents, being from South India, did not even understand Hindi, what to say of Urdu. The good sport that she is, she obliged, which eased our lives since taking notes in English of her Gulabi Urdu laced with such words as ‘kartat’, ‘boltat’ and ‘samjhavat’ is an art I have not quite mastered.

But now the $64,000 question. Why did Bibi offer to provide the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to Dr AQ Khan? She first threw this bombshell in answer to a question at the Middle East Institute meeting on Tuesday, September 25. That evening, there was a flurry of calls between her and some who thought her offer was akin to a monkey wrench into the works. She decided to go along with them and agreed to a contradiction, which Farhatullah Babar issued from Islamabad. The draft of the “clarification” was prepared by Husain Haqqani from Boston (Sharif), I have it on good authority. The “clarification” declared that she hadn’t said what she was supposed to have said. She was only answering a “hypothetical” question and it was “unfortunate that Mohtarma Bhutto’s words are being distorted to imply that she promised any unlawful handing over of anyone to foreigners”.

The clarification must have made many in Islamabad heave a sigh of relief, but she did not let them take too many sighs, because the next day at her press conference with us, when asked again as to what exactly she had said about Dr Khan, she opened her heavy guns on the Khan affair, in the process taking the mickey out of the clarification issued earlier.

She said she saw no difference between the Pakistan government having Dr Khan respond to questions put by the IAEA and having the IAEA question Dr Khan face to face. The PPP, she thundered on, would not collude with or cover up proliferation. It would not let Pakistan be seen as a lawless and rogue nation, because it would be unfair to the people of Pakistan. She declared that she wanted to give a clear message to the international community that Pakistan does not protect those who proliferate.

Now here is the answer to the $64,000 question. Contrary to the view initially taken by most people of Benazir’s remarks, namely that she had said what she had said to appease the United States and endear herself even more to the Bush-Cheney tag team, her remarks were actually directed at Gen Pervez Musharraf and the junta. The message was clear. “If you don’t play ball with me, I will blow the whistle on all of you when I get a chance.” After all, doesn’t everyone know in Pakistan that Dr Khan is the Jesus Christ in this affair, having agreed to take the sins of the real movers and shakers of this trade on his shoulders and to be crucified.

Touché. Miss Bhutto, touché.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

Muhammad Khalid Akhtar [MKA], whom I named the Saint of Chakiwara, wanted to see the dawn of the 21st century before slipping into the great beyond. His wish was granted, but let it be said that if anyone deserved to live right through the entire 21st century, it should have been none other than MKA. A more delightful writer and a more sophisticated satirist, Urdu literature has not known. On a grey day, a brief walk into the Saint’s world is guaranteed to bring sunshine.

I have been reading the letters he wrote between 1971 and 1981 – all in Ghalib’s perfectly replicated style and language – to people ranging from Faiz to Maudoodi, not to forget Waheed Murad, Napoleon, Muhammad Shah Rangeelay, Altaf Hasan Qureshi and Generalissimo Yahya Khan. Published in 1989 as Makateeb-i-Khizr , the book has been out of print. However, I have a copy, thanks to Advocate Shabbir Ahmed Dar of Gujarat, who took the trouble of sharing his. It, however, deserves to be shared further, although what follows can only be a faint reflection of the original’s brilliance. In his letter to Napoleon, MKA writes about our own Napoleon, the late General Sher Ali Khan, who had himself a uniform stitched in London that was an exact replica of the one Napoleon is seen wearing in that famous painting of his. Thereafter, General Sher Ali “Napoleon” had himself photographed, striking the same pose as the Emperor. Whosoever came to see him would be gifted a copy of his Napoleon photograph. When MKA wrote the letter to Napoleon, our Napoleon was in the clinker, courtesy Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was an even greater fan of Naploeon. MKA noted that General Sher Ali was unable to send out his dressed-as-Napoleon pictures for the time being because he was in jail.

Mufti Mahmood’s government banned the sale and use of liquor when he became the Frontier Chief Minister in 1972. MKA writes, “No one can keep or drink liquor in the city of Peshawar. Parsi shops have been sealed and ganja and marijuana sales are booming. Those who sell this stuff are celebrating and why should they not pray for you? You cannot ban ganja and marijuana because there is no clear prohibition against their use in the holy Quran or Hadith . As such, their open sale and trade is legal and permissible. It is my wont to drink a bottle or two of beer every evening without fail, as it washes away the dust of the day and the desolation of the atmosphere. But I can no longer visit your province because if I do, where will I get my beer? How will I quench my thirst? Ganja and marijuana I won’t touch with a barge pole. But let me tell you what the situation on the ground is. Sir, one can still buy beer in Peshawar, except that one has to pay twice the old price. May God protect us all!”

His letter to Maudoodi is hilarious. “I am now reading your matchless work Purdah . All praise be to God! Sober language, fine subject, exalted meaning, verily a declaration of truth! Women are wives, sisters and mothers and since only mischief results from an unrelated man catching a glimpse of a woman’s face, wrist and hands, it is obligatory to keep these parts of the female anatomy covered. The covering should be such as to hide the entire body in plain, white clothes. On their hands, women should wear gloves and on their feet, socks, so that no part of the body remains visible to the eye. Who knows when a male may catch a glimpse of female anatomy, which will immediately explode into a lascivious affair? Also forbidden to women is poetry, dancing and singing. They can, however, use light makeup and apply some to their lips but only to please their husbands in the privacy of their homes. Physical relations are permitted but for the sole purpose of producing children, even dozens of them, but the offspring has to be legitimate. All praise to you, sir, for having established equality between man and woman.”

An excerpt from the letter to General Yahya Khan after his fall reads, “Alas, with your departure, the whole edifice has come tumbling down. You did not go alone but took with you the entire coterie of your generals. The new ruler laid them off. Reason given: they were fat and flabby and loved to cavort. How can I say that the disgrace which has been their lot was entirely their fault? Love of land and property took away their courage and initiative. . . Ayub Khan departed and so have you, but we are left to pay the bill. This Islamic republic suffered dismemberment and catastrophe smote the people. The entire world now laughs at us. The best among us have left; all we now have are tarana singers and sycophants. How can they be otherwise, given the 15 years in power of you two!”

His letter to Altaf Hasan Qureshi deserves to be framed and hung on a wall where everyone can read it. “My dear Qureshi sahib , let me know what you really want. Whatever Bhutto does has to be found fault with by you and your ilk. If you just hate Bhutto, then why don’t you write to him and ask that he cast aside the robes of office and hand over control of the state to you and your elder brother? I gather from your journal and what you write that you and your fellow intellectuals possess solutions for every problem that afflicts this country. The moment you take control of government, our POWs, now in India, will return home, the language dispute in Sindh will come to an end and the ogres of hunger, poverty and unemployment will flee the land. Streams of milk and honey will begin to flow through the country and wheat will become so cheap that the population will start eating fruit instead. Maharani Indira Gandhi will pay a yearly tribute to the ruler of our land and Mujibur Rehman will appear, hands bound, in the court of the Commander of the Faithful and beg forgiveness. May I also ask what makes you believe that the wisdom of the entire world is now concentrated in your person? What special mantra is it that you alone know which can overpower everything?”

MKA concludes, “Your illuminating pen has dissipated the black night of disbelief from half the country; but one half is still left, so do not leave your unfinished task in the middle.”

Muhammad Khalid Akhtar’s great work is his novel, Chakiwara Mein Visal and his stories, especially those featuring Chacha Abdul Baqi and his nephew and sidekick Bakhtiar Khilji. And, of course, never to be forgotten are those donkeys of his which the uncle-nephew duo paint as zebras and sell to a circus. All goes well until it rains, when the zebras reveal themselves in their true colours, namely as the donkeys that they always were. One of MKA’s favourite persons, when both he and she lived in Bahawalpur, was Nadira Mustafa, now Lady Naipaul, whom he named The Contessa. Wherever MKA is, he should know that while Contessa our friend of yesterday did not become, Her Ladyship she did.

The killing of at least 28 Iraqi civilians in a shootout by the trigger-happy personnel of Blackwater, an American defence contractor, has put under focus the role of these mercenary outfits that appear to operate according to the law of the jungle.

While one is not sure about the number of these companies engaged by the US Army, the occupying power in the once-independent country of Iraq, the number of their personnel is said to be 48,000. Blackwater has 1,000 people in Iraq, although if the Iraqi government had its way, which is unlikely, they may not be there long. The Iraqi Interior Ministry first said it had permanently revoked Blackwater’s licence and all 1,000 of its personnel would have to leave Iraq, but soon thereafter, obviously under US pressure, it said that the licence had not been revoked but suspended. And suspensions tend to be temporary. An investigation was initially ordered by the Maliki government, but it is a sign of its lack of authority that the independent investigation was overtaken by the appointment of a joint US-Iraqi commission. Maliki said, “We will not allow Iraqis to be killed in cold blood. There is as a sense of tension and anger among all Iraqis, including the government for this crime.”

An announcement made in Washington on September 19 said, “The Governments of the United States and Iraq have agreed to establish a joint commission of inquiry to examine issues of security and safety related to US Government-affiliated personal security detail operations in Iraq following the loss of life that resulted from an incident involving a Department of State personal security detail in the Mansour district of Baghdad on September 16, 2007.” While a “comprehensive and transparent investigation of the incident” has been promised, not many in Iraq would have much confidence in the outcome. And who can blame them! To this day, the US government has not released the number of Iraqi civilians killed since the invasion. Figures given by independent American groups, which evoke no official comment, are horrendously high, making this war one of the deadliest for non-combatants. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, winging her way to the Middle East for yet another round of futile diplomacy, said on Tuesday that it was too soon to say what effect the ban on Blackwater will have on US operations in Iraq.

If additional evidence were required of the lack of authority of the Maliki government, it came on Friday afternoon when Tom Casey, a US State Department spokesman, said that Blackwater and two other security firms that provide protection for US diplomats in Iraq are resuming protection of civilian convoys on a case-by-case basis. News agency reports added that Blackwater is starting to resume normal operations in Iraq after a brief hiatus. CNN quoted a highly-placed industry source as saying that all Blackwater USA operations in Iraq will be back to normal on Saturday.

Who or what is Blackwater, the company that claims to be the world’s largest private defence and security outfit? As CNN reported, “Iraqis have long resented the presence of the estimated 48,000 private security workers — including about 1,000 Blackwater employees — considering them a mercenary force that runs roughshod over civilians in their own country.”

Blackwater, whose convoys of SUVs careen through the streets with weapons displayed, has been singled out for much of the criticism. Blackwater has a reputation. ‘If you want over-over-the-top, gun-toting security with high profile and all the bells and whistles, Blackwater are the people you are going to go with,’ said James Sammons, a former Royal Australian Air Force officer.

Blackwater, whose logo, encircled in red, looks like the imprint of a panther’s paw, was founded in 1997 by a former US Navy seal. It has denied that its men opened fire without provocation, insisting that they simply defended themselves against armed attackers. However, survivors and eyewitnesses dispute that account. This, by the way, is the fifth incident of this kind involving Blackwater in Iraq. Two men now in hospital with gunshot wounds reject the Blackwater version. They told CNN that the guards fired on people for no reason. One of them, lawyer Hasan Jaber Salman, who was on his way to work, found his route blocked by four armoured Blackwater SUVs. The roadblock caused a traffic snarl, which led Blackwater guards to begin waving their weapons at the drivers, telling them to turn around. “So we turned back, and as we turned back they opened fire at all cars from behind,” Salman said. “All my injuries, the bullets are in my back.” Within two minutes a Blackwater security force arrived in planes and started firing randomly at the people. Salman said, “No one fired at them, they were not attacked by gunmen, they were not targeted by an explosion.” The firing continued until Salman’s car crashed into a police checkpoint and flipped over, he said, adding that eight bullets struck his car and four struck him.

Abul Raheem Amir, a labourer also on his way to work, who was shot three times as he tried to away from the scene, said, “Is this some kind of a show of force for them to flex their muscles? Are they doing this to us, the victims, so they can advertise and promote their abilities through the Western media? Is their mission to protect one person by killing ten unarmed people? And if they are protecting two people, then they shoot 100 unarmed people. Is this Vietnam? Enough, enough. Enough of all that’s happening. God’s fury is coming. Enough of this. Enough.”

On a blog where the incident was discussed, one correspondent wrote, “The problem I see is that these people are for hire to kill other people and do they care who the people are that they kill? They are not fighting for their desire to protect their own people, to serve; they fight solely for a paycheque and historically what loyalty do such people have to their employers, and when the going gets tough maybe they will just get going the other way. I do not believe these people believe in what I believe in: education for all, healthcare for all, democracy. They worship greed, government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich, the rest of us are ants unworthy of consideration or clean air.” This is how the blogger, a former Peace Corps volunteer, ended his emotional post, “My poor, poor country! Hey, maybe that’s the key, $9 trillion in debt, we will have to declare bankruptcy and then Blackwater won’t work for us because we won’t have the money to pay them. Hooray!”

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

It is 20 years this year since Sadequain’s death. He would have been 77. When he died at the age of 57 (of what can only be called too much living), it was not his death that was surprising but how he had lived so long, given the white hot intensity with which he lived and painted, wrote and loved. He burned his candle at both ends, and had there been a third end, he would have burned it from that end too.

I saw a good deal of him when he moved to Lahore – a city he really loved and preferred over all others, except that city of cities, Paris – to paint the murals that keep reminding us of him and his generous and fitful spirit. He often signed his letters and dedications with the prefix ‘Faqir,’ which by temperament he truly was. He earned millions and gave it all away. Most of his work was gifted to his friends and, sometimes, even strangers. I recall his first exhibition in Lahore, when a bunch of rich women – part of Lahore’s then small millionaires’ club – showed interest in buying more than a few. Sadequain was amused. He told them that to begin with, the paintings were not for sale and were he to put them on sale, they would not be able to afford the price. I am sure, had they asked Sadequain if they could have some or even all, he might have said, “Take them. They are yours.”

Hundreds of people can claim that they were friends of Sadequain because he was so accessible. Wherever he was, whether in his studio, his hotel room, someone’s home or in a museum painting a mural, the door that led to that place was always open. You did not need anyone’s permission to walk in. How much attention you received depended on his mood and the time he had. Work came first. Every single day that he was alive, he worked. If he was not painting, he was writing his quatrains, of which he produced thousands. He was humble, and yet if a rich man or a high official tried to throw around his weight or pull rank, Sadequain made it a point to put him in his place. Noorul Hassan Jaffrey, a senior Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP) officer, who later, along with his wife, the poet Ada Jaffrey, became close friends of Sadequain, once went on an official visit to Mangla, where Sadequain was painting his giant powerhouse mural. Jaffrey was one of the big tops in the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA). Sadequain was told to be ready for Jaffrey’s arrival. When Jaffrey arrived, Sadequain was nowhere to be found. He had simply vanished. He reappeared after Jaffrey was safely gone. That was Sadequain’s ego, but it only came into play when someone tried to gain his attention because of rank or money. One of Sadequain’s closest and most affectionate friends was Mohammad Ishaq (Issac to his pals). His home in Muhammad Ali Society, Karachi, was a virtual Sadequain museum. Most of those paintings, including a superb portrait of Ishaq, are now in the extensive private collection of Hamid Haroon in Karachi.

In an interview, Javed Siddique, of Hurmat, asked Sadequain after his return from India – where he painted several murals and where he was received by Indira Gandhi – if he had unfulfilled ambitions. After reciting from his favourite poet, Ghalib, Sadequain said, “There is no desire or aspiration of mine that has not been fulfilled, one reason being that I have never desired anything that lay outside my reach. There were also many things that I thought were outside my reach, but fate placed them in my hands. I have no complaint about lack of appreciation. It is my belief that when nature confers a certain gift on a human being, it also provides outlets for that gift to become manifest and known. That is the essence of my life’s experience. . . I chose to create art and put all the talent I had in the service of that art. My calligraphic work runs into miles, and my paintings into square acres. It is my faith that talent is God’s gift and it is the duty of the person on whom that gift is conferred to put it in the service of others. This is the highest form of worship. To fail to do that amounts to betraying the trust that the deity above has placed in you.”

On August 10, the Sadequain Foundation which his nephew Salman Ahmad, son of his beloved brother Syed Kazeman Ahmad Naqvi, Theo to Sadequain’s Vincent, set up in San Diego, California, organised an exhibition of the painter’s work, including several original calligraphies and many paintings and drawings, at the Embassy of Pakistan here in Washington. In addition, there were digitally enhanced hand painted reproductions on display. Salman said the Foundation is dedicated to the discovery, preservation and promotion of Sadequain’s work. Well, good luck to him, but it was sad to learn from him that Galerie Sadequain at Frere Hall, Karachi, which was the painter’s gift to the city and the people of Karachi, has closed down. This is a subject for ‘Mr Justice,’ Ardeshir Cowasjee, to write on.

Sadequain, once asked if he should be called an “Islamic painter” because of his calligraphy, replied, “I do not agree with that. My real art is to paint pictures, my calligraphy is marginal to that.” When asked why despite being a great calligraphist, he did not lead his life according to the “teachings of Islam,” Sadequain replied, “If to live like a gentleman is Islam, then there can be no greater Muslim than me. If those who are locked up in their backrooms from whose privacy they judge others, then there is nothing I can do. I am beyond that sort of thing.”

When Sadequain went to India, the Indian government arranged for him to be taken to Amroha, his birthplace and hometown. The whole city had turned out to receive him. He was taken out in a procession, riding an elephant. Then the keys to his house of birth were handed to him as a gift, on the orders of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Sadequain, much moved, returned the keys, saying, “I live in Pakistan, where I am honoured in every way. In any case, a house is for the mistress of that house. I have none, so I present this house to the people of Amroha, and I hope they will set up a library here.”

There are hundreds of Sadequain stories, but the one recounted by journalist Nasrullah Khan Aziz is characteristic. One day in Karachi, a man came up to Sadequain and said that he had a family to feed but nothing to feed it with. The only thing he knew was how to drive a rickshaw. Sadequain gave him 15 thousand rupees to buy a rickshaw, as long as he agreed to take him wherever he wanted to go. That arrangement lasted for some time, but one day, Sadequain said to him, “You are free. You don’t have to drive me around anymore.”

It has been said that if three Pakistanis find themselves on a desert island in the middle of nowhere, their first week would be a time of great friendship and joy in celebration of their good fortune, having managed to swim ashore to safety through perilous shark-infested waters. There would also be much satisfaction over the island having enough coconut trees and edible plants to feed an entire regiment, not to forget several gushing springs of cool, sweet water to drink from. In short, it would be a tiny little paradise with nothing to spoil it.

Will they live there happily ever after, occasionally scanning the horizon for a passing ship to take them home — which they are unlikely to be missing, given old unpaid bills, crippling mortgage payments and nagging wives? Or will it be otherwise? Chances are it will be otherwise. In the second week they would have stopped greeting one another and set up their own separate associations notwithstanding the fact that the membership of all three would be a single digit each. A bit of hyperbole that may be, but this is how things often turn out in Expatriateville. Take the United States for example. There are more associations of Pakistanis in some towns than there are Pakistanis. A good bit of the time, they are at each other’s throat. Litigation and court cases are not uncommon, contending lawyers being the only winners.

Since that sort of thing is the norm rather than the exception, one can only tip one’s hat to a group of retired officers of the three services, the Pakistan Army, the Pakistan Navy and the Pakistan Air Force, in Toronto who decided to get together to form what they call the Pakistan Armed Forces Association of Canada. They held their first gathering in Toronto on September 7 and some gathering it was, with great food to go and a band. Before things went live, there in the background was Madam Nur Jehan singing her heart out in her tribute to the fighting soldier — Kernail ni Jernail ni. For patron-in-chief, the Association had that vintage soldier and gentleman, Gen Jehangir Karamat, who had travelled all the way from Pakistan to be present. It was clear from his demeanour that he was happier in the company of soldiers, sailors and fliers than he would be as the interim prime minister of the interim government that everyone talks about but nobody believes will ever come to be. It is like that pot of gold where the rainbow ends that no one can ever get to.

It was not until the late 1960s that Canada opened its doors to non-European immigrants, which was when the first Pakistanis came to Canada; among them were officers from the services, one of them being Major Roy Joshua, a decorated officer of the Armoured Corps. Like the rest, he struggled and eventually carved out a place of comfort in his new surroundings. As time passed, wistful memories of happy days passed in the army began to get to him. Nostalgia is one of the most powerful emotions that a human being can experience; Roy was not alone. There were many others who felt like him. They realised that while it is not possible to resurrect the past, something of it could be retrieved by coming together with those who had once lived the same life. But it was not until the summer of last year that the idea of forming an association took birth. Roy mentioned it to Gen Karamat who had just ended his time as Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington and was visiting Toronto. Karamat, whom Roy had known as a captain during the 1965 war, encouraged him to go ahead.

Roy turned to Major Faheem Ataullah Jan, another Armoured Corps officer, and Major Javed Rahim Bakhsh, and the three of them got things rolling. Before long, they were joined by Vice Admiral Shamoon Alam Khan, Lt Col Farrukh Qureshi and Squadron Leader Sohail Saeedullah Khan. The September 7 gathering was the first “big do” that the Association had mounted and it went like a house on fire. A Canadian girl had them dancing in the aisles with her perfect rendition of Punjabi songs, starting with Madam Nur Jehan’s classic ‘Sanoo nehar walay pul te bulla ke te chan mahi kithay reh gya’. Present also that evening was the oldest member of the Association, Major D L Speedie, who was commissioned in 1942 and who fought in the Second World War. He gallantly walked up to the microphone and was lustily cheered. He said he did not see well, he did not hear well, but he felt great to be there. This old soldier certainly showed no sign or intention of fading away. The honour of being the oldest member was clearly that of Dr Mehdi, who is in his 90s and still batting with the steadiness of, say, Hanif Muhammad. He was helped to his feet by those on his table and he took a bow. Many minutes were to pass before the cheering died down. Also present was Esmond D’Cunha, who won the Sword of Honour and the Norman Gold Medal, a rare double, at the PMA in 1957.

What I found heart-warming and reassuring about the Association is that the principal initiative for its founding came from Major Joshua and Major Javed Bakhsh, both Christians. Given the way Pakistani society has treated its non-Muslim citizens, their continuing patriotism and love for the country deserve to be saluted. The Association describes itself as “a non-political and non-religious body”, making it clear that “any issues that impinge upon personal beliefs and convictions of members will remain strictly outside the ambit of its activities”. That is the way it should be. Another admirable step that the founders took was to invite those who are now Bangladeshi citizens but who were commissioned before the break-up in 1971 to join. One Bangladeshi officer was there that evening and more are expected to follow his lead.

Every evening has its low point and this evening’s low point came in the form of the Consul General of Pakistan in Toronto, Tassadaq Hussain. He was thanked for his presence “despite another engagement” and then asked to say a few words. The Consul General, who the audience was informed had served in Beijing, Qatar and another place I can’t remember, spoke for ten minutes but no one was able to understand a single word of what he said. His language, I concede, did sound like English but of a version and form not known to anyone present. Reluctantly, I add that his wife was the only one clad in a black Saudi–style, off-colour abaya and a mummifying white hijab that encased her head and areas right up to the chin. I have only two questions of the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri. One, is Mr Tassadaq Hussain now typical of those sent abroad to represent Pakistan? Two, are Pakistani diplomats’ wives now encouraged to wear abayas and hijabs as living manifestations of “enlightened moderation”?

And on that note, I rest my case.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

It has been 40 years since Majid Lahori died, but neither before nor since has there been another newspaper columnist who could rival him. He was truly a people’s columnist, and what he wrote remains as delightful today as it was then. In 1971, 14 years after his death, his friend and fellow journalist, Shafi Aqeel, put together a collection of the columns he wrote for Jang . The book, published in Lahore, with a second edition in 1989, is now out of print. Today’s newspaper readers are not likely to be aware of Majid Lahori, and the fault is not theirs but that of a system which shows little interest in the past, and even less interest in those who have departed. Let me, therefore, invoke the memory of this most entertaining of Pakistan’s columnists by rendering bits of his versatile output in one short column dedicated to his memory. All translation is limited by what can be transmitted from one language another, but one hopes what follows will encourage some to seek the original.

Majid Lahori, born Abdul Majid Chohan in 1913 in the city of Gujrat, invented a cast of characters through whom he often spoke. These characters became so popular that many readers believed them to be real persons. Some of them were Ramzani, Sain Suleman Badshah, Maulvi Gulsher Khan, Seth Tyre Ji Tube Ji, Bundoo Khan, Jumman Shah Barsati, Tajori Bhai, Bank Balance Ji and Sheikh Hammarullah. Here is Majid Lahori on the “requirements of democracy.” He writes, “British times we used to denounce as counter-democratic and every action of theirs as unjust and cruel. But today, everything we press into the service of democracy’s ‘requirements,’ for example: Section 144, police firing, lathi charge, public safety act, or martial law. Today what is called jamhoor or democracy is actually manzoor or ‘agreed and accepted.’ Every public meeting is a drama called Jamhoor alias Manzoor . Karachi’s Aram Bagh is Manzoor Bagh, its Jehangir Park is Manzoor Park. Lahore’s Mochi Darwaza is Manzoor Darwaza, Peshawar’s Chowk Yadgar is Chowk Manzoor, Rawalpindi’s Company Bagh is Manzoor Bagh.”

Here is Majid Lahori in a barber shop, getting himself a shave. “Babuji, what do you think of Jamaat e Islami?” the barber asks, while applying foam to his face. “Brother, what can clean-shaven folk like me say!” “ Sahib ,” the barber answers his own question, “we do not favour them. Much of our earning comes from shaving our customers. It is a question of our livelihood.” “Right you are, brother.” End of dialogue. And what does Maulvi Gulsher Khan think of the language question? Here is Majid Lahori’s answer. “Maulvi Gulsher Khan agrees that it will take a long time before Arabic can become the national language. And it may take Ramzani maybe a hundred years to speak it as the Arabs speak it, or even understand it. However, Gulsher Khan’s biggest grouse is against English. “The Englishman is gone but English refuses to go,” he says. Lahori responds, “Maulvi sahib , what have you got against English? I find it rather pretty. It is not only a white language, it is also effulgently youthful like those English girls. Had I had more money in my pocket than I do, I would have married English. After all, people do take second wives, and it even has the sanction of shari’a . What if my skin is dark, my tongue, at least, is white!”

Here is Tajori Bhai, offering some sound advice to a character named Rumjoo. “Look here, Rumjoo Bhai, don’t let your boy go to school. Burn his books. What is he going to do with an education? Will that buy him democracy? Let the sala work and earn himself a handful of silver. There is always the black market for those with enterprise. Let him get into that. He can get goods out of the customs shed without duty, sell them, make some cool cash, and then one day he can build himself a mill. He can sell cotton yarn on the black market, import machinery with the proceeds, make textiles, practically mint money and then he can purchase this thing ‘ jamroot ’ – or democracy. I tell you Rumjoo Bhai, I am not drunk but I give you good advice. Don’t spoil the kid’s life by sending him to school. Pull him out of there.”

A classic Majid Lahori column is dedicated to Karachi’s famous donkey carts. “This cart normally has two donkeys: one is the real donkey who pulls the cart, while the other is just a donkey who runs along, being in training. His education lasts three years, when having obtained his well-deserved academic degree, he begins to pull his own cart and, in turn, gets himself a student of his own to train. . . India and Pakistan are free, but the donkeys are still in bondage. They will remain in bondage always, at least that is what I think. Even after our great independence day celebrations, these donkeys continue to run, carrying the same heavy burden they were lugging the day before.” For donkeys, read the people of Pakistan.

Here is Majid Lahori’s method of eliminating bribery. “Bribery is like a rubber ball, the greater the force with which you fling it to the ground, the higher it will bounce. Why not bring in a ‘bribery pay-scale’ then, so that the lower the salary of a government servant, the higher his bribe? Those who earn less cannot manage, but those who earn more cannot manage either, because they have more expenses. The peon drinks tea; the sahib has to have his bottle of whiskey. The nation can go to dogs; it really doesn’t matter; the bureaucracy must have enough. No government can end bribery, only God can. And, one of these days, He is going to come down on it like a bolt from the blue.”

Majid Lahori on how to control disorderly crowds, “Last night, a gentleman was reciting his poetry at a public reading, but there were so many Arabic and Persian words in his verse that only a higher madrassah graduate could have understood what he was saying, or those who always carry a dictionary. Before one knew, the auditorium had emptied, leaving just 10 or 15 stragglers, most of whom were making preparations to slip out or were thinking of doing so. I suggest that the government should make use of the services of such poets. If it wishes to break up an unruly crowd, instead of lobbing tear gas shells, or ordering a lathi -charge, it should rope in one of these poets to come and recite their verse. I guarantee that the moment they start, the crowd will begin to disperse. That way, you both kill the snake and save the lathi .”

Majid Lahori once wrote a column called My Column, which he compared to a starving child who gets up every morning, parks himself in front of him and screams, “Uncle, I am hungry.” I have never read a better description of what those who have to write regular columns have to face every morning. The only difference is that every time that hungry child asked to be fed, Majid Lahori produced the choicest food for him. Other toilers rarely manage to do that. And yet they go on. No doubt, column writing is a black art, and Majid Lahori was its supreme magician.

Far be it for me to cast aspersions on the press, but things happen that make one ask how much of what appears in print or is seen on television is based on the merit of what is being reported.

One case in point is that of Ms Benazir Bhutto. She has made more visits to the United States than she can count or remember. As an incurable newspaper reader, I can stand in the court of My Lord the Chief Justice of Pakistan and with my right hand on my heart which is on the left in more ways than one, state in a loud and clear voice that never once since her exile did I see a word appear in any American newspaper about Ms Bhutto, nor was her face ever seen on any American TV network or cable channel.

What brought her to America were her speaking engagements. She spoke at college campuses; she spoke to church groups, to pensioners, to businessmen, to travel people and being a lady who is practical to her dainty fingernails, she pocketed the proceeds to the last cent. She spoke in small towns one had never heard of and she spoke in bigger cities to bigger gatherings for bigger fees. She came to this country three times a year, if not four or more.

I am listing all this to make the point that never once did any newspaper, including the local town-crier, consider what she said worthy of notice in print. If she was seen on any television screen, that must have been incidental. She came to Washington several times and as far as one knows, even stripling American officials did not make time to receive her. If she was indeed received, then it must have been a closely guarded secret because nobody ever heard about it. She always met the usual suspects, did the rounds of the standard think tanks, where good people, old Pakistan hands like Steve Cohen, Teresita Schaffer, Marvin Weinbaum et al sometimes facilitated her public appearances.

That was then. That is not how it is now. Everything has changed.

Since someone up there who likes her and likes General Musharraf and wants the two to team up to fight Big Bad Beards with Bazookas, suddenly Ms Bhutto has been discovered and her picture and the political wisdom she disgorges are splashed across US national dailies and flashed on TV screens.

On her recent visit to New York, where she stayed for three weeks, her day was taken up with interviews and appearances that never seemed to end. Not only that, but her signed articles began to appear in all major newspapers. When she had time to write them, will remain another unexplained Pakistani mystery. The great American television networks that had remained unaware of her existence all these years, were suddenly lining up to interview her in prime time.

CNN, which is unable to rid its hapless viewers of Christiane Amanpour, her Islam bashing and her fake British accent, had Ms Bhutto on its Sunday morning news show. CBS, NBC, Fox — you name it — had her on the screen while sweet questions were cooed into her ear. Nothing hostile or difficult or, God forbid, embarrassing.

The Council on Foreign Relations, which had paid no attention to her as she flew in and out of New York, pulling her own bags, had her address a glittering gathering of luminaries made up of academics, journalists, business executives, diplomats and ladies who lunch.

Two Pakistani journalists who toil out of New York for Pakistani news outlets were told by the organisers that they could not be let in because there was “not an inch” of space left. And they had not arrived late either. Had it not been for their persistence and their ability to raise their voices — though just enough — they would not have been let in at all. However, they were made to sit at the back of the auditorium.

We have to ask ourselves a simple question. Why? In the answer lies our tragedy.

The opening of every media door in this country to Ms Bhutto has to have a cause, a reason. There has to have been a signal from somewhere that she be accorded the maximum exposure, the optimum coverage. The press, the media are free indeed, but there can be no question that on occasions the advice or suggestion or request of those who guide the ship of state is invariably respected. Ms Bhutto had to be built up because it had been decided that in order to stabilise Gen Musharraf and his regime, a different civilian partnership was the need of the hour. And those who send satellites into the sky that peer into every nook and corner, every contour and crater, every hidden cave (except the one where Osama and Ayman spend the day playing chess), have the ability to get attention paid to what they desire.

It is fair to state that when it comes to domestic politics, the American media is fiercely independent, but when it involves things that lie beyond the continental United States and when “national interest” is juggled in front of media managers, the necessary is done without demur.

The Musharraf-Bhutto arrangement is viewed as one best equipped to deal with the “spectre of terrorism and extremism” — as the mantra has it. To that end, high-gloss exposure of Ms Bhutto, the acceptable face of the Musharraf regime, has been facilitated. There is the long arm of the government and then there is the well-financed and well-connected, high-powered public relations and lobbying network to which the United States is home. Selling, be it soap or politicians, local or foreign, has been perfected to an art form in this country. Ms Bhutto stands sold,

British historian William Dalrymple put it best, “Benazir Bhutto needs little packaging as she is an attractive product to sell…Bhutto has always seemed reassuringly familiar — one of us. She speaks English fluently as it is her first language. For the Americans, what Benazir Bhutto isn’t is possibly more attractive than what she is. She isn’t a religious fundamentalist, she doesn’t have a beard, she doesn’t organise mass rallies where everyone shouts ‘Death to America’, and she doesn’t issue fatwas against bestselling authors. However, the very reasons that make the West love Bhutto are the same that leave many Pakistanis with second thoughts. Her English may be fluent, but you can’t say the same about her Urdu, which she speaks like a well-groomed foreigner: fluently but ungrammatically. Her Sindhi is even worse.”

And her politics! Pass me that paper bag, Mickey old boy.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

Pablo Picasso once said, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” On another occasion he said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” And on yet another occasion, “What might be taken for a precocious genius is the genius of childhood. When the child grows up, it disappears without a trace. It may happen that this boy will become a real painter some day, or even a great painter. But then he will have to begin everything again, from zero.”

Some of the work he produced at the end of his life has the simplicity, spontaneity and exuberance of childhood. Things had by then come full circle for the maestro. It had taken him a lifetime to learn to paint like a child. Give a child paper and something, anything to draw with, and he will begin drawing the world as he sees it. Picasso said he did not paint things as he saw them but as he thought they were. A child does exactly that.

There are many sad things about Pakistan, one of the saddest being that we have failed to put a pen, a pencil or a brush in the hands of millions upon millions of our children and a sheet of paper in front of them on which they could draw. To the majority of our children, we deny a childhood. So brutal and unfeeling, so exploitative and callous is our society that we see nothing irreligious or immoral about putting small children to work; much of the time this work is unpaid. And yet this is a country where mosques get built faster than schools and where to the haranguing inspectors of piety and virtue the only sins are sins of the flesh. Nothing else is evil in their eyes, which is why Auntie Shamim gets dragged out of her home and poor, hard working Chinese nurses are abducted under the noses of the police, forced into a terror centre masquerading as a mosque and covered with black shrouds in the name of Islam. Meanwhile, corrupt officials who suck the blood of the poor are allowed to carry on their despicable activities.

And that brings me to Shamim Akhter and her Pakistani Children’s Art , a book that took her nearly ten years to put together. About 35 years ago, or more, there appeared in mainstream Pakistani journalism three young women, of whom Shamim Akhter was one. The other two were Salma Jabeen and Fareeda Taj. While Salma Jabeen, a sultry beauty who did not let her good looks distract her from her work, was a reporter for the Urdu daily Kohistan , Fareeda worked for Mashriq, for which she wrote a regular column that was not confined to what were called “women’s issues.” Pakistan, sadly enough, could not keep Salma long; she found a programming position at Deutsche Welle’s (the Voice of Germany) Urdu programme, which had wide listening in those days, and may still have for all I know. Fareeda stayed with Mashriq , got married and moved to Islamabad.

Shamim Akhter became the editor of the first women’s weekly newspaper, Akhbar i Khwateen , a post she held for 22 years, but her total association with that weekly which, like so many good things in Pakistan is now placed in the “defunct” category, was 29 years. Shamim, a Peshawar girl, spent most of her life in Karachi, where she married Irfan Hussain who, as head of the Karachi Arts Council, was one of the cultural deans of the city. Unless memory fails me, one of the most popular features of Akhbar i Khwateen used to be called Teen Aurtain: Teen Kahaniyaan or Three Women, Three Stories. The stories, all true, were often riveting. The thing about being a journalist is that you always remain one, and so has Shamim Akhter, writing now as a freelancer for a variety of publications.

The book she has put together is a striking and remarkable collection of children’s paintings, which it has taken her ten years to compile. It is never easy to get such books published and the credit for making that happen goes to the Hamdard Foundation, one of those purely Pakistani NGOs not dependent on Scandinavian funding, which gives more than it takes. Shamim writes that when she began work on the project, she could find no reference material for it. It was her effort to document children’s art that cuts across class and geographical barriers. In her book, she has included works by children from both big cities and small towns. She is quite right when she says that the book “pulsates” with paintings by children living in remote villages in Turbat, Balochistan and Mithi, Juhi and Matyari in the heart of Sindh. She also includes paintings by children from other nations that were featured in an exhibition organised by the Pakistan National Council of the Arts in 2000.

Shamim writes about the amazing similarity between work produced by children living thousands of miles apart. A Pakistani girl of 12 produces a painting of people dancing in a circle holding hands, which is exactly what a girl of 14 from Turkey and a six year old from Bangladesh produce. A four year old Pakistani girl paints something that has an astounding resemblance to what a Japanese child does. Shamim also found that there are striking temperamental differences between the work of boys and girls. “Boys on the whole prefer subjects involving action and the use of machinery, while girls from an early age show greater attention to details of dress, jewellery and a preference for domestic subjects.”

There are stunning works that the book contains (how one wishes the colour reproduction were sharper than it is!). One such work is seven year old Rabia Abrar’s painting of a table with a colourful tea kettle, a cup and a bowl of fruit, all set against a yellow wall on which hangs a painting that shows two trees with a yellow sun hanging in the sky above them. Rabia would be 14 years old now, and I wonder if she blossomed into an even more amazing painter. Another beautiful work is that by a nine year old boy, which shows a big red flower springing out of a clay pot that resembles an inverted triangle. The red flower is balanced by two lemons with green sprigs jutting out from their sides. If it were hanging in a gallery, it would fetch a good price and few would be able to say it was a child’s work. Another pair of paintings that I found quite beautiful were done by two boys, aged nine and ten, from Turbat. They are a riot of colour applied naturally, unselfconsciously and happily. The Bride, by a 12 year old girl from Rawalakot is extremely beautiful. The bride is dressed in spring-green bordered with dark pink and she holds a dainty handbag of the same colour, or what I thought was a handbag. On her forehead dances a pink and green jhoomar . The touch of sky blue is actually her blouse. This girl would be 19 now, and one hopes and prays that she survived the earthquake that flattened Rawalakot.

Since this began with Picasso, it should end with Picasso: “God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things.”

No one has so far collected following an enterprising Pakistani’s offer of a cash prize and dinner at the best restaurant in town for the first authentic sighting of Mushahid Hussain in the eastern United States. The secretary general of the General’s once beloved party — which he is about to ditch in favour of the toiling masses’ party — it goes without saying, is in these parts. But why he has disappeared like the Cheshire cat, no one can explain. What is more, he hasn’t even left a smile behind, which is perplexing because his first reaction to anything said to him is a big guffaw. “Maulvi Gulsher Khan is dead”, you tell him. Guffaw, followed by, “What! That’s shocking!”

I hope our friend surfaces soon otherwise somebody is bound to file a writ before My Lord the Chief Justice of Pakistan that the acceptable face of the party of the Rolling Utensils should now be considered among Pakistan’s disappeared. Given the present mood of the court, the government will be lucky if it gets even 48 hours to produce Mushahid Hussain. Who is going to believe the Attorney General when he stands up and says, “My Lord, we do not know where Mr Hussain is.” What My Lord the Chief Justice would say in response, be better left unsaid since the wise keep at a safe distance from contempt notices.

Discreet inquiries at the Pakistan Consulate in New York reveal that Mushahid Hussain did arrive at JFK, was picked up and dropped, as directed, at an undisclosed location in Long Island. What happened thereafter, no one knows. Family sources in Washington are maintaining strict radio silence. Anyone who phones to ask where Mushahid Hussain can be reached, is told “Dunno”. A mole in New York says that this desire for anonymity has reached a point where the phone is not picked up if the number on the screen is that of a caller not readily identifiable. Could our quarry be in London? After all, if Aitzaz Ahsen can have a two-hour meeting with the Brothers Sharif, surely the party’s lost sheep can also come home. After all, NS cannot have forgotten that it was Mushahid Hussain who called him “Made in Pakistan prime minister”. Surely, he will be able to reinvent himself yet again, this being the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party. This does not apply to everyone who abandoned the Brothers. The Farzand-e-Rawalpindi, who refuses to let a single hair on his head to turn gray, should consider himself under a restraining order when the Brothers return to Pakistan. I would advise him to avail himself of free train travel while the going is good. Nothing lasts, including free train travel.

Be that as it may, the news from Washington in the last few days is not so much the situation back home and Benazir Bhutto’s favourite pop song ‘Tea for two, you for me, me for you’ that she has been singing loud enough for General Musharraf to hear, but a show held at the Embassy of Pakistan last weekend to celebrate 60 years of Pakistan’s independence. There is no Trafalgar Square in Washington, so we should not have hoped for the kind of mass rally that Maleeha Lodhi had going in London a couple of weeks ago. Nor is Washington London, being often duller than Islamabad, though unlike Islamabad, it has improved over the years. On August 14, the day Pakistan was born, the only reminder of it was a for-officials-only ceremony where the ambassador raised the flag, after which everybody went home. A young student who thought there would be a festival to mark the great day was told that she should instead come and look at an exhibition of Sadequain’s calligraphy that his nephew, who runs a Sadequain Foundation from California, had put together. She said, “No thanks.”

I suppose we should not compare ourselves with the Indians in everything, but I need to put it on record that there was open house that day at the Indian ambassador’s residence and a couple of thousand people spent the day eating, drinking (soft drinks, that is), singing and dancing. Ambassador Mahmud Durrani, when asked why the Pakistan Independence Day was so muted, replied that it had been like that for years. The big day now is March 23, he said. However, as far as the ordinary Jo is concerned, the big day remains August 14 not March 23. The ambassador said that the 60th was being celebrated through a succession of events over a period of time. One such celebration was the fashion show that hit the audience, the Pakistani segment of it at least, like a sledgehammer.

Billed ‘Nazar Vision’ (whatever that means), it was presented by the embassy and National Geographic, though the only contribution made by the latter was a young lady by the name of Sofia Hayaud-Din, the show’s organiser and choreographer, according to a brochure produced by two school boys who run an event management outfit called Huqa Entertainment. The costs were borne by the poor National Bank of Pakistan (a captive khargosh for just such occasions) and local tycoon Riffat “Ray” Mahmood, among others. The show opened with a sizzler in the form of two lissome, long-legged, young girls named Laura and Meilissa of the Sahara Dance Company, who presented what was billed a “candle dance”. In style and presentation, the number was closer to a strip tease — though more tease than strip. I saw one Pakistani woman cover her daughter’s eyes with her hands. Others looked away. Some blushed, others nearly fell out of their chairs when the two young ladies swiveled their bottoms as a final gesture of artistry. The rest of the show consisted of expensive and colourful clothes modelled by a bevy of young women. One could not help thinking that only Pakistan’s filthy rich could afford to buy such outfits.

When Ms Hayaud-Din was asked why so much flesh had been exposed so provocatively, she replied that it was all part of cultivating Pakistan’s “soft image”. To date, all that had been seen on TV were the ninja girls of Lal Masjid. The Americans had to be told that Pakistanis are not that backward. Good idea, I would add, except that this wasn’t being shown on American TV but in the Embassy of Pakistan, which could have exhibited better taste than it did. Had someone asked me what should have been done instead, I would have replied, “Even if she has to be kidnapped, get Abida Parveen and she will show them what Pakistan is and what Pakistan is not.” But of course nobody was ever going to ask me.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

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